Australia and New Zealand rugby union officials are looking north as the domestic game goes south amid falling local interest.
The All Blacks beat the Wallabies 32-19 at Tokyo’s National Stadium two days ago in the second Bledisloe Cup match staged at a neutral venue after last year’s meeting in Hong Kong.
The engagement with Japan comes as administrators face challenges back home. Both countries have lost players such as All Blacks forward Carl Hayman and Wallabies back Chris Latham to English and French clubs who can offer bigger salaries, while domestic crowds have dwindled for international and club matches.
“Looking at the strength of the England and French markets, if we sit on our hands we’re going to get run over by the economic power of Europe,” John O’Neill, chief executive officer of the Australian Rugby Union, said in an interview at the National Stadium.
New Zealanders have cooled their interest in the national sport to the lowest on record, according to an August poll conducted by UMR Research. Sixty percent of respondents said they were either very interested or fairly interested in rugby, UMR said. That’s the lowest since the survey began in 1993.
In Australia, where rugby union competes with Australian rules football, soccer and rugby league for fans and sponsors, the sport is experiencing a decline in crowds, television ratings and interest, the Australian newspaper reported Oct. 12, citing research commissioned by the Sydney-based ARU, which declined to give details.
Falling Crowds
Total Test crowds dropped about 37 percent to 386,287 this year compared with 617,555 in 2006, according to the research, while attendances at Super 14 games in Australia fell to 75,393 on average per round from 115,317 over the same period.
Both nations are seeking to capitalize on an anticipated rise in Asian interest in rugby after Japan was awarded the 2019 World Cup and the International Olympic Committee added rugby sevens, the shortened form of the 15-a-side game, to the Summer Games program. Rugby last appeared at the Olympics in 1924 and will return in Rio de Janeiro in 2016.
“We have a decade ahead of us in which we’ll see rugby grow in Asia and the hub of that growth will be Japan,” New Zealand Foreign Minister Murray McCully said last week. “New Zealand has a proud rugby heritage, Japan has substantial resources and we see it as an area of natural synergy.”
Tourism New Zealand parked a 25-meter high rugby ball, which cost NZ$3.5 million ($2.5 million), by the Tokyo Tower after similar stops under the Eiffel Tower in Paris during the 2007 World Cup and in London last year. The agency is betting rugby can help stem the falling number of Japanese visitors, which dropped 29 percent in the year to September to 79,690.
Getting Noticed
“It’s all about getting Japanese people interested in New Zealand and to make a commitment to either visit us now or come down for the World Cup,” Tourism New Zealand CEO George Hickton told reporters.
The Tokyo Bledisloe Cup game came about through an agreement between the three national governing bodies and Dentsu Inc., Japan’s largest advertising company, which owns the rights to the game. Bringing the Australia-New Zealand rivalry to the capital is part of a strategy to boost rugby’s profile in Japan ahead of the 2019 World Cup, said Yoshiro Mori, a former prime minister and president of the Japan Rugby Football Union.
“The Bledisloe Cup is a great chance for Japanese fans to gain an appreciation for the sport,” Mori said at a press conference last week.
Kirwan, Lomu
Former rugby stars from New Zealand and Australia have already found a warm welcome in Japan. Ex-All Blacks winger John Kirwan is head coach of the Japanese national team, while Jonah Lomu, the all-time leading try-scorer at World Cups, is an ambassador to Japan’s hosting of the 2019 tournament.
Scrum-half George Gregan, who played a world record 139 Tests for Australia, and 1999 World Cup-winning teammate Stephen Larkham are playing this season for Suntory Sungoliath and Ricoh BlackRams in Japan’s Top League.
Bringing the Bledisloe Cup to Hong Kong and then Tokyo may just be the start of the push into Asia. Future plans may include expanding the Super Rugby competition with teams from Tokyo and Osaka, the ARU’s O’Neill said.
“We need the economic power of Asia and Japan is clearly the best rugby nation in the region,” O’Neill said.
(Source: Bloomberg)
