Sevens at the olympics

[SpaceMonkey]

I could se some government pressure being put on the ARU to consider league players for selection. Unlike NZ and England Australia's chances would get a massive boost from that.

 

[russ13]

Look there will be no 7s or full XVs at the 2004 or 2008 Olympics. The were voted out of these Olympics by a margin of 112 to 2. The case for inclusion may considered for the 2012 Olympics.

However, RU being global sport with such a small global following -I mean only 22 million bothered to watch the WC final or about one-third of one percent of the world's population, has a high job ahead of it.

 

[ripper]

More then the supposdely worlds favourtie game league

 

[ThrashViking]

A big waste of time
the 7's are a joke anyway

 

[bayrep]

Why do you consider them a joke ? Do you think both league and Union formats are a joke or just union ?

 

[ThrashViking]

Both.
Dont get me wrong-I love Rugby Union & Rugby League but the 7's is just amatuer contest building up to the real stuff

 

[russ13]

Ripper -rugby league does not delude itself (well not since the super league wars anyway ) that it is or will be significant global sport.

Union does.

For instance, during the WC we were told 1 billion people watch the opening ceremomy & game. The actual number was just 10 million.

O'Neill said each WC game in Europe averaged 70 million viewers-actually some were as low as 120,000. Yes this was the total viewing audience in the whole of Europe. It must come as a big surprise that the the average viewing audience in the Argentine was only 19,000.

Fact facts Unions has buckleys chance for inclusion in the Olympics.

 

[ripper]

We've been in there before = Up till 1924 - with the US winning the GOld Medal.

There were talks already of having it as a exhibtion sport in the 2004/2008 Olympics already, and its near the top for inclusion if another sport pulls out

 

[Te Kaha]

Ripper -rugby league does not delude itself (well not since the super league wars anyway ) that it is or will be significant global sport.

Union does.

For instance, during the WC we were told 1 billion people watch the opening ceremomy & game. The actual number was just 10 million.

O'Neill said each WC game in Europe averaged 70 million viewers-actually some were as low as 120,000. Yes this was the total viewing audience in the whole of Europe. It must come as a big surprise that the the average viewing audience in the Argentine was only 19,000.

Fact facts Unions has buckleys chance for inclusion in the Olympics.

Your doing exactly what those same administrators did. Your quoteing assumed figures as "facts". There is no way to know for sure who watched those games in which country.

And as for inclusion in the Olympics, it is closer than you think.

 

[russ13]

Te kaha

Take the global viewing audience up this Initiative(UK)-Here is extract from the London Times (on line):

December 16, 2003

England enthral watching millions
By John Goodbody

DAVID CAMPESE may not have thought much of England’s chances in the rugby union World Cup, but the British television audiences disagreed. On the day that the former Australia wing underwent his walk of penitence down Oxford Street in London, television figures were released which showed that the moment that he and all Australia recoils from remembering had produced the highest UK audience of 2003 for a sports programme.
At the moment Jonny Wilkinson drop-kicked England to victory over Australia in the final, there were 15 million viewers in Britain. The match produced an average audience of 12.7 million. This was rugby’s highest in the UK since the World Cup final at Twickenham in 1991, when an average of 13.6 million saw the game between the same countries.


The 2003 figures also represent more than half the confirmed global television audience for the final last month. Initiative, the international media agency that specialises in collating data, reports that 22 million watched the game worldwide.

More on the subject:

However here is the reality of the viewing audience of recent English RUWC games on FTA & Pay TV :

"england v georgia peaked at 5.3 million
england v south africa peaked at 6.1 million
england v samoa got 5/6 million aswell

for those on here from outside the uk, a lot of the games have been on itv2, a channal that can be viewed by about 8 million people.

so far (26/10/03) the highest figure for a game on itv2 is wales v tonga at 700,000. others include

france/japan 300,000
goerg/samoa 280,000
sa/urug 330,000
ire/rom 270,000

none of the other games shown on itv2 made the top ten.

