Currie Cup set to return to top-class importance, but do CSA care a bit for their fans?

Rugby is a much-changed landscape from a year ago and one of the most positive aspects of this new age for South African rugby is that the Currie Cup looks set to return to being the top-class competition it once was.

By signing a naming rights sponsor like Carling Black Label, SA Rugby are pretty much ensuring that the oldest provincial competition in the sport, and surely one of the most-loved, is returned to the fans, such is the reputation of the biggest-selling beer brand in the country. Carling Black Label has a history of really focusing on fan participation, they are extremely innovative in that space and they are a brand of the people.

“We want to make the Currie Cup more accessible, more democratic in a way. Take the Eastern Cape for example, to be able to give rugby back to that region excites me and if ever there was a time to grow the game in that area then it is now. We want to give a voice to the fans, we want to bring them on board,” brand director Arne Rust told me at the launch of their sponsorship this week at Melrose Arch.

“Our dream is to explode the Currie Cup back into the forefront, back to its rightful place – it should be the premier provincial tournament in the world. How do we do local rugby in a new way? We’re not just there to put our brand up, we want to acknowledge the fans and bring their passion to the game. We want to bring the Currie Cup to life and closer to the fans.”

The Currie Cup is a prime property in SA Rugby’s stable, probably second only in value to the Springboks, so it is great that the disentanglement from Super Rugby and the move to Europe has allowed for some much-needed attention to be paid to the competition.

Where SA Rugby and SA Breweries are getting it right is in realising that the customer is their primary stakeholder and in rugby’s case, their customer is ultimately the fan, whether watching on TV or (hopefully one day soon) at the ground.

Unfortunately, as has so often been the case recently, Cricket South Africa are being shown up badly by their counterparts in the sports business.

This week saw the much-anticipated return-to-play, after an eight-month Covid-enforced break, of the country’s leading cricketers as the Four-Day Franchise Series kicked off the new season. But this momentous occasion may as well have happened in a black hole, such was the lack of fanfare from CSA.

Firstly, no spectators were allowed, which is possibly a decision that is out of their hands due to Covid safety measures. But it does seem ridiculous considering people can mix and misbehave in shopping centres, pubs and clubs quite legally, while a cricket field situated in the great outdoors with plenty of space for social distancing in the stands or on the grass banks is illegal.

But where CSA really dropped the ball was in ensuring the public who wanted to follow the games could keep track of what was happening. Unlike most other Test-playing nations, there is no live-streaming option for our four-day cricket, which is a story all in itself.

But even trying to find the location of live scores for the matches was almost a mission impossible. That’s because CSA, in their wisdom, have sold the rights to all their match data, including the scores, to the overseas company Opta.

The idea was that other outlets would then buy the scores from Opta, but competitively it has been a disaster with just about nobody willing to do that. Unsurprisingly, because shouldn’t scores be in the public domain anyway? You would think CSA would want as much publicity for the game as possible …

But like the company that priced itself out of its market and went bankrupt, CSA, who need as many supporters as they can get given how poor their image is, once again sent the message that they actually don’t care about their fans. “You’re interested in the cricket, well we’ve made it as hard as possible for you to follow it,” seems to be their attitude.

It was heartening, however, that in their first meeting, the new interim board made a point of noting this unsatisfactory situation and they have tasked Judith February, who is well-versed in the media, to investigate the capacity and competency in CSA to deal with their stakeholders.

Ken Borland.

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