We were asked the question – So what is a full house, about 40,000 or so? Lets be generous and call it roughly 70% empty. Even Newlands in Cape Town is nowhere near full for Currie Cup matches, yet all the big stadiums are near full house for Super Sugby, so back to my question, any theories on why this apparent lack of interest in Currie Cup matches?

My thoughts are as follows. Add yours!

The core of the issue is too much rugby, plain and simple. greedy TV networks, in an effort to make more money, have pushed the boundaries of the game to a point where it has become almost an all year round sport (and SARU wants to make it bigger with the inclusion of a 6th Super Rugby team).

In theory there should be nothing wrong with this, they do it in soccer, horse racing is nearly a year round sport, as are many others. But there is a big difference. Firstly, is the impact on the players bodies and injuries sustained because of the amount of rugby being played. Secondly is the watering down of other competitions at the expense of the ‘money making ones’. Thirdly, globally and locally rugby isn’t the biggest fan sport around, there is simply not the support in it and in this day and age, families cannot afford the ticket prices week in and week out.

So breaking these points down.

1. Player fatigue and injury: One of the greatest things about sport for youngsters and us couch potatoes are the heroes in our sport. We live to see them, get their autographs, and watch them play. Unions will go to great expense to have a few ‘heroes’ in the team. They are the star attraction. Bryan Habana, van Persie, Victor Matfield, etc… and they draw the crowds. The rest of the team are there to help win, they are the engine under the bonnet because as well as heroes you need your team to win. Too much rugby brings with it fatigue and injury. If your star players aren’t there, there isn’t the same draw to be at the match – especially if the team isn’t winning. We pay good money to see our heroes.

2. Watered down competitions: We are right now sitting slap-bang in the middle of such an example. There are so many competitions going on, that they cannot even be evenly spaced out, and we end up with overlaps in different competitions. We are in the middle of the Currie Cup, the oldest Provincial competition in the world and also the most traditional rugby competition in South Africa, but it is being hi-jacked by the Rugby Championship (another competition that has been enlarged).

Now don’t get me wrong, we need international rugby, it is the cream on the cake. But just look at what it is doing.

It is taking all our heroes away, playing games that in 90% of cases are inaccessible to the fans – half the games are overseas and so we are forced to watch on TV. Match day’s mean that if we want to watch the big game, we can’t traipse all the way down to watch our local derby first, as time will not allow. But hey, we won’t miss much because our heroes aren’t there anyway.

So much hype through advertising, newspapers and shows is given in the build-up to these international matches that the focus too, is taken away from the local games. Coupled with this, the Currie Cup now finds itself at the end of the ‘new rugby season’ when most injuries are prevalent. The Sharks for instance have 18 players out on Springbok duty or injured. This means that much weakened teams are now playing in this traditional competition, in effect watering down the competition and giving us the sense that we are being slightly conned with a second rate show. We hate that!

3. Fan base: We love rugby, hell we’re besotted with it. For some of us it takes over our lives. It is the greatest sport around. It matches personal strength with brains. It is as tactical as chess, but yet as hard as any gladiatorial combat in the Colosseum ever was. It is as fast as a horse race, but with that comes the slight of hand of a seasoned magician.

Yet if we step back a little and look from the outside, rugby is not a hugely popular sport world wide. It does’nt even make the top ten most popular sports in the world. Field hockey, volleyball and table tennis even rank above rugby. Now I know that we cannot define absolutely what makes one sport better than another – do we base it on fans, participation, number of teams, TV viewership or internet usage? You get my drift, whichever source you use for your stats, rugby just isn’t up there.

However, in South Africa and amongst the more affluent sector of our society, rugby is the most popular sport and that makes the TV companies who want our hard earned bucks, sit up and take note. In order for certain companies to make a healthy profit, and again nothing wrong with that, they (television, in this case) need to make it as popular as possible in order to drive up revenue. This will come from sponsorships, advertising etc. Don’t for one minute think that they are putting a match on television for your benefit. No, coffers come first, money comes first. But increased profits requires increased inputs. Or more simply, in our case more rugby. For the TV company to get us to buy into their idea, they need to get us away from the stadium and in front of our telly’s.

Now, that’s fine and maybe it’s exactly what we want. To be able to sit down with mates or in the armchair on a Saturday afternoon and watch endless matches on telly, is great!

But what of the Stadiums? Whereas 15 years ago we may have been able to go to 8, 9 or 10 matches with the family to the stadium and ticket prices were affordable and it was convenient because games were played on a Saturday afternoon, so we could be home before dinner, nowadays it is no longer the case.

On the one hand we are being asked to go to many more matches by the Rugby Unions, but on the other we are being enticed to sit in front of our TV’s to enjoy the match in comfort… interesting concept.

Now the TV companies will tell you that the live matches are for the benefit of the fans that can’t make the match in person, and very true, but nothing is done to encourage supporters to go to the match. In some sports, they have black outs in the area of the actual stadium to encourage people to go, but not in rugby.

We would throw our toys! Badly! We’ve become used to the couch.

Add to this the fact that we have not only more competitions – Varsity Cup, Vodacom Cup, Super Rugby, Currie Cup and Internationals – but we are also being asked to pay higher gate prices for various reasons and worst of all, we are being asked to take our young families out until sometimes close to midnight to see these games.

All just so it fits in with the television’s ‘world wide’ schedule. This in a bid to get the advertisers to agree to slots during the game, and to do this they need to have the matches at peak or near peak viewing times to make the advertisers happy.

We don’t have the fan base to fill stadiums week after week as they do at Manchester United or the New York Yankees. In South Africa, if we’re lucky, we get 30 000 – 40 000 people at a match. In New Zealand, they get 15 000 – 20 000, not the 60 000 – 80 000 attendee’s at other sports. There simply isn’t enough money for the same few people to afford to go week after week.

When you add these up you can see why there is a drop in stadiums attendances during the Currie Cup. That is not to say we like the competition any less, it is simply that we are being drawn to the razzmatazz of the bigger competitions. This I fear, will wane too, and whilst SANZAR and the TV companies will continue to add bells and whistles to get us in front of out telly’s, I think it is a format that we will eventually tire of. Again being fickle human beings, if you’re going to have such high profile competitions, they need to be short, sharp and sweet. We get bored otherwise.

I can see a situation in the future where the competition is much smaller, shorter and much more high profile, intense and exciting rugby. We will see a return to the traditional Tours and Test series and a stadium-filled Currie Cup competition. At least, that is what I dream of!