Alice Soper: How to fix the crowd issue at Aupiki games

The Chiefs were happy on the field but there weren't many fans in the stands at the Super Rugby Aupiki semifinals. Photo / Photosport

OPINION:

Low attendance is not a problem unique to women’s rugby.

It is true there were only a couple of thousand that turned up to the stadium in North Harbour for the Aupiki semifinals. It is also true that the crowd of around 23,000 the day before, for the match between the Blues and Crusaders, was amongst the largest you see for Super Rugby these days. With a nearly 30-year head start, professional contracts out of high school, wall-to-wall coverage and a budget the women’s game could only dream of, that’s hardly something to crow about.

Perhaps the origins of our dwindling crowds begin at the point at which we professionalised.

It was then the structure of earnings in rugby pivoted sharply away from gate sales and towards broadcast rights. Over time the relationship between rugby and the broadcaster has only strengthened, with New Zealand Rugby now a shareholder in Sky. Optimising for viewership over attendance, games are played at internationally friendly times regardless of local appetites. As a result, I spent my childhood sleeping on the couch through the second half of games my parents would never have entertained sitting through in the middle of winter.

The shameful secret of this love affair between rugby and the screen is that they are made for each other. Even when I attend games, my eyes will seek out a screen at key moments to understand what is going on. I may even pull one out of my pocket to replay a certain part of the action.

Crash-over tries can’t be fully celebrated as the crowd doesn’t know what player to cheer for. The same goes for a turnover and unless a scrum happens on the sideline, you’re left as bewildered as most backs as to what’s going on. The skewed perspective from the stands can have fans yelling at referees for what a replay will show you was perfectly correct. There is equally heated debate just waiting for the moment when the referee doesn’t go upstairs for a replay.

Our eyes now glued to the screen, how can we entice folks back to the grandstand? Flashpoints over the last couple of years reveal some clues.

In the men’s game, absence made the heart grow fonder. After the lockdown period, fans were all too keen to head back to Eden Park and catch a game in person. Changing venue choices is one way to recreate this phenomenon. Making the opportunities more scarce either by moving matches around our franchise regions or by holding them in smaller venues to limit the number of tickets on sale.

The World Cup last year had more genuine attempts at entertaining the crowd. Putting on the show was one thing but they also went outside the usual playlist to attract a different audience. As a result, a woman sitting near me during the final cheered more for Benee than the Black Ferns. You’re not going to have the budget for such an act each match but it’s time to think more creatively and market these choices accordingly.

The women’s game has underlined, yet again, the importance of a narrative to bring the punters in. A World Cup comes ready-made with all the high-stakes storylines of intrigue, of heroes and heartbreak. We need to seek to recreate that at the domestic level and spend more time telling stories to build excitement. Reorient ourselves away from the reverence of a jersey above all things and focus more on the excellent people that wear it.

Tell a story, put on a show, sell limited tickets and you might just build a buzz. Do that more than once and you might just build a vibe. Create such an experience and you might just build a community. Do that right and folks might just switch off the telly to head down to the game.