itv1
wales/nz peaked at 4.4 million
aust/ire peaked at 3.1 million

eng/urug is now the highest itv2 match, peaked at 1.5 million. "

Source BARB

More on BARB

http://www.barb.co.uk/

The BARB website provides

weekly and monthly TV viewing summaries

top programmes by channel

TV facts and statistics

background information on the BARB service

news updates about recent developments in the broadcast industry

links to related websites


Detailed viewing data for all BARB-reported television channels and services is only available to BARB subscribers. If you are interested in subscribing to the service, please refer to the current BARB rate card in the "How to Become a BARB Subscriber" section and e-mail us at enquiries@barb.co.uk giving us your name and telephone number, the name of your company, and a brief description of its business, together with an explanation of your intended use of BARB data. We will then forward a BARB subscriber application form to you. All BARB subscribers pay an annual registration fee, currently £3,700, plus a quarterly subscription fee or licence appropriate to their category of business. These details are set out in the rate card. The cost of the data itself, or the BARB-related services provided by a number of data processing and research companies, is additional to the registration and subscription fees charged by BARB.

Some BARB-related services, usually for a particular one-off purpose, may be purchased from a data bureau, to be used strictly for internal purposes, in return for an ad hoc registration fee, as set out in the BARB rate card.

 

[Te Kaha]

And in what way does this give us the world viewing figures?

At best they are still estimating. There isn't a single factual viewing figure among them.

 

[Thomas]

Russ13, you seem to be missing Te Kaha's point. The figures spouted by Intitiative are very rough estimates at best. Can you explain to me how they could be accurate? Has anyone ever rung you up asking what show you are watching? Do you even know of anyone who has a box on their TV telling these companies what programs they are watching.

They are (and I'll say this slowly) an e..s..t..i...m..a..t..e.. Did they inlcude the thousands of people who watched the RWC final and matches in pubs or public viewing areas? I was at Auroras in Brisbane and it was a full house there. Same for nearly every pub in the Brisbane CBD. The Treasury Hotel were turning people away at 6pm. Were these figures included? I doubt it.

 

[russ13]

I have been asked to to a survey about my TV viewing habits. In the last two years this has happened to me twice. I also received a couple of phone calls from people doing a survey.

Thomas are you asking us to believe the difference between the 22 million & 3 billion were all in pubs watchin the WC final. 2.978 billions in pubs & clubs.


Now if a company like Initiative is doing these surveys who is paying them. Perhaps a few journalists who quote their stats do:

http://www.thesun.co.uk/article/0,,2003551730,00.html

Out of the 12.5million viewers, none but a small minority had a clue about the rules or what the ruck was going on. Incidentally, that figure is less than half the number who watched in 1966 — when only 13million people had TV licences, compared with 23million now.

The UK population was also 5.5million less. How many of you secretly wished that you were watching Becks or Rooney and simply pretended to be excited while not really knowing a scrum from a line-out?

On Monday morning a bleary-eyed friend bounded up to me, punched the air and proclaimed: “Yessssssss! We’re world champions!”

Yes, pal, but unfortunately of a sport in which you have taken no interest for the first 30 years of your life and won’t again until England reach another final. Good drink-up, though.

Are there many people out there who could actually name the entire England team? And I don’t mean just Wilkinson, Johnson, Dallaglio and, er . . .

Rugby doesn’t pump through the veins like football. It’s an ugly rather than a Beautiful Game. When a match does flow — an increasingly rare sight — it passes the goosebump test.

But rugger can lack drama — Jonny Wilkinson’s last-gasp kick apart, I concede — and there’s often more long-ball hoofs than you see at Bristol Rovers.

Only one in eight schools teach the sport and a recent poll found just one in five youngsters played it at least once in the past year at school — compared with a quarter in 1994.

Recent research also shows many kids fear injury and schools are rugby-shy due to a rise in compensation culture.

The average Premiership football crowd is 34,816, compared with just 7,323 in rugby’s Zurich Premiership — played here, not in Switzerland, by the way.

Rugby crowds will undoubtedly grow this weekend as new converts try to glimpse the World Cup heroes. But, significiantly, the number of rugby clubs is down lately from 1,537 to 1,480.

