Reds Rugby Reigns

48 hours ago and we were 10 minutes away from watching one of the most highly anticipated Super Rugby clashes in recent times. I have watched some great finals but this one took the cake! As an avid rugby supporter, this match was going to be a mouth watering affair - the 7 time champions, the Canterbury Crusaders, were appearing in their 10th final and they were up against the high flying Queensland Reds who have been playing some amazing rugby in the past few years, but have not featured in a match of this magnitude in ages.

Just to give you a bit of history - The Reds could not put together a single win against the Crusaders during the 2000 - 2009 period! Since then, the Crusaders have not beaten the Reds. Their last encounter, during the 2011 group stages, went down to the wire and thanks to Quade Cooper slotting a penalty in the final minute of the game the Reds took the victory 17-16.

What made this game even more worthwhile was what both franchises had to endure this season. It was not too long ago that the venue for the final, Suncorp Stadium, was flooded due to the Brisbane floods which occurred earlier in the year. The Crusaders had defied all odds in reaching the final. Their beloved Christchurch had the terrible earthquake at the start of the season and this rendered their home ground unplayable. As a result they have travelled over 130 000kms and have not played one home game this entire season. They soldiered on and every game they played their hearts out for the people of Christchurch.

Naturally, people were banking on the experience of the Crusaders to see them through with the win and this reflected in the volume of conversation in the build up to the final. On Friday there were 1.4 mentions for the Crusaders for every mention of the Reds. Volume of conversation was 896 mentions.

On Saturday afternoon, and since then, things have changed dramatically. The reason for this, for those of you that do not know, the Reds won the Super Rugby 2011 title. An unbelievable match which was separated by a spectacular 65 metre try from Reds scrumhalf Will Genia to close the game off with an 18 - 13 victory over the Crusaders. #WeAreRed. I was out of my seat, jumping for joy.

There were 2.2 mentions for the Reds for every mention of the Crusaders - losing team ran out of steam. Volume of conversation was 7,022 mentions - 97% of the conversation generating from Twitter.

Overall, the Super Rugby Final generated approximately 9000 mentions over the weekend. Majority of the conversation was generated from the biggest rugby playing nations: Australia (39%); South Africa (21%); United Kingdom (13%) and New Zealand (10%). Stats like these indicate that their is still a huge opportunity to grow the sport and one would think that events including North America, South America and Asia more would contribute towards that end.

The most encouraging statistic, apart from the Reds victory, is that over the past weekend the Super Rugby brand had a reach of 9.1 million people! That means that there were 9 million opportunities to see the Super Rugby brand. I read yesterday that viewership on broadcast media was roughly around 800,000 viewers... online media has a 9-time greater reach. The foreseeable trend here for sport's marketing is that it might need to refocus its advertising efforts onto social media and/or viral marketing campaigns. One also needs to consider how the sponsors can benefit from these major sporting events in the online sphere (feel free to suggest some solutions under our comments section).

It was a great start to the rugby season and without further ado we move onto the Tri Nations which kicks off on the 23rd of July when South Africa take on the Wallabies. I'll be writing on the events in the upcoming months so be sure to read your newsletter at the end of August.

GH