Following a dismal Rugby World Cup performance from England in their own back yard, new coach Eddie Jones has restored pride among England rugby fans, after the team won against Wales on Saturday and – following Scotland’s triumph against France on Sunday – was crowned RBS 6 Nations Championship winners.
There’s the prospect of a grand slam for England should they beat France in the final match, but who actually watches the 6 Nations? Our sponsorship research tool, SponsorDNA, helped us to find out.
First, the gender split is the initial surprise, with 56% of women claiming an interest in the 6 Nations and only 44% of men. This female interest was 15% higher than the average of all 30 sporting events we measured. In terms of the age profile, the breakdown is a fairly evenly spread across age ranges, but the 6 Nations over-indexes within the lucrative 18-24 category, as well as the 55-64 group, compared to other events.
There are very few events out there that over-index among the youngest and oldest audiences, so the notion of rugby being simply for older men is challenged by our SponsorDNA model, which will be pleasing to rugby bodies and sponsors looking to open the event to a wider audience.
Our fan segmentation data also shows that the majority of fans in the UK fall into two out of five categories, which are “passionate followers” (31%) and “tradition lovers” (23%). The former are the traditional sports fans who love the event and sport for the sense of involvement, community and bonding that it brings. They will use all media channels to follow an event, but will be unlikely to actively participate.
“Tradition lovers” simply love iconic events and may not be rugby fans per se; they simply enjoy the national sporting calendar. Their enjoyment comes as much from the sense of anticipation and shared community spirit around the events as from the action itself. The other three segments – “family supporters”, “occasional enjoyers” and “passionate participants” – show a fairly even split.
Interestingly, the 6 Nations possessed more than twice as many tradition lovers as the Rugby World Cup, where you could argue that the sense of occasion was bigger, considering it was held in England and provided a world stage. Perhaps the quality of teams and even match-ups at the 6 Nations makes for a more interesting spectacle for both hardcore and non-hardcore rugby fans.
The most surprising statistic we found was that of all the people who claimed to be a 6 Nations fan, just 5% claimed to play rugby, with only 18% having played in the past. This means 77% of 6 Nations rugby fans have never played the game.
The average 6 Nations fan could quite easily be a young woman, who may not even be a core rugby fan and has never played the game. Some interesting food for thought for rugby bodies and commercial sponsors.
Liam Hopkins is an account director at Arc London
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