'Is Sport Overload Killing Fan Enjoyment ?' In Australia...A fan's response.

While researching on the Internet I found this interesting article about fan enjoyment of Australian sport. 

'Is sport overload killing fan enjoyment?' by Tony Featherstone asks a relevant question of Australian sport's fans. The writer makes some interesting observations about the expansion of major Australian sporting codes including the AFL, cricket, rugby league and rugby union and how this expansion will impact on the fans and their enjoyment of the sport. 

While I am not an AFL, cricket or rugby league fan, I am a long term rugby union fan with a passion for the Wallabies. As the article was written prior to the beginning of the Super Rugby and Super W seasons, I thought the question asked 'Is sport overload killing fan enjoyment' in the Australian context is worth revisiting. 

The journalist only briefly mentions rugby union and how the expansion of a product too quickly can allegedly hurt the product. "Rugby union expanded too quickly through its Super Rugby tournament and had to cut a few teams this season to improve product quality. Rugby shows the danger of sports trying to build new audiences beyond their core too quickly and hurting the product. Other sports will make the same mistake in the next few years."

The journalist states that "Professional sport, it seems, risks forgetting a few key rules in business... The first is product scarcity: there’s a reason great companies do not flood their market with a new product; they don’t want to cannibalise their core products and risk losing consumer interest."

Recently Australian Super Rugby franchises have incorporated state and territory rugby union programs into their clubs much to the delight of some members of the community. So not only is Australian Super Rugby franchises in competition with variations of their own game at the elite professional level, they are in competition from community rugby union at all levels from children to schools, to adults in both the city and country regions. Australian Super Rugby franchises now spread rugby union news and events through the same social media sites.

In my opinion there is now so much information on a single Australian Super Rugby franchise social media site not relevant to Super Rugby where the clubs earn their money that is now killing this fan's enjoyment. For example,  Super W rugby. While I am glad women have the opportunity to play at the elite level I am just not interested. Super W has dominated coverage including a blow by blow game account of each game and the players in social media timelines.

The journalist states "Sadly, too much recent sports-code innovation revolves around new products or new ways to distribute content, via smartphones and other channels." Following Australian Super Rugby official team social media sites are promoting these new innovations of the game to fans whether they want them or not and fans will lose interest. It hasn't taken long for me to lose complete interest and to stop following. I only visit these sites occasionally to get information about the Super Rugby game on the day is being played. They certainly have no interest in incorporating fans into the sites by responding to questions and comments. Social media sites are extremely important for information on games when there is no free-to-air television coverage. The Australian Super Rugby franchises have a long way to go on social media.

Australian Rugby union has the disadvantage that AFL, cricket and rugby league do not and that is no Australian Super Rugby games are telecast on free-to-air TV and therefore only available for fans on Foxtel pay TV or on the radio. Foxtel have clamped down on the piracy of full games once upon a time available on YouTube. The Wallabies international games are available on free-to-air TV but tours such as those in the Northern Hemisphere during their Autumn over the past couple of years have been dodgy and telecast at the last minute leaving fans high and dry. Audiences are very unlikely to grow or compete with existing Australian sporting codes if this remains the case.

The article was written at the end of February and did not mention the Western Force, the Australian team cut from the Super Rugby competition and is now up and running again and involved in the development of a new rugby competition. The Western Force plays it's first game of a series of games, at the end of the week before being incorporated into a fully operating tournament next year in 2019. Media articles state that there will be some improvements in some aspects of the game of rugby union to attract new fans. It will be interesting to see how this new Western Force franchise goes in the coming weeks having been built on community interest and fans established over many seasons.

'Is sport overload killing fan enjoyment?' by By Tony Featherstone by published in the Sydney Morning Herald on 27 February 2018. (no copyright infringement intended)

Is there too much professional sport in Australia? As a sports fan, I never thought I’d ask that question. But after a seemingly endless cricket season and an earlier start to AFL through the women’s competition and AFLX experiment, professional sport risks becoming oversupplied and dull.

Every major sport in Australia, it seems, wants to extend its season, add a women’s competition or introduce a shortened version of their game. This new arms race in sport content risks hurting product quality and fan interest.

