Gibbo
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Post by Gibbo on Feb 22, 2006 12:12:09 GMT -5
Super 14 is made up of regionalised rep teams so you can't compare their attendances with the NRL. For example there is only one S14 team based in Sydney so union fans will have to watch them as there is no alternative, while of course in the NRL there are around 8 Sydney clubs so their attendances are obviously diluted.
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rus
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Post by rus on Feb 22, 2006 16:25:56 GMT -5
Baz I know you have been waiting for some TV audience figures for the Super 14:
From today's Courier-Mail in Mike Coleman's Loose Ends column:
While the Reds might not have won a game yet they are top of the table in another area - TV viewers. The Reds two Super 14 matches have been the most watched in Australia. The NSW game had an average of just under 179,000 viewers ahead of the Force - Brumbies match with 115,760.
Round 2 against the Crusaders averaged 135,600, with the Hurricanes - Force game bringing in 85,700.
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Thomas
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Post by Thomas on Feb 22, 2006 19:05:57 GMT -5
Excellent news, Russ. Thanks for that.
What were the TV ratings for RL in Australia last week?
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Basil2
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Post by Basil2 on Feb 22, 2006 22:26:31 GMT -5
Correct me if i'm wrong but aren't super14 sides representative, rather than traditional club teams? They are in fact quasi provincial sides & not club sides. I say quasi because I think the NZ & SA sides may have been created for the old S12 comp, as were the Brumbies. NSW & Qld are the two traditional Australian state sides. Its a good comp - some very good rugby played.
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Basil2
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Post by Basil2 on Feb 23, 2006 1:38:03 GMT -5
Don't you mean there are some small pockets of rl in one of soccer's heartland areas?
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Basil2
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Post by Basil2 on Feb 23, 2006 1:39:40 GMT -5
Excellent news, Russ. Thanks for that. You're being set up Thomas. Rus is just waiting for the first week of nrl tv audiences to give you some comparisons that set ru in perspective against rl in Qld & NSW.
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Thomas
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Post by Thomas on Feb 23, 2006 2:04:19 GMT -5
I really don't care Baz.
I enjoy my sports and thats all I care about.
I couldn't give a toss what the ratings are...as long as I'm enjoying it, I'll keep watching it
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Post by kelvinn on Feb 23, 2006 7:46:54 GMT -5
Correct me if i'm wrong but aren't super14 sides representative, rather than traditional club teams? They are in fact quasi provincial sides & not club sides. I say quasi because I think the NZ & SA sides may have been created for the old S12 comp, as were the Brumbies. NSW & Qld are the two traditional Australian state sides. Its a good comp - some very good rugby played. So to compare crowd figures for S14 to the NRL if false because it's not like for like?
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Basil2
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Post by Basil2 on Feb 23, 2006 15:17:11 GMT -5
They are in fact quasi provincial sides & not club sides. I say quasi because I think the NZ & SA sides may have been created for the old S12 comp, as were the Brumbies. NSW & Qld are the two traditional Australian state sides. Its a good comp - some very good rugby played. So to compare crowd figures for S14 to the NRL if false because it's not like for like? No, you can compare them if you're into that type of thing. The S14 is ru's SH equivalent of the nrl, even if the basis for the teams are different.
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Post by georgehotel on Feb 24, 2006 7:55:31 GMT -5
The north-west of England is a heartland for both football (as in soccer) and rugby, thankfully most of it the League variety.
Yes there are big football clubs dotted around England , but look at how many are in the north-west.
Liverpool Everton Man Utd Man City Blackburn Wigan (ahem!) Bolton
London has Arsenal, Spurs, Chelski, Fulham, Charlton The Midlands have Aston Villa, Birmingham, West Brom
It was the actions of the football clubs in the north-west that (and to some extent Yorkshire) began the conception of rugby league. These were the first football clubs to go along the paying of players/commercial route and rugby was loosing players and spectators to football.