So the English team does deserve credit for triumphing in an underfunded minority sport towards which much of the nation feels ambivalent.

Put it this way, England winning the Euro 2004 football championship would easily eclipse the current wave of Rugby World Cup euphoria.

Because rugby, in England certainly, is portrayed (sorry, partly my fault) as elitist and played by Hooray Henrys in the Home Counties. Don’t forget that the England squad is made up of a Josh, a Lewis, a Dorian, a Kyran and a Lawrence among others.

But research indicates inner-city kids do respond to the game if given the chance and it can be a great aggression channeller — a point that also appears to be borne out by the off-pitch behaviour of rugby stars, who are seldom snapped wild-eyed and brawling outside the Wellington Club.

What rugby has lacked is an inspirational pin-up like Beckham. Until now, that is, because Jonny Wilkinson (really just 24?) is a godsend to the sport. He’s an ambassador — although, it seems, a somewhat reluctant one — for whom the rugby authorities have been praying.

Cricket once had it with Botham, tennis thought it had it with Henman until it became clear that he has the personality of a goldfish and isn’t actually very good.

But Wilkinson has stiff competition from the likes of Becks, Owen and Rooney. The only way rugby can pull itself out of the mud is if those who run the game tap into working class youngsters’ minds and inspire them to swap their free-kicks for drop kicks.

That requires investment and a harnessing of the influence of glamour stars like Wilkinson to fire rugby passion in kids hooked on Red Devils rather than Harlequins.

Many parents are disillusioned with the cost and danger of going to see football and the good humour at rugby matches is certainly appealing.

England rarely win silverware in any sport and that is why the country has been swept up by hysteria. But it is impossible to envisage rugby replacing football as our national game — even with that other world cup now sitting sparkling in the Twickenham trophy cabinet.

Another user of these figures are the companies who pay for advertising. A Bloomberg Report says both VISA & Coca cola are reviewing their sponsorship for the next WC because the game is not global enough or words to that effect.

Journalists & sponsors there isa start.(I will get the Bloomberg article)

 

[The Observer]

Olympics in the Sevens - bring it on!

Te Kaha, do you think elite international players will vie for inclusion in their country's Olympics 7s team? I say this because, unlike the Commonwealth Games (which still attracted guys like Lomu and Campo) the Olympics is a prestigious world event.

Which sport will it have to force out?

 

[Te Kaha]

Olympics in the Sevens - bring it on!

Te Kaha, do you think elite international players will vie for inclusion in their country's Olympics 7s team? I say this because, unlike the Commonwealth Games (which still attracted guys like Lomu and Campo) the Olympics is a prestigious world event.

Which sport will it have to force out?

There are currently four sports that are under serious threat and the NZRFU through the IRB has been told It is one of three sports that are at the top of the list. The cause would have been helped by the Argi's winning the Los Angeles leg of the World Sevens.

As for top level particpation, currently the NZRFU has the super 12 coming before the sevens unless in a world cup or commenwealth games year. In which case the sevens eligibilty is second only to the All Blacks. The same would be for the Olympics. Still the "stars" would still have to be picked and 'Tich has been known to leave out star players so as not to upset the team.

 

[JVinAZ]

Te Kaha, do you think elite international players will vie for inclusion in their country's Olympics 7s team? I say this because, unlike the Commonwealth Games (which still attracted guys like Lomu and Campo) the Olympics is a prestigious world event.

Which sport will it have to force out?

The top players in the Olympics? This can go one of three ways. There are four team sports in the where Olympic Gold is not the highest prize, Soccer, Basketball, Ice Hockey and Baseball. Rugby Sevens would certainly be a fifth.

FIFA has essentially made the Olympics the U23 world championship, and any players with World Cup Finals experience are not eligible. Given that the IRB has such a championship, and the differences between sevens and "real" rugby, this is unlikely.

