Why the World12s is behind the game from the start

From the word franchise to an old bloke holding a ball to asking ten fans to give their opinion, the launch of the World12s was a shocker, with one glaring omission: data.

As with most things in rugby, many of us first heard of it via Twitter – shout out to Neil Fissler, for this – but if you’re going to leak something, then make it an informed leak. But the problem was there doesn’t seem to be much that’s ‘informed’ about the whole project. Yes, they’ve got some good rugby minds behind them, few can doubt the rugby credentials of Jack White, Gareth Davies, Ian Ritchie, Steve Tew and Steve Hansen, but do they really know about what the existing or prospect audience wants? Do they know what the next generation of fans want? 

When you launch something like this, the idea is to have done all your research first, not put together a fan forum of ten randoms as a way of ‘helping them shape the tournament’. That they’re going to be picked from ‘the World 12s database’, is also worrying. Who’s signed up to this list other than a bunch of journalists and other dyed-in-the-wool rugby fans looking to pick it apart? Why would you want them to shape the tournament. 

Surely, you should do the research first? Canvas X% of the prospect market, which is probably none of the above. They’re younger, they’re not on Twitter, and they may not even be watching rugby at all – that’s kind of the problem here. 

Look at the Six Nations audience – the biggest there is – and ask those fans [and their kids]: ‘why do most of you not watch rugby any other time?’ ‘is it because the games are too long?’ ‘are there three too many players?’ ‘are there any circumstances in which you’d want to watch more rugby?’

Then, armed with the data, that ultimately concludes that 80% of rugby’s potential audience thinks the game is too long, too heavy in playing numbers etc, you then have the basis for a new product. 

Of course, the biggest pull of our big-ticket events – Six Nations, Rugby World Cup, Olympic 7s – is national rivalry, something RugbyX, for all its faults, understood. 

It’s also something else to add to that survey: ‘would you bother watching the Six Nations if it didn’t give your country the chance to beat the leaving daylights out of England/Scotland/Ireland/Wales/Italy/France [delete as appropriate].

Obviously World12s is outside the realms of the governing bodies, so a national-side based is a no-go. Next best thing would be clubs/regions, but a lack of affiliation with the existing ones [plus their focus being on not getting further into debt themselves while also trying to grow their women’s sides] makes that a no-goer. 

So, instead they tell us, with excitement, there’s going to be FRANCHISES. Nothing chills the blood quicker to rugby fans than this. Again, I don’t hate the idea of clubs having monikers – see the piece on Bristol Bears from a while back – as I totally get that globally some of our rugby town names mean nothing. We all loved the Bulls as kids, despite not being able to place Chicago on a map.

But, launching with only the promise of ‘franchises’, to the only existing rugby audience there is, is only setting yourself up for a fall. The people that might like the idea, aren’t listening yet, and even if they were, you need to give them some names and colours to work with. “Yeah, sure, I love dolphins, I can get behind them, and look they’re purple too, my favourite colour.” 

Instead, what they’ve put forward is going be dissected and destroyed by people you’re not even aiming at before it gets going. Which could be their gameplan, but seems a risky one.

Show me the data
Data-driven is so commonplace now, it’s actually almost too obvious to write [although I’m sure we have somewhere on sportingeric.com], but everything that’s going to succeed in the commercial world, needs to be data-driven. Yet World12s offers nothing but opinion, which is great, but you need more.

World12s could have done all of the above and just not told us, and if that’s the case, brilliant. Show us the figures. Don’t just show us a concept that seems a variant of other concepts we’ve seen before [with mixed success] – I’m not even going to play the numbers game here, but we can all count up to 15 and work out which numbers have been played before, and which haven’t.

Comparisons with The Hundred and 20/20 are pointless. Rugby fans aren’t being curmudgeonly here, they love watching the glitz of the global 7s – watch your country play in just 14 minutes – but our full game is just 80 minues, and cricket has had to respond to a game which lasts longer than an average family holiday (but without the ice creams, and often without fun or laughter), and then cut it back to one-days, to 20/20 [three hours] and then the hundred [150 minutes], adding colour, excitement and gimmicks all the way. 

We’ve got the sevens, which again, people will say the tournaments last longer, but this is the world of on-demand. We can all just watch our nation’s games when we want, or even just the highlights, so it can get eyeballs [check Tom Mitchell’s piece on this here].  

More than just a good idea
World12s feels like a random idea, like the idea some bloke with contacts has had, shared with a mate who has money, who knows some rugby people, who knows someone who can do a website and maybe a video, and been thrown out there to be tore apart by the waiting Twitter wolves. They may have worked out the rules, but that’s the least of the problems for a new commercial venture. And, they may have found someone with very deep pockets, but as we all know, anonymous money doners don’t always work out well.

And for it to work well, we go back to data, audience and marketing. You can’t attract an audience when you don’t know who or where they are [or if they’re even there], you can’t attract an audience with a cool, exciting, brand based upon the face of a 67-year-old and a complete absence of players; you can’t get people to believe you’re authentic with a motion graphic video with generic graphics stating there’s going to be loadsa cash and, like, the biggest names ever – it sounds and feels like spam.

But if you do ignore all the advice and still do it, then tell the right people, tell the actual audience you’re aiming for. Shout to the 18-year-olds from Cape Town or Cardiff on the channels they populate, ‘hey, we’ve got the perfect rugby tournament for you, this is what it is...’ but don’t do it on Twitter, otherwise you’re just going to get, well, what you got this week really.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not against the idea of 12-a-side, it could be great, I just wish people with great ideas would consider the importance of their audience, because for something to be successful, having a great idea isn’t enough.