New Super Rugby Pacific board pledges to take fan’s focus to 'reignite the flame'
Super Rugby finally has a dedicated board – well almost – and is about to go to market for a chief executive it wants to be the face of the competition. Now it just needs to “reignite the flame” and engage fans at the level required in the modern sporting environment.
And the message from new Super Rugby Pacific chairman, and highly credentialed Kiwi marketeer, Kevin Malloy, New Zealand Rugby boss Mark Robinson and his Australian equivalent Phil Waugh after a fruitful day “whiteboarding” as the new board was that they have the basis for a competition that can soon return to its glory days.
It was very much an upbeat and confident message being propagated by the trio of powerbrokers as they fronted the media at NZ Rugby HQ, with Malloy making it clear the blueprint for success lay very much around its ability to engage with and sustain the attention of its fans.
“We’re now looking at Super Rugby very much from a fan’s lens with a fan’s focus,” said Malloy who heads a board that still has a couple of independent directors to add. “A lot of what we discussed today were areas around where we’re going to take the game, what Super Rugby might look like in 2030, and what’s going to ignite the flame of having our fans passionate with a great competition again.
“What works for fans? What‘s going to be interesting for them? That’s a slightly different lens to how we’ve looked at the competition before. We had a robust conversation today around where we go with making the game more interesting for fans.”
Malloy shook off a suggestion that Super Rugby, with its Kiwi dominance and Australian under-achievement, was a competition in strife, but admitted there was pressure to present a product that could compete for the discretionary sporting and entertainment dollar.
”What we’re talking about is reigniting the flame and passion for this competition, and getting people to a point again where they’re excited about the game and about what they’re watching. I don’t think it needs fixing, but it needs a different orientation on how we think about marketing the game.
”Today was a whiteboard session, and we’ve got a board covered in a lot of ideas … the trick is to get focused on three or four things that are really going to change the dial. Today is a starting point ... now we have to identify what really matters.”
“We know our performances across not just the international game but Super Rugby haven’t been at the level they need to be, so we’ve got a role to play,” said Waugh. “We know we’ve had some challenges, and we need to rectify those. It’s important for the strength and integrity of the competition for Australian sides to perform well.”
The new Super Rugby Board says it will be looking at the game from a fan’s focus.
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Super Rugby finally has a dedicated board – well almost – and is about to go to market for a chief executive it wants to be the face of the competition. Now it just needs to “reignite the flame” and engage fans at the level required in the modern sporting environment.
And the message from new Super Rugby Pacific chairman, and highly credentialed Kiwi marketeer, Kevin Malloy, New Zealand Rugby boss Mark Robinson and his Australian equivalent Phil Waugh after a fruitful day “whiteboarding” as the new board was that they have the basis for a competition that can soon return to its glory days.
It was very much an upbeat and confident message being propagated by the trio of powerbrokers as they fronted the media at NZ Rugby HQ, with Malloy making it clear the blueprint for success lay very much around its ability to engage with and sustain the attention of its fans.
“We’re now looking at Super Rugby very much from a fan’s lens with a fan’s focus,” said Malloy who heads a board that still has a couple of independent directors to add. “A lot of what we discussed today were areas around where we’re going to take the game, what Super Rugby might look like in 2030, and what’s going to ignite the flame of having our fans passionate with a great competition again.
Malloy shook off a suggestion that Super Rugby, with its Kiwi dominance and Australian under-achievement, was a competition in strife, but admitted there was pressure to present a product that could compete for the discretionary sporting and entertainment dollar.
”What we’re talking about is reigniting the flame and passion for this competition, and getting people to a point again where they’re excited about the game and about what they’re watching. I don’t think it needs fixing, but it needs a different orientation on how we think about marketing the game.
”Today was a whiteboard session, and we’ve got a board covered in a lot of ideas … the trick is to get focused on three or four things that are really going to change the dial. Today is a starting point ... now we have to identify what really matters.”
Clearly competitiveness and parity are going to help. They are staples of a successful competition. To that extent Rugby Australia chief Waugh faces the biggest challenge getting his teams up to the level of their Kiwi rivals – an aspect he acknowledged with a careworn sigh.
“We know our performances across not just the international game but Super Rugby haven’t been at the level they need to be, so we’ve got a role to play,” said Waugh. “We know we’ve had some challenges, and we need to rectify those. It’s important for the strength and integrity of the competition for Australian sides to perform well.”
But Waugh, Malloy and Robinson all stopped well short of a less is best approach to the Australian component of Super Rugby.
“Our performances to date would say we haven’t had the depth throughout five teams,” added Waugh. “We can field strong 23s, it’s when the depth gets challenged that performances suffer. We need to get more creative as to how we backfill some of those squad depths, and we’re working through that.”
NZ Rugby CEO Mark Robinson: ‘We’ve had incredible feedback around great tempo ball in play and match duration.’
Added Robinson: “We’ve seen in recent times the struggles of clubs in various competitions around the world, and while we have some challenges, we’re not at the stage yet of talking about a reduction of teams.
“If we focus on the positives of the competition, we’ve had incredible feedback last season around the key measures of great tempo in the games, ball in play and match duration – all things we know make for a great fan experience. We’ve got a great platform to work from, and just a few tweaks we’ve got to work through.”
Malloy confirmed the hunt was about to start for a CEO, with the job description written for a person who would need more “marketing nous” than they would necessarily a strong rugby or administration background.
“This role is going to be absolutely critical,” he said. “The most important thing this board will do to a large extent will be hiring the appropriate CEO. We’ll live and die on our ability to hire a crack CEO. It’s a really attractive role, and hasn’t had this level of focus before. We have to have somebody that’s going to be the face of the game, and to have a 24/7 focus on how we improve the competition and keep driving it forward is really exciting.”
Malloy said the new appointee would ideally be in the role by the start of the new season, but said their timeline would be flexible to come up with the right person.
https://i.stuff.co.nz/sport/rugby/su...nite-the-flame