In Baseball, major league players are not released for international competition. Most MLB clubs will make a limited number of minor league players (comparable to Reserve Grade, Jersey Flegg, juniors, etc.), available to the national team, and only if participation in the national team will not interfere with club's plan for the play in development for the Major Leagues.

I expect that when, and I do mean when sevens is included in the Olympics, many of the top players will be included, as is the case with Basketball and Ice Hockey. In these sports, the top professional players are released of the Olympics, but not for world or continental championships if they conflict with the domestic season. Since the Games generally occur in late summer or early fall (northern hemishpere) and this usually is not rugby season in most nations, the players should be available. Likewise, IRB nations have shown a willingness to "sacrifice" domestic competitions for major international events. It is not uncommon for domestic competitions to continue without "international" players while major events like 3N, 6N, Fall International and Spring Internationals are played.

However, and unfortunately for RL fans, this WILL be an IRB event. The IRB is the ONLY body recognized by the IOC for the sport of Rugby. As a more than general rule, only athletes affiliated with the national federation (NF) if the interational federation (IF) of a sport are selected to represent nations in the Olympics. The only reason that NBA and NHL players are available for Olympic competion is that these bodies have aligned with the domestic NFs and IFs involved. Frakely, I do not see the NRL/ARL or ESL seeking, or the ARU or RFU accepting such an accomodation. The only chance RL has in the Olympics is if there is no established RU in the nation, AND the RL is willing to accept IRB rules for qualification and the competition.

 

[JVinAZ]

However, RU being global sport with such a small global following -I mean only 22 million bothered to watch the WC final or about one-third of one percent of the world's population, has a high job ahead of it.

Excuse me. How does that figure compare with the world chamionship of other IOC recognized team sports. Of course the FIFA World Cup Final is the world's most viewed event, and maybe FIBA's final in Basketball out-ranks the RWC in viewership, assuming that a NBA "Dream-Team" is involved. But what else compares? Water Polo - NO! Field Hockey - NO! Team Handball - NO! Volleyball - NO! Ice Hockey - NO! In fact the world viewership of the RWC final, live and taped, is not unlike that of the single-day world championshhip high of the most popular (at least in the US) Olympic sports (Athletics, Swimming, Gymnastics and Figure Skating).

 

[russ13]

russ13 wrote:
However, RU being global sport with such a small global following -I mean only 22 million bothered to watch the WC final or about one-third of one percent of the world's population, has a high job ahead of it.


Excuse me. How does that figure compare with the world chamionship of other IOC recognized team sports. Of course the FIFA World Cup Final is the world's most viewed event, and maybe FIBA's final in Basketball out-ranks the RWC in viewership, assuming that a NBA "Dream-Team" is involved. But what else compares? Water Polo - NO! Field Hockey - NO! Team Handball - NO! Volleyball - NO! Ice Hockey - NO! In fact the world viewership of the RWC final, live and taped, is not unlike that of the single-day world championshhip high of the most popular (at least in the US) Olympic sports (Athletics, Swimming, Gymnastics and Figure Skating).

I don't know tell me. IMO that each Olympic final's world TV audience (of the sports mentioned) would be greater than that of the union WC final.


Anyway why are you all so worried about RL players trying out for the union 7s?

 

[JVinAZ]

russ13 wrote:Anyway why are you all so worried about RL players trying out for the union 7s?

Duh!! Given the number of refeerences to "best players" (in RL eyes, RL players), the number of cross-code sevens references in this thread, and the fact that this is an RL forum, I would expect that most readers/posters would be interested in RL, not RU.

 

[JVinAZ]

russ13 wrote: I don't know tell me. IMO that each Olympic final's world TV audience (of the sports mentioned) would be greater than that of the union WC final.

Russ.

thanks for helping me make my point!!

If the total viewership of some, many most (highly likely) of most Olympic team sports, or even all sports, is greater than the RWC because it is part of the Olympics. Aside from FIFA, and possibly FIBA,and IAAF, you would be hard pressed to find stand-alone world championships with a higher total, or single-day viewership than the IRB RWC.

In terms of the number of member nations and registered athletes, the IRB is at least worst third among IOC recognized team sport IFs.