ON WEDNESDAY night 21,500 people turned up to King’s Park, Durban to watch an emasculated Sharks team receive a 39-3 hammering from the British and Irish Lions. The home side were missing nine first-choice players, seven of whom are in camp with the Springboks, while the other two are injured.
The most salient issue arising from the match was not a fourth victory for the tourists, the final scoreline or anything to do with specific game statistics but the paltry attendance. The South African public is refusing to embrace the Lions tour in any significant numbers.
The principal reason is the ticket prices. Leaving aside corporate interests, the price of admission for the Lions’ matches against the provincial sides falls into two categories. To attend the games that take place on the Wednesdays – the match against the Southern Kings in Port Elizabeth next Tuesday falls under the same ambit – a supporter must part with 235ZAR (roughly €21.50).
The weekend matches are slightly more expensive at 285ZAR (€26). There is no differentiation price wise in terms of the seating: the best or the worst tickets have the same value and it is a lottery as to where the supporter will find himself in the stand.
Rugby fans in the Northern Hemisphere might not balk at these prices given that to attend a Six Nations match at Croke Park might cost €110 or a more accurate comparison would be with the provincial sides in the Heineken Cup where the average ticket price would be comparable at €25-€30.
Average salaries would be considerably lower in South Africa so to attend these matches is a significant costing, especially for families. It’s instructive to note that the average ticket price across the South African franchises for a Super 14 game is 110ZAR (€10) and a Currie Cup match 55ZAR (€5). The South African rugby public aren’t enamoured with the appreciable hike in ticket prices for the Lions’ matches.
Just over 12,000 supporters attended the tourists’ opening game against the Royal XV in Rustenburg, a generous guesstimate when appraised with the eye. The following Wednesday 22,000 braved Ellis Park at night and last Saturday in Bloemfontein for the Cheetahs’ match produced a tour high attendance figure to date of 23,000. There were 21,500 in King’s Park for the Sharks match and at least a couple of thousand would have been supporting the visiting team.
Before each fixture the local spin and hype has suggested that the games will be well attended, based on advance tickets sales, plucked on the evidence of the actual attendances, from the realms of wishful thinking. Half empty stadia is perhaps a realistic appraisal of what a Lions tour and the Lions brand means to South Africans.
Twelve years ago in 1997 the tourists did not play to full stadia in the pre-Test series against South Africa but the attendance figures were healthier in comparison to the current tour, according to one South African journalist.
It is not entirely a financial issue. The Rustenburg match was competing with a Super 14 final down the road in Pretoria, with the Bulls competing and the town itself has no real rugby connections. It simply had a spanking new stadium that will be used for the soccer World Cup.
The attraction of turning up at Ellis Park after dark on a midweek night is minuscule given the area and the lack of public transportation. The poor attendance at King’s Park might be partially explained by the fact the first Test between the Lions and Springboks takes place there, 10 days later. It is though mitigation rather than an explanation and the evidence remains damning.
The respective supporters of the Golden Lions, Free State Cheetahs and Sharks won’t pay inflated prices to watch their franchise shorn of their Springboks. There is no appeal; Lions or no Lions. The South African Rugby Union (SARFU) badly misjudged their pricing policy and a desire to generate easy revenue has been scuppered by a vast reduction in the numbers that were suggested would travel from Ireland and Britain.
The lack of support from the rugby-paying public is even more worrying for South African rugby’s governing body in that the Lions tour here once every 12 years. That exclusivity in terms of time span should generate interest but it patently hasn’t. It is also a worrying development for the tourists and there may be the very real prospect that future tours will get shorter and shorter because the supporters in the host country don’t have the appetite for the provincial preamble.
The upcoming three-Test series isn’t impervious to the reluctance of ’Bok supporters to stump up the cash. There are still tickets available for all three matches in Pretora, Durban and Johannesburg: at 1,170ZAR (€160) for a ticket it’s not difficult to discern why the games have as yet not sold out. If those matches don’t attract capacity crowds then there is a very clear message being sent that the days of the great Lions tours are long gone but that the abbreviated variety is also threatened by what it has become.
The revenue generated by television deals and sponsors like Castle guarantee that the tour will generate income for SARFU but the South African people have indicated that “franchise-lite” midweek matches hold minimal attraction, even once every 12 years. The Lions no longer appear king.