Consider cricket, once an innovation star. It has applied incremental innovation to its core product (Test cricket) through day/night matches, faster over rates and the like. Some, like me, say there has been too much change to the game’s traditions; others say not enough.

Cricket has found new markets for its product: a successful women’s competition, for example. And it has driven radical innovation through the Twenty20 phenomenon, here and overseas. Few for-profit companies have been as adept at juggling different streams of innovation or managing the “creative destruction” process: if Test cricket fades (please, no), cricket will fight another day.

That’s the good news. The bad news is that Cricket Australia is extending its Big Bash League, and the international season in summer seems to morph into almost year-round cricket.

After embracing Big Bash, I lost interest this year. Scheduling conflicts and blurring with international games dampened its appeal. The international T20 matches barely registered with me. An oversupply of televised cricket diluted product quality.

After embracing Big Bash, I lost interest this year. Scheduling conflicts and blurring with international games dampened its appeal. The international T20 matches barely registered with me. An oversupply of televised cricket diluted product quality.

AFL is another example. Its women’s competition, AFLW, has been a magnificent innovation and AFLX, played on rectangular fields, is a worthwhile experiment. But how much AFL can the public consume before interest in the main game is cannibalised?

The NRL season, too, seems to start earlier and finish later each year and it has ramped up an international women’s competition. The proper season has not started yet and we have already been blasted with trial and testimonial matches.

Tennis Australia reportedly wants to extend its summer series of tournaments before the 2020 Australian Open and there is talk of more lead-up fixtures. Netball launched a shortened version of the game through The Fast5 Netball World Series.

Rugby union expanded too quickly through its Super Rugby tournament and had to cut a few teams this season to improve product quality. Rugby shows the danger of sports trying to build new audiences beyond their core too quickly and hurting the product. Other sports will make the same mistake in the next few years.

I understand the need for professional sporting codes to take risks; the demand for extra, unique content from TV networks; and intense competition across the codes. As one sport innovates, others follow.

Professional, televised sporting competitions for women in AFL and cricket are long overdue and clearly attract new audiences. Shortened versions of major sports also have their place in a time-poor society that favours faster, higher-impact forms of entertainment.

The problem is when most major sporting codes rapidly expand their product at the same time. And when televised sport feels like wallpaper rather than an event. As in any market, too much extra supply and not enough new demand eventually leads to lower prices.

Worse, it leads to declining product quality and customer fatigue. Does Australia have enough elite sports people to supply this extra content consistently? And will the greater demand increase injury risk and player burnout, and encourage industrial action from players for higher pay?

Professional sport, it seems, risks forgetting a few key rules in business.

Second, smart companies know other forms of innovation can create more value than new products. What if our major football codes slightly shortened their seasons rather than extended them, creating higher-quality “events” for consumers and advertisers?

By promoting regular home-and-away games as major events, our codes could spark bidding wars between cities to host games and new revenue models around travel and conferences. Some of this happens now, but a lot more business-model innovation in sport is possible.

What about key sporting codes complementing, rather than trying to kill, each other? For example, rugby league and rugby union working together to leverage intellectual property, such as sport sciences and training facilities. Or even AFL and cricket, which often share ovals, working together to create the most effective scheduling for both. Yes, it will never happen, despite the logic and potential to create a bigger sports-revenue pie through collaboration.

Also, there’s scope for enhanced process innovation within professional sports. Instead of always launching new franchises, why not encourage Australia’s greatest sporting clubs to manage more codes and leverage their intellectual property and fan base. Again, it’s happening (some AFL/NRL clubs involved in netball, for example,) but too slowly.

Sadly, too much recent sports-code innovation revolves around new products or new ways to distribute content, via smartphones and other channels.

New products are far more glamorous than finding ways to cut costs, share resources or develop extra revenue streams. That is, until sporting markets become saturated, new and established products (which pay the bills) suffer.

And we end up like overseas markets that have soulless professional sport every night of the week, designed for sports-betting agencies, and few at the game watching or enjoying it.