The Black Ferns’ season highlights stadium experience issues, with more fans watching from home.
Proposed solutions include earlier kick-off times, better food, and special treatment for attendees.
Alice Soper suggests innovative doubleheaders, combining rugby with other sports to enhance fan engagement.
OPINION
Another women‘s rugby season is well under way, with the Black Ferns now assembled in their first camp. As usual, most of the discussion has not been centred around the action on the field. Instead, it’s been focusing on those sitting in the stands – or rather, those not. With more punters tuning in from home than ever before, the product itself doesn‘t seem to be failing to draw an audience. This suggests it’s the stadium experience that remains uncompelling.
There’s a list of factors well known to contribute to this issue. Families like earlier kick-off times. Everyone likes better, more affordable food. Members like to receive a little special treatment. Entertainment around the action can help to draw punters through the gate. Limited edition merchandise can provide an added incentive to show up in person. Those are the low-hanging fruit that, frankly, we still fail to deliver consistently for women‘s fans.
Katelyn Vaha'akolo makes a break for the Black Ferns. Photo / Photosport
To address this, teams take one of two tracks. Either they scale things down, holding events in smaller venues, thus allowing for tighter quality control. This intimate setting then successfully creates a vibe for the limited audience. Or they bundle them up, placing the women‘s match alongside the men‘s in a doubleheader and hoping what’s good for the goose is worth a gander, no matter how many times we are shown otherwise. The Super Rugby Aupiki final has been the latest example to see stand stickiness fail between matches.
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It was in a roundtable discussion with the sharp rugby minds of Les Elder, Chelsea Semple and Kristina Sue that we stumbled upon a third way. It’s one we are yet to see teams try, but it immediately got us excited as fans of women‘s sport. It’s not about scaling down, but instead going even bigger in our ambitions. And believe it or not, it embraces a doubleheader. The twist? We want our stadium events to start crossing codes.
Basketballer Mart'e Grays in action for the Northern Kahu. Photo / Photosport
Picture it, a women‘s rugby double header featuring both rugby league and rugby union. One ticket gets you access to cheer for both the Kiwi Ferns and Black Ferns. Or perhaps it’s an Auckland extravaganza, featuring the Blues and the Warriors women in a two-for-one package. Heck, we can think even further outside the box, perhaps playing at Waitākere, allowing for a women‘s rugby and netball crossover event. Or else playing the Northern Kāhu basketball team alongside rugby’s Auckland Storm.
All of this caters to the fans who are just waiting to be engaged. The easiest people to convince to attend a new women‘s sport are those who are already supporting another. Those leading in the women‘s sport world know this, which is why we are seeing crossover marketing already appear in America. Just this week, a competition launched in which the winner received tickets and merchandise for four New York-based women‘s teams. Football, rugby, ice hockey and basketball all packaged together and billed as the ultimate women‘s sport experience.
Shanice Parker in action for the Kiwi Ferns last year. Photo / Photosport
This is the type of energy and innovation that we need in our sports events. Rather than tinkering around the edges, let’s redefine fan experiences. We’ve seen collaborations within community sport, where code crossover events are held to try to recruit kids, girls in particular, to give a new sport a go. Why not bring this thinking into our attendance strategy, and encourage women‘s sports audiences to do the same?
I am so bored with the current conversation about attendance. Rather than sitting around commenting on what is, let’s start talking about what could be. To attract a new audience, let’s put on a new spectacle. Let’s allow for an economy of scale in production while levelling up the product on offer. It’s something women‘s sports fans simply wouldn‘t want to miss.
