Being around Rugby for those years made me appreciate its finer aspects of the game that many a man would be able to converse over. However over the past few years and especially this year I have become absolutely sick of the amount of games on TV and the over-saturation that makes me just change the channel when a rugby match comes on (excluding All Blacks games).
It discourages fans to watch games when so many corporates put their plug in the broadcasting, they end up just wanting to watch the game and not all the frills that come along with it.
What is more annoying is that in the past decade, the "Super 12" has gained three more teams- to become the "Super 15". The Western Force (Perth), Cheetahs (South Africa) and the Rebels (Melbourne) have joined into the comp, I assume that the best way to describe their entrance in the competition as a money-grabbing ploy.
They do not benefit the game (apart from the Force who have improved in the past years and the Rebels winning the occasional game). It creates a corporate machine that just makes the entire competition about regimented televised games, so many games so that the crowds just stay at home and watch it on TV because a live rugby match is not as celebrated as it has been in years gone by.
This being World Cup year, it also adds in the circus that comes along with any world cup. Teams are talked about every day in the media, sometimes even over much more important happenings from other sporting codes.
If you say something once, it may get attention.
But if you say something 1000 times, it gets monotonous and boring.
This is exactly what Rugby has become in the modern day. We need to forget all the circus acts and get back to the game, maybe then more would be interested in it and a younger generation will come to respect them more instead of the calibers of sponsorships they have.
