Aussie Pro Rugby
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@mariner4life lol, when I am also not playing hooker
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@bayimports said in Aussie Rugby:
@mariner4life lol, when I am also not playing hooker
Or missing tackles. He was ordinary on Saturday. Particularly compared to bled 1
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Aussie union and football struggles re: crowd numbers -
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@Daffy-Jaffy wonder why no 2022 figures, wonder if they kept that small upward trajectory
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NZ average attendances wouldn't be 25k would they, so around 2006 things were looking really good
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@Kiwiwomble said in Aussie Rugby:
@Daffy-Jaffy wonder why no 2022 figures, wonder if they kept that small upward trajectory
Tahs had average crowds of 5k in 2021 and averaged 12k for their last three matches in 2022. Interestingly, considering how the ARU seemingly do a go it alone press piece every month, the Tahs biggest crowds were against NZ teams.
Also, it's rather difficult trying to find a comprehensive list of crowd numbers.
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4:00PM NOVEMBER 9, 2022
A group of sports investors including Wallabies star Bernard Foley are backing a “rugby on water” series kicking off this week, ahead of a capital raising that will target private equity to expand the event around Australia and overseas.Aqua Rugby, invented by ex-Cricket Australia administrator and music event promoter Jimmy Galvin with his mate Foley over a pub meal, launches beachside at Sydney’s Manly on Thursday.
The event, which Mr Galvin describes as “Hong Kong Sevens meets the Monaco Grand Prix”, features three days of rugby matches with five players on each side on a 30m x 30m pontoon moored on the harbour, with players scoring tries by diving into the water and also getting crash-tackled off the side of the pontoon.
Event organisers are expecting a crowd of about 6000 people to line the foreshore on the weekend to watch the event, with corporate hospitality taking place on superyachts that will anchor near the pontoon.
Aqua Rugby has also attracted funding from the NSW government and sponsors such as Buildcorp, 4 Pines Brewing, Ingenia Holiday Parks and Raydel.
Aqua Rugby chairman Shane Anderton and Jimmy Galvin co-founder describe it as “Hong Kong Sevens meets the Monaco Grand Prix”.
Mr Galvin, who still has his own festival production company, said Aqua Rugby should not necessarily be regarded as “a novelty” despite its uniqueness and combination of sport and entertainment. He said spectators should expect action on the pitch.
“There will be plenty of competitiveness. We encourage the players to come up with tactics and tap moves. It is a professional set-up, with marquees on shore, doctors on the actual pitch itself and lifeguards on every corner. They will be full-blown games.”
Mr Galvin says he and Mr Foley, who will miss the weekend’s festivities given he will be playing for the Wallabies, dreamt up Aqua Rugby “to showcase rugby in a brand new, modern format and bring colour, fun and entertainment back to the game,” which has been criticised for being difficult to follow and giving referees too much influence.
Shane Anderton, a partner at Sydney law firm Deutsch Miller who has invested in Aqua Rugby and chairs its board, said the event’s attractiveness as a “sub genre” of an existing traditional sport was a big appeal for him and other prospective investors.
“Rather than this being an annual or biannual event, I said to the guys we’ve got the potential to create an entirely new subgenre of the sport of (rugby) union. We’re seeing that being a well trodden path with sports like (Ultimate Fighting Championship) and shorter forms of cricket and obviously with union, the current sevens format,” Mr Anderton said.
The next step for Aqua Rugby, said Mr Anderton, was to undertake a capital raise of at least $2m in the first quarter of 2023, with likely investors being family offices or investors in sporting start-ups with the potential for private equity involvement in the future.
“The main driver for (the raising) will be expansion. The first region for us will be Western Australia, and we are currently in discussions with Rugby WA at the moment. Then a very natural next step is across the ditch to New Zealand … probably somewhere in the Auckland region,” he said.
“Beyond that we think Singapore would be good, and we’ve been in discussions there, and then the US. We think there will be strong interest in the US, and we see a blueprint or may we can follow. There’s the Rugby World Cup in Australia (in 2017) and then the US (in 2031) and then we can create something of a South-East Asian tour.”
JOHN STENSHOLTEDITOR, THE LIST
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the one thing rugby in aus definitely needs is further diluting of the product
new people cant tell the difference between league and union let alone 7's....lets give them another one
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@voodoo said in Aussie Rugby:
invented by ... music event promoter Jimmy Galvin with his mate [Bernard] Foley over a pub meal, ....
Says it all.
Drunken pub conversation, unfortunately between 2 people who possibly have the wherewithal to stupidly carry through with it.
