Tell it Straight – PLEASE

www.cqnrlbid.com.au/2014/03/tell-it-straight-please/

CEO Dennis Keefe.  CQ NRL BID.  March 3rd, 2014

Earlier last week we witnessed the arranged and much staged media hype around the so called “Charity Cup” pre-season game between the Melbourne Storm and the Canterbury Bulldogs played at Suncorp Stadium.

According to the post-game interviews with the organizers, the Brisbane Bombers NRL Bid, the crowd was 10,083 and this apparently conclusively proved that Brisbane wanted and needed a second NRL team. Can someone please explain the whole thing to me because I just don’t get it?

Ten thousand people in a world class stadium ( Suncorp, with a capacity of 50,000 +) in the middle of Brisbane on a fine and sunny afternoon, involving two the NRL’s premier teams is not a compelling argument by any stretch of the imagination. As a matter of fact, I think the opposite is obvious. I.e. the Broncos absolutely rule the Brisbane NRL scene so any pretender into this over-crowded sports market will not raise a blip on the interest scale. Not now and not for a long time.

From a regional Queenslander’s perspective, I think to claim that a crowd of 10,000 involving two premium NRL teams, as successful and point proving is somewhat embarrassing. In my many years as an administrator in regional Queensland I have been involved in quite a number of NRL pre-season and a few premiership games.

Cairns has conducted NRL preseason games for about ten consecutive years and from memory the average crowd was about 15,000 ( I do remember a game when over 18,000 attended) in a ground with a normal capacity of about 4,000. I might add that some of these games were played in extremely wet conditions but that did not deter the real passionate supporters of our great game.

Mackay staged many NRL preseason and competition games over the recent years and again from memory the crowds were in the vicinity of 15,000. Both Cairns and Mackay have populations less than one tenth of the Brisbane population but the big difference between both of these regional cities with respect to NRL is – they do NOT have regular NRL games played in their cities, like Brisbane does.

There are many variables in sports promotion and marketing and this column is not large enough to itemise them all but the three main ingredients that contribute to a successful sporting promotion are
•SUPPLY – how many events are conducted over a specific time e.g. a season, in the immediate vicinity, and what is the competitive environment (same and other sports, price, accessibility, etc.)
•DEMAND – the consumption rate of take-up in the community – how many people want or are able to consume the product
•AVIDITY – the passion or feeling for the performing team/s and or the sport involved and the desire to be involved with all aspects of the team/s or sport.

I am not going to be critical of the Brisbane Rugby League fans so I will not comment on their avidity for the great game but from the recent “Charity Cup” game “supply” of regular NRL games right now is about right with the “demand".