Why are rugby attendances around the world on the wane?

Published on Saturday 11 December 2010 12:09

The abiding memory of the recent autumn internationals was not the excellence of the All Blacks or England's inconsistency, the courage of the Scottish forwards in matching the South Africans or the lamentable performance of some referees. The stand-out feature of the recent spate of Tests in Britain and Ireland was in the stands - great swathes of empty seats in every direction.

Only Twickenham avoided this humiliation, at least when England were on duty but not when a multi-national, multi-talented Barbarians side took on South Africa's reserve XV. Just 31,318 souls parted with their money to watch last weekend's Barbarians-Springboks game, while 58,186 people watched the teams at the same stadium in 2007. That represents a collapse of almost 50 per cent in the space of three short years and it's not the only worrying sign for a game that has seen unprecedented growth since the dawn of professionalism.

The bubble may not have burst but it appears to have sprung a leak. At international level a quick and less than scientific look at the first and last matches of the decade to be played at Murrayfield reveals a worrying trend.

As the above table illustrates, Six Nations numbers are holding up quite well and even Italy's fall is largely down to the fact that 2001 was their first visit to Murrayfield as part of the extended Championship. However, interest in southern hemisphere visitors is waning.

The falling crowd figures are not unique to Scotland - it's just that other nations start from a healthier base so the decline is marginally less painful. Wales attracted 53,000 to their recent match against Australia. While this figure was 8,000 higher than the crowd which witnessed Scotland beat the Wallabies one year ago, it is still a dramatic reduction on the 74,000-plus fans who watched the Wales-Australia encounter in 2009.

Ireland's policy of bundling tickets together and then pricing them at the cost of a small house meant that the brand-new Aviva Stadium in Dublin had a lukewarm welcome on its opening, with 20,000 empty seats at one international. As a result, the IRFU has had to slash ticket prices by as much as 60 per cent in some cases ahead of the Six Nations.

In contrast, Leinster have done better, selling more than 40,000 tickets for their Heineken Cup clash against Clermont at the same venue next weekend. Children's tickets cost just 10 (8), adults were available at 35 (29) and 75 (63) would seat a family of four. Scotland's tickets against the All Blacks were much the same price, with kids getting in for 10 and still 10,000 seats went unsold.

The story at Test level is mirrored in the club game, at least in Scotland.Glasgow and Edinburgh have not enjoyed the best start, with the pro-teams sitting seventh and tenth in the Magners League, but still, the slow growth in spectator numbers over the past few years has stalled. After five rounds of league action in like-for-like matches (i.e. against the same opposition) Glasgow's attendances are down by 17 per cent and Edinburgh's have slumped by a worrying 37 per cent. Overall, numbers for the Celtic League are up on last season (excluding Italian club's home matches for reasons of comparison and because they don't provide accurate crowd figures) even before factoring in the 50,000 that watched Leinster beat Munster in October.

The signs are just as mixed down south. Gloucester posted their lowest regular season attendance in five years when just 9,994 watched them play against Leeds this year. Sale Sharks hosted Newcastle in April in front of 9,336 fans but by September, when the two teams met again in Manchester, more than 1,500 fans were missing. While 75,000 watched the double header at Twickenham on the opening weekend of the season, just 4,249 fans watched Newcastle beat Gloucester and Leicester had 6,000 unsold tickets when Exeter visited Welford Road - and they've only just finished the new stand. Overall, the Aviva Premiership numbers are estimated to be down about 12 per cent on last year.

There are both general reasons and country or club-specific excuses behind the dip in crowd numbers. In Ireland it was a crazy ticketing scheme that alienated fans at a time of drastic belt-tightening. In Wales they haven't won a match in their last seven outings. Meanwhile, the Scottish public have never really bought into professional rugby and Edinburgh Rugby also angered a section of their fans by withdrawing their bar facilities.

But there are other universal reasons that turn off the fans and chief amongst them is the proliferation of matches, especially at international level, although talk in England about expanding to a 14-team Premiership should have alarm bells ringing.

Ireland, Wales and England all insist on playing four rather than three autumn Tests so elbowing their way into what should be a club weekend and money is at the nub of it. The RFU pays for additional access to its players by splitting the receipts from the fourth Test with the Premiership clubs while Wales and Ireland both have debt to pay down thanks to their new stadiums. Only Scotland have resisted the fourth Test but that is due to the obvious lack of demand more than any noble restraint.

There are simply too few competitive countries in world rugby and everyone plays everyone else with monotonous regularity. The All Blacks' recent Grand Slam was their third in six years, for heaven's sake, and they now have the same rarity value as Simon bloody Cowell. Sadly, New Zealand have all too few options when they sit down with a map of the world to plan their end-of-season jaunt.Evangelical efforts to take rugby to new areas have stalled since Hong Kong has evidently lost interest in the Bledisloe Cup, with the 2010 attendance down 34 per cent on the 2008 numbers.

It is too early to say whether this is a blip or the start of a trend but surely the game needs to adopt a "less is more" attitude? Well, not according to IRB chief Mike Miller.

"Only the fans will decide if there are too many matches," he said in an interview only last month. "Everybody wants more (rugby] - the players want more, the fans want more, sponsors want more, television wants more".

The empty seats suggest otherwise.