World Rugby’s Chokehold on Social Media is Killing the Game
In the era of viral videos and TikTok trends, World Rugby is minimising its promotion of and engagement in the 2023 Rugby World Cup and it could be killing the game from the inside out.
Before the competition began, World Rugby announced that it would be prohibiting the use of match footage from the Rugby World Cup on all social media. However, this is incredibly shortsighted. Instead, World Rugby should be looking to capitalise on the free promotion that social media generates.
World Rugby has been taking down clips posted by official broadcasters and even participating teams. It has stunted analysis on the competition with many YouTubers and social media stars unable to post their usual deep dives into matches, which only encourages more discussion and interest within the sport. This is especially bad when you consider the lack of coverage from World Rugby themselves.
World Rugby has not been releasing sufficient highlights on easy to access sites (such as YouTube) and instead are only posting extended highlights to RugbyPass TV (their own newly created app). Although it is free, to access the videos, people must create an account: another hurdle for the casual fan to jump over, which will put off many.
World Rugby’s main priority should be getting eyes on the matches, any way possible and social media is free publicity!
Last week Fiji defeated Australia for the first time since 1954, a monumental moment in rugby. Yet, the Fijian rugby union X account (formerly Twitter) posted no clips from the match, due to the ban: there were a few post-game player reaction videos, a couple of team photos and one post with the final score.
The only clip of the game on their feed was the try by Josua Tuisova, which it could only show by retweeting World Rugby to get around the ban. This historic moment deserved so much more coverage than it received; social media should have been flooded with clips.
Similarly, on Saturday 30 September, both World Rugby’s Facebook, which has by far their largest social media following (over 4 million), and X accounts posted videos of only 8 tries and one penalty from the three fixtures; for reference, there were 22 tries and 5 penalties on the day. Therefore only about one third of the tries on the day were shared, not to mention any amazing offloads or big hits, which are likely to be more interesting to a casual fan than a rolling maul from five metres out.
In an article for The i, Kevin Garside said: “The requirement of the RWC is not to police content creators out of existence but to balance the protection of copyright with the need for the kind of aggregated, inclusive, impactful engagement that grows the audience.”
I could not agree more with Garside. The benefit gained from promotion of the tournament due to expert analysis or from debates over controversial moments, significantly outweigh the minor loss of advert revenue from a few extra clips of the matches circulating the internet.
I swear World Rugby is desperate nobody know this tournament is on. Here in France, there is still no way to watch highlights of the Wales game last night. Not on YouTube (WR or host broadcaster), no clips on social media, not even on their RugbyPass TV. It's legitimately insane.
— Squidge Rugby (@SquidgeRugby) September 25, 2023
In addition to these restrictions, the Telegraph has reported that the Rugby World Cup may move behind a paywall for the 2027 tournament. Rugby YouTuber Squidge Rugby, like many others, took to X to attack World Rugby.
“World Rugby seem desperate to make sure nobody watches rugby by 2030.
“This RWC has been atrociously marketed in the UK. Most of the country doesn’t know it’s happening unless they stumble across it on primetime ITV. The next World Cup is in a different time zone, meaning 6am kick-offs, and could be behind a paywall. They’ll be lucky if 30% tune in.
“The sport is shrinking at such an alarming rate and where before it felt like World Rugby was asleep at the wheel, now it feels like they’re deliberately driving the game into oncoming traffic so they can claim on the insurance and sell it off for scrap.”
This is a significant junction for rugby union and how it is dealt with will affect the future of the sport more than we realise. The cracks are already starting to form, with four English professional teams folding in the last year. The biggest advantage rugby has over other sports in the UK is that, one of the biggest international sporting competitions, the Six Nations, is on free-to-air TV, every year. It is a brilliant advert for the game and, most importantly, is easily accessible.
The idea that World Rugby can create more (long-term) funding by hiding matches and clips behind a paywall and through advert revenue is flawed. This myopic thinking will continue to shrink the sport and could cause the death of rugby.
