College rugby, the equivalent of high school rugby in the UK, is big in New Zealand. So much so that Sky TV broadcasts matches live through Sky’s Rugby Channel (a subscription only channel which is available for $100 p.a. on top of the standard sports package cost o of $300 p.a.) 

I’d mentioned to Russell at Sports Media Services that I thought Wales was ripe for an equivalent programme and to support him in his conversations on the subject with the WRU I’d offered to research the subject.

New Zealand being New Zealand the only course of action was to phone Marty Crowe the ex-Black Caps captain, 1985 Wisden’s cricketer of the year and cousin of Russell Crowe who happens to be Executive Producer for Sky’s Rugby Channel and he’d happily agreed to meet-up with me for a chat without a second thought.

So I popped over to the Sky NZ offices to meet-up with him today. After making me a nice cup of tea he explained that this is the second season of 1^st XV Rugby (College Rugby) TV programming. The programming takes advantage of the existing regional competitions which culminate in national semi-finals and finals. Last season 22 fixtures were televised along with preview pieces filmed for the Wednesday evening Rugby Centre programme.

Marty explained that programming had driven about $2.5M p.a. additional revenue for Sky through growth in the Rugby Channel subscriber base and, with a cost to televise games of typically between £25K and £35K depending on the location, this had generated significant margin. In Marty’s view the product is successful because it not just about the match coverage but because a significant portion of the programming is given over to profiling the school, its traditions, history, former players, school hakas etc etc.

It was great to meet Marty and share a cup of tea with him and talk in detail about how College Rugby works. It all re-enforces my view that the model will work well in Wales and could be particularly lucrative in England (with the public school rugby background and the attractive associated advertising segments). I write up my notes and pass them to Russell.

Postscript: College rugby was introduced to Wales by Sports Media Service in partnership with the Welsh Rugby Union and S4C in 2013 (I think) and there is talk of Sky producing a product for the English market.

Further postscript: Marty Crowe was diagnosed with lymphoma the following year but was declared cancer-free in 2013. However, the disease returned in 2014 and eventually led to his death in March 2016. Tribute from Guardian here. Even heroes are vulnerable, very sad.