Why Marketing Needs to Make Rugby Less Relatable, Not More

Image credit: Thomas Serer via Unsplash

The Six Nations came to an end last weekend and I’ve been reflecting on a lot of what I’ve read, seen and heard across the tournament.

As always, with a tournament that happens every year between the same teams – don’t worry this isn’t another piece about the merits of promotion/relegation – you are looking for things that are different, new or exciting.

And the most interesting line I heard all tournament was not a backs move analysis from a pundit or a snippet from a post-match press conference. In fact, it wasn’t anything related to the tournament itself, as compelling as it obviously has been (Ireland winning ugly, England winning and losing ugly and pretty, Italy just winning). 

It came from Courtney Lawes, recently retired from internationals and currently the most refreshing voice in rugby:

“Rugby is a game for anyone, but not for everyone”.

It’s rare that you read a piece about rugby, or any sport, and a line stops you in your tracks and makes you completely evaluate how you look at said sport.

Add that to Premiership Rugby saying they are going to start promoting the sport as “extreme”, “not for the faint hearted” and “dangerous”.

And you think - Yes. They’re right. And this is what rugby needs.

Like all rugby fans, I’ve read, often with difficulty, the many many column inches that have been written about the game’s recent issues – concussion lawsuits, tackle height disputes and clubs going bust – and it feels like rugby has taken so many knocks that its lost a bit of confidence in itself. It’s the game I and many others love but it seems like it’s searching for its identity, desperately needing a good news story.

And because of the cycle of bad news, it's felt a bit like the narrative I’ve read about rugby recently is that it’s a nice game played by nice people. That international players are just like you and me. That everyone can play the sport and should do.

But Lawes’ sentiment is right – at least at the elite level. It’s not a nice game played by nice people, and a lot of people shouldn’t even think about playing. 

Rugby is bloody hard. It’s brutal and it hurts a lot. Played by people who are bloody hard, who enjoy hurting other people. 

But also played by some of the best and most skilful athletes in world sport. And to get its confidence back it’s time that rugby started shouting about this more.

Take a hooker. 

They must have the strength of a weightlifter, the dexterity of a fencer, the engine of a marathon runner and the power of an NFL line-backer. 

And those are just their physical capabilities. Add to that the mental resilience to stick your face into places where you know it’s going to come out looking like you’ve had a fight with a brick and you’ve got possibly the most versatile athlete in world sport, right? Like a decathlete, except on the final lap of the 1500m you have to smash a 20 stone man charging full pelt at you down the track.

Take it a bit further. Ask 100 sports fans the most pressurised position in any team sport and I reckon you’ll get at least 50% say an NFL Quarter Back (*this is not based on any kind of scientific research). There’s a whole Netflix documentary about them – the untold pressure, the weight of a franchise on their padded shoulders. 

But remove the pads and tell them to make the same split-second decisions they have to make in the NFL, but instead of minutes to plan them they have to make them 10 times a minute. Take out the line of their big men trying to stop the other big men trying to rip your head off. Then ask them to tackle those big men running at them when the other team has the ball, and to master three types of kick. Well, you’ve got yourselves a fly half.

This is not to detract from NFL stars as athletes. They are unreal athletes. They bench ungodly weights and jump unfathomable heights. How do I know this? Because they tell us all the time and aren’t afraid to do so. 

It’s part of their identity and the way they market themselves. They elevate their stars not by making them relatable but by deliberately making them unrelatable. They are capable of things you and I could only dream of, and that’s part of the reason why we watch them doing things you and I could only dream of. Interest in UFC and MMA has exploded, particularly amongst young people, but how many fans do you ever see stepping into an octagon? They promote their fighters as unhinged athletes doing things you have to be pretty unhinged to do, and that’s why people watch.

I read a lot about what sports over here can learn from sports over there. Half time music shows, Netflix documentaries exploring the person beyond the player, franchising your sport and giving the teams nicknames. These are all important and a vital part of packaging the offering as ‘entertainment’.

But what I think rugby can adopt from NFL is embracing what it is and not being ashamed about it. Elite rugby players are superhuman, but you very rarely see them marketed as so. Whilst the NFL deliberately shows you how much their athletes can run faster, jump higher and lift heavier than you, rugby has…. an occasional bronco test on the All Blacks Insta? Pieter Steph du Toit is 6ft 7, 115kg, could run a sub 18min 5k and a sub 12s 100m and could probably bench a house. Well shout about it! Show the world what a specimen he is.

NFL creates the aura of an elitist sport – not in the sense that the players went to expensive schools but because its players are elite – and that is why people tune in. They want to see the fastest, the strongest, the heaviest and the most powerful.

Rugby shouldn’t be afraid of doing the same and embracing exactly what it should be known for. And that’s not embracing the – by now very dated and tired – perceptions of red trousers, initiations and lads, lads lads. Rugby should be known for having the most elite and diverse (in terms of skillset) athletes in the world taking each other on in the most demanding sport in the world, and should have the confidence in itself to tell everyone that’s what it is.

If you take away football, rugby is one of, if not the most followed sports in this country. It sells out massive stadiums, has millions tuning in to watch and non-core rugby fans basing their entire weekends in February and March around watching the Six Nations. How many other sports can claim this? And are they doing this because they think some of the players are good blokes? I don’t think so.

Take a quick scan of the most watched rugby-themed content pieces on YouTube, and it isn’t nice stories about where international players grew up or what their interests are outside of the game, it’s electric tries and spine-altering hits. A video called “The most BRUTAL sport in the world” has racked up 2.6m views in eight months. It has players getting cut in half (not literally), ears hanging off (literally) and putting their shoulders back after making a tackle so they can make another tackle.

It may upset lot of people and may not be the message a lot of decision makers want to convey, but this is what draws people to rugby. It’s what makes fans tune in and respect those who play.

And if rugby embraced this a little more it could still get the good news story it is looking for…