Sa Interest in rugby is plummeting!!!!!!!!!!

Ex Sport 24

Cape Town - South African Super Rugby TV viewership and attendance figures are dwindling at an alarming rate. (Not the Lions oaks)

According to Rapport, SuperSport’s South African viewership of Super Rugby games dramatically decreased in 2016.

Up until Round 9 of this year’s competition, viewership figures decreased by 3.8 million viewers compared to the same stage four years ago.

According to the Afrikaans newspaper, TV viewership also decreased in Australia and New Zealand, but not nearly as much as in South Africa.

Attendance figures at stadiums are also decreasing, with only Newlands - which boasts an average of 26 992 fans per game - able to fill more than a half-full stadium.

Ellis Park, the home venue of the table-topping Lions, only has an average of 19 808 (32%) fans per game (BUT it is hugely up!!!!!!!!!!), while Nelson Mandela Bay Stadium (15%, 6 914 fans per game), Free State Stadium (17%, 7 780), Loftus Versfeld (35%, 17 921) and Kings Park (45%, 23 591) are all struggling to put bums on seats.

According to a local rugby boss - who wished to remain anonymous - the struggling economy, several top players plying their trade overseas and the transformation issue all play a part in the lack of interest in the competition.

the anc is destroyin g rugby in SA

 If we go down the tubes how will nz fare and Oz as well. These down under nutter better start protesting to IRB about racism in SA sport as they used to do. 

 It is partly the result of economic downturn and the cost of attendance - but also the result of the poor selections stemming from BEE.  People do not like to watch home game losses because of selection deficiencies.   The problem is not the top players playing overseas - some of them were not top players anymore when they left the scene and some of those players sent attendance plummeting in any event.   The ANC is the major problem for all kinds of economic rubbish going on in SA anyway.                

 " It is partly the result of economic downturn and the cost of attendance - but also the result of the poor selections stemming from BEE."
I think the fact that people are becoming less and less interested in this BS competition is also playing a very large part.
They keep on expanding the bloody thing and they do not keep in mind the age old expression of "Sometimes more is less end less is more".
I am not saying that they should copy the European competitions and that the European competitions are flawless. Fact is that for years the European competition has not lost the interest of the spectators and that is because they have managed to keep the supporters interested by having a less complicated and bulky competition. The SH conference system is BS and unpopular, yet the SANZAAR management has wiped their behinds on the supporters because they are only interested in lining their pockets. The farking fools have still not grasped the fact that you could make more money by keeping the supporters interested and involved at all costs and not by shoving more and more BS games down their throats.
The European competition rules are simple, the qualifying rules are simple. The teams play less games but the games are hugely supported and attended by the fans. As a result the media companies are pumping more and more into the game and more importantly the media companies are fiercely competing against each other, by pumping more money into the game in order, for them, to also get a bigger slice of the pie. There are two bog British media companies and two big French media companies pouring money into the competitions and the supporters are watching the games.
The clubs who do not go through to the QFs, SFs and finals of the competition, play 6 games each, and those who eventually gets to the final play 9 games. And then bear in mind that, most importantly, they have 20 sides playing in the competition. That is two more than the Super Rugby competition. What is also important is the fact that the above is after they have cut the number of teams in the Champions Cup from 24 to twenty.
The result of the above is that they can have very strong domestic competitions with the same players, who are playing in the European competitions, also playing in the domestic competitions. Not this watered down wishy washy BS thing that the Currie Cup has become.

 When you "over-feed" anything they tend to become less interested in that "food" and for them the nourishment derived from it lessens.  Sometimes the old adage "Less is more" is so true it hurts.
It seems over and above a few "school-boys" on the site there are quite a few mature rugby folk as well.   These guys will remember how supporters were "warmed-up" by advertising and radio commercials when a tour was about to happen.  In those days a stadium was filled to capacity for tests and also regional semi-finals and finals.
There was nothing better than to go and support your club (yes, there was club rugby and it was BEEEG) and discuss who will be in the provincial team next week for a CC game. Rugby was a game of passion and loyalty; that was before money and politics came to corrupt the game for gain!
There is simply too much rugby and people are getting "over-fed"