Analyst Speak: Split between rugby union and league fans is mirrored online

3 September 2009

Since the sport’s creation more than a century ago, there has been a divide between rugby league and rugby union along lines of class and community. How do the online profiles of these two sets of supporters compare?

The first thing to realise about the online rugby community is that it’s split along the same lines as the sport itself. BBC Sport has two distinct rugby pages: one for league, one for union. In July 2009 the league section of the site attracted 171,000 fans, compared with the 559,000 fans who visited the union section. This discrepancy isn’t entirely surprising given the British Lions tour was that month.

Perhaps more surprisingly, visitors to the union section of the BBC Sport site in July were much more affluent, with 57% coming from the £50,000+ household income bracket, compared with just 45% of the league audience. While 17% of union fans came from the upper-middle class social grade, only 5% of the rugby league audience were in this bracket. Conversely, lower-middle class visitors contributed 37% of league traffic but only 27% for union.

More notable was the geographical discrepancy between these two sets. While 29% of all visitors to the BBC’s rugby union pages in July came from London, only 11% of its league contingent lived there. In the North the results are reversed. The rugby league section attracted 26% of its audience from Yorkshire, 24% from the North West, and 17% from the North East. For union, only 8% came from Yorkshire, 11% from the North West and a mere 0.5% from the North East.

It’s a stark reminder that even in our converging digital media world, such age-old divisions in class and geography can still exist. The science of online measurement provides some of the most sophisticated tools for our understanding of human behaviour. But as marketers, content providers and measurement bodies get to grips with this technology, we must not lose sight of the people we’re all ultimately trying to reach.

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