Yes, rugby is a posh blokes' sport!

With late date and kick-off changes happening more and more, who could be forgiven for thinking that no-one is  listening to Aviva Premiership rugby fans’ voices.  Not so, every other year we are asked whether we’d like to participate in an on-line survey, and last year’s results have just been published.   Just over 12,000 of us bothered to take part – not a huge number, but enough for some conclusions to be drawn.

The first think we learn is that one in five rugby fans who did the survey are women, and that percentage has stayed pretty well constant over the last few years.  Just over half of us are 35-54, with nearly one third even older – there has to be a worry that rugby’s audience is ageing, and we badly need the influx of new blood that a good RWC2011 campaign would bring.

When it comes to socio-economic groupings, it seems as though there is some validity to the hoary old chestnut that rugby is a posh game.  Nearly six in every 10 of the survey participants fit into the AB category, and when you add in the C1s, it means that less than 15% of rugby fans come from the ranks of what are referred to as the semi-skilled and unskilled.  

That’s further reinforced when it comes to what respondents say are the key values that attract them to rugby: high up on the list comes ‘For people like me’!  The other words that fans use about the Premiership are exciting, competitive, respectful and friendly, and it’s hard to argue with any of those.   

It also seems that as a group we have embraced technology, with more than 90% visiting their club’s website, and more than 70% buying tickets on-line.  A big growth area is fans having smartphones – almost 50% do, and almost 40% have watched video content on them. 

When it comes to the vexed question of the role of TV broadcasters, the companies will be taking plenty of encouragement from the stats.  Seemingly, 64% of those surveyed have access to Sky, and 34% to the new boys, ESPN.  Remarkably, 79% of those ESPN subscribers cited rugby as being one of the reasons for their purchase – that has to be music to ESPN’s ears.  The TV highlights package shown by ITV is watched by three quarters of the survey respondents, proving that there’s a huge appetite for televised rugby.

When it comes to attendance figures, after 13 rounds numbers are 4% down on last year, and it isn’t down to the weather as the number of postponements are similar across the seasons.  Mark McCafferty, the CEO of Premier Rugby says that he doesn’t believe that the fall is down to the increased number of televised games, but rather to the general economic malaise.  To support that he can point to the even bigger decline in Magners’ League attendances, but I think he’s plain wrong.

It was always going to be the case that fans would start to balance the cost of tickets versus the cost of a satellite subscription, and when you add in the anti-social practice of late changes to kick-offs, and the increasingly bizarre times at which matches are played, it’s probably an achievement that attendances haven’t fallen even further.  In the French Top14 attendances are up, and their economy is in as bad a state as ours, and more fans than ever are watching the Heineken Cup.  The fact that television audience figures for rugby are up, would seem to me to support the view that TV coverage is by far the biggest factor in declining attendances.  For McCafferty to say about fans that "It's certainly not the case that they're the last people thought of”, will raise a wry smile or two – the fans I meet tend to think that their interests are becoming less and less important as the clubs get more television revenue.

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It’s a feature of the professional game that players come and go, and last weekend it was confirmed that Charlie Hodgson was leaving Sale and heading off to Sarries.   It’s been a miserable time at Sale this season, with things clearly not working out with Mike Brewer at the helm.  Brewer moved on before Christmas and it was an open secret that relations between him and some of the senior players at Sale hadn’t been good.  That said, the fact is that Brewer lost his job, which is a tough thing for anyone to suffer.  However, most people in that situation don’t then have to suffer public criticism on top of the trauma of becoming unemployed.  That’s what happened to Brewer when Hodgson was quoted as saying that “The environment is a much more enjoyable place to be. People don’t get abused every day, they don’t get kicked in the back every day and it’s a nice place to come to work.”   Talk about kicking a man when he’s down!  Better to have kept your own counsel Charlie.   

First published in The Rugby Paper on 16 January 2011, and reproduced with the editor's permission