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Post by windlesaint on Feb 24, 2006 8:32:05 GMT -5
The north-west of England is a heartland for both football (as in soccer) and rugby, thankfully most of it the League variety. Yes there are big football clubs dotted around England , but look at how many are in the north-west. Liverpool Everton Man Utd Man City Blackburn Wigan (ahem!) Bolton London has Arsenal, Spurs, Chelski, Fulham, Charlton The Midlands have Aston Villa, Birmingham, West Brom It was the actions of the football clubs in the north-west that (and to some extent Yorkshire) began the conception of rugby league. These were the first football clubs to go along the paying of players/commercial route and rugby was loosing players and spectators to football. And to put that even more into perspective;- Man Utd = best supported team in England, Liverpool 3rd best and Man City 4th best. Everton are also in the top 10
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Basil2
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Post by Basil2 on Feb 24, 2006 12:35:51 GMT -5
The north-west of England is a heartland for both football (as in soccer) and rugby, thankfully most of it the League variety. Yes there are big football clubs dotted around England , but look at how many are in the north-west. Liverpool Everton Man Utd Man City Blackburn Wigan (ahem!) Bolton London has Arsenal, Spurs, Chelski, Fulham, Charlton The Midlands have Aston Villa, Birmingham, West Brom Nothing much in the way of top flight soccer sides in the south of england then? What's the position of rugby there?
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Post by windlesaint on Feb 24, 2006 15:20:35 GMT -5
Compared to soccer both codes of rugby pale into insignificance. Union doesn't really have a heartland as such. It is moderately popular in the SW & Bristol area but even here most people follow soccer. Places like Gloucester and Bath, were union IS the main town team, are really quite small places. Also these are rather remote from the main conurbations so it is a fair trek for soccer supporters to go to watch their team. In London where it is also moderately popular, this really is just the SW part of the city where Twickenham is and where former big teams like Richmond and the various Exile teams used to play. Teams like Wasps and Saracens have a nomadic exsistence now renting out various soccer stadia. With the exception of Leicester the rest of the country is dominated by soccer, and even in Leicester the soccer team has more support than the union team. The only other place where rugby union has any real foothold is Cornwall, and here the population is tiny. Also I suspect if Plymouth Argyle - the nearest soccer team - were any good then union crowds in the county would half.
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kier
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Post by kier on Feb 24, 2006 22:05:01 GMT -5
By the 1880s soccer was a sport organised into leagues and cups and allowed payment to players. The 'divisions' though were almost exlusively based in the industrial north and midlands. I don't think that a southern team was allowed entry into the "Football League" until the beginning of the twentieth century.
Victorian football (of all codes) as a mass spectator sport was almost exclusively a 'northern' pursuit.
What is more important is that in the list of soccer areas only Blackburn and Bolton were not initially 'rugby' areas in the early 1880s - Liverpool and Manchester used to be seen as the elite of the rugby clubs - presiding over rugby in the north in the same was as the MCC used to hold sway over cricket. (that is why no soccer club holds the title "Manchester FC" - it was taken by the senior club in the city - a rugby club. Liverpool FC were only able to take the name for the soccer club after the rugby club folded).
The origins of RL exist mainly in the need to combat the spread of soccer - without the creation of regular competitive fixtures it is arguable that 'rugby' could have gone the way of Harrow football or a myriad other football codes. Make no mistake about it - rugby was close to disappearing and was not yet the automatic code of choice for GB's middle/upper classes (that came after WWI) many schools played soccer/dribbling footaball codes at the time of the schism - nowadays Eton and Harrow are the only notable 'soccer' schools.
The irony is imho that RL gave RU a reason to exist - 'rugby' was maintained as a sport with some popular mass support yet a schism which enevitably became a class divide gave RU it's 'raison d'etre'.
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Basil2
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Post by Basil2 on Feb 25, 2006 4:53:34 GMT -5
So if I consider all of the above we can get a picture of an England where soccer dominates completely, rl is a minor code & ru apparently barely exists at all, except for one or two isolated provincial centres. Seems logical ;D
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