In a league of their own
By Michael McGuire
February 27, 2004
WHAT is the richest sport in Australia as measured by fan base?
Rugby union is likely to be the first sport to jump to mind - all those tweed jackets, leather elbow patches, Range Rovers and merchant bankers would seemingly guarantee the No.1 spot.
But a new survey by data marketing group, Torque, has found while union certainly has more seriously rich fans, rugby league is Australia's richest sport.
This is partly because it has more fans in the nation's most populous and expensive state, but it's still good news for a code widely regarded as the sport of the working class.
Torque says rugby league is the richest sport in "terms of the total affluence of its supporter base" - just beating the Australian Football League.
Part of the reason for this is that average incomes in rugby league strongholds NSW and Queensland are higher than in southern AFL states such as Victoria and South Australia.
Torque asked 3222 people about sport and 2726 of them nominated a code that particularly interested them and that was then further divided by income.
It found league was over-represented in the $100,001 to $150,000 household income bracket compared to the general population, but under-represented in the less than $30,000 band.
Of those that nominated league as their preferred sport, 13.4 per cent of league's supporter base fell in between $100,000 and $150,000, while 22.36 per cent earned less than $30,000.
League only just fell short of toppling rugby union in the $100,000 to $150,000 category, with 13.68 per cent of those identifying themselves as union fans falling in that band.
The AFL could find only 9.25 per cent in that category to be the poor relation of both. Torque managing partner Sean Cooper says the figures contradict conventional wisdom that league is almost exclusively a blue-collar sport.
"The image of the game is not reflected by its fan base," Cooper says. "But it is surprising that rugby league is as mid-market as it is."
It also raises the question of whether rugby league has been marketing itself to the right audience.
Of the 73 respondents in the $150,000 to $200,000 category, 2.4 per cent identified as rugby league fans, 3.36 per cent were union and 2.83 per cent AFL. Beyond $200,000, the split of the 38 sport fans was 1.2 per cent league, 2.69 per cent union and 1.1 per cent AFL.
Torque also found that rugby league had more than its fair share of fans classified as senior government or business manager or executive.
While it was doing well in the professional ranks, it missed out with farmers who make up less than 1 per cent of its fan base.
The figures will be welcome news for a sport that has been having a horror week following allegations that six members of the Bulldogs sexually assaulted a woman at a Coffs Harbour, NSW, hotel at the weekend. The problem for league, however, will be hanging on to those affluent fans if the Bulldogs scandal continues to run.
Bulldogs sponsors will be closely examining the good conduct provisions in their contracts and fans might not be too far behind.
The Torque survey also examined sponsorship by asking its respondents about products and services they actually used.
Electronics group, LG, which sponsors the Sharks in the National Rugby League and Melbourne in the AFL, was the big winner, outperforming rivals Panasonic, Philips, Pioneer and Samsung across the three codes.
Citibank was the favoured financial service provider for league and union fans, while AFL fans stuck with the AMP and ANZ.
But in a victory for good taste, Torque also found that fans across the union-league-AFL divide were all united in at least one thing - all were unlikely to have read any of the last four issues of either Woman's Day or That's Life magazines.
The Australian
Not sure how long they would survive, though.
