The chief executive of Premiership Rugby on marketing the sport
THE SPORTS marketing world has become fiercely competitive over the last decade with the explosion of social media and new sports.
No longer is Premiership Rugby just competing against the established, top-tier sports such as Premier League football and Formula 1, which continue to take market share. There are challenger sports taking a big chunk of the market. Women’s football is a great example – look at what has happened with Arsenal Women, with sell-out crowds at The Emirates.
There is no doubt we’re in a more competitive marketplace but we’re also underpinned by a really established, core group of Premiership Rugby fans. And then we have a large number of people who are interested in the sport, like we have seen with the Six Nations.
With a strong supporter base we are then able to go out and capture the next generation of fans – the Gen Z fans.
But to do that, you also have to get your research spot on, so we have invested time understanding what different demographics are looking for. We wanted to know what people wanted, what they didn’t like, and what we needed to dial up. That kick-started the whole project and we brought in Rob Calder from the ECB – he was one of the architects of The Hundred. Our challenge is different to cricket but we share a lot of the same principles.
When we did our fan research, we found that core rugby fans and sports fanatics loved rugby for what it is. They love the spectacle, the drama and physicality of our game. Whether you go to a match day or watch on TV, it’s exciting. In the Premiership you get jeopardy, excitement and entertainment – it has all the extremes as well.
You have the athleticism and that is across the pitch and what makes rugby so great. You’ve got super-strong, super-big people like Maro Itoje and then equally you’ve got highly skilled athletes who can do these extraordinary things, such as Marcus Smith.
Sometimes you get a combination. It’s high skill at an electric pace. So our job is making sure that when we market the sport, we really emphasise those core attribute
