The Australian Sailor, Rogers: Super 12 dream team By Bret Harris February 18, 2002
HIGH-PROFILE rugby league recruits Wendell Sailor and Mat Rogers are poised to have as dramatic an impact off the field as they are on it in the Super 12 this year. Queensland Reds and NSW Waratahs have made significant investments in acquiring Sailor and Rogers on mega-contracts. But the high-priced league internationals have not been recruited just for their playing ability. The Sailor-Rogers effect will be felt just as strongly on the bottom line as it will be on the tryline. Queensland and NSW are banking on the pair to boost crowds and television ratings and attract sponsors. As they say in Queensland: "Dell (Wendell's nickname) sells." There was a glimpse of Sailor's appeal when he played for Queensland against NSW in the Centenary of Federation game at Ballymore last October. The QRU budgeted for a crowd of 12,000 but the game attracted 14,101 spectators because of the Wendell factor. "Wendell lifted the crowd in two ways," QRU marketing manager Grant O'Hara said. "The total number of bums on seats and the excitement and buzz in the crowd. There was an expectation that something special would happen. "It was a game that could have been nothing but it turned into a spectacle." The QRU has incorporated Sailor into its marketing campaign, "Enter The Reds Zone", which now reads "Wendell Enters The Reds Zone". "There's no doubt Wendell opens another market to us," O'Hara said. "Wendell has a unique following. Love him or hate him, he attracts attention." The Reds averaged a crowd of 17,900 at Ballymore last season, a 21 per cent increase in John Eales's farewell season. The team attracted a record 21,600 crowd for the game against the Highlanders but the Reds have never had a sell-out for a Super 12 game. However, the QRU is predicting a sell-out when the Reds host the Waratahs on May 5. "The bottom line in sports marketing is the team has to win," O'Hara said. "If the team wins and Wendell plays well, anything could happen." NSW does not have any plans to feature Rogers individually in their "Rugby, Anything Can Happen" marketing campaign, but they will actively promote Rogers in the Cronulla-Sutherland district of Sydney in an effort to attract supporters of his former club the Sharks to the Waratahs. The conversion of Sailor and Rogers also has the potential to make Super 12 a more marketable television product. Fox Sports general manager of television Saul Shtein said Sailor and Rogers had the capacity to attract a new audience to Super 12 and greater advertising revenue for the pay-TV station. "The opportunity is there for both of them to expand the audience," Shtein said. "People who would not normally watch a game of Super 12 will be interested in seeing how they go. That's why it is critical in the first couple of games that they do perform because audiences are fickle." The impact of Sailor and Rogers will also be monitored closely by the teams' naming-rights sponsors, Bank Of Queensland and HSBC Bank. HSBC head of corporate affairs Colin Neathercote said the recruitment of Rogers added value to the merchant bank's sponsorship of the Waratahs. The recruitment of league players also has the potential to affect the unique culture of rugby union, which has only been a professional sport for seven years. The ARU is conducting research to identify the core values of union, which it wants to maintain in the face of change brought about by professionalism. "We think the likely characteristics which will differentiate rugby union will be things like integrity and the pureness of the team approach," NSW marketing manager Geoff Parmenter said. "A sense of team ahead of the individual. "We are interested in how both the commercialisation and professionalism of the game and the addition of some players from other codes may or may not impact on that." http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,5744,3794536%255E27 22,00.html --------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] --------------------------------------------------------------------- RecOzNet2 has a page @ http://www.green.net.au/recoznet2 and is archived at http://www.mail-archive.com/recoznet2%40paradigm4.com.au/ until 11 March, 2001 and Recoznettwo is archived at http://www.mail-archive.com/recoznettwo%40green.net.au/ from that date. This posting is provided to the individual members of this group without permission from the copyright owner for purposes of criticism, comment, scholarship and research under the "fair use" provisions of the Federal copyright laws and it may not be distributed further without permission of the copyright owner, except for "fair use."
