How do you sponsor every rugby club?

Sponsorship is one of the most talked about issues when in both amateur and professional sports. Amateur rugby is no different. Watch any game and you’ll see a range of logos on most jerseys and shorts. Typically there’s at least one local bar, an alcohol brand and a couple of builders or trades-people. That’s the standard formula but there are obviously many variations.

Sponsorship $ usually come from the club members and the old boys who have long since hung up the boots. Its an archaic system. Clubs find it difficult (if not impossible) to quantify the ROI of these investments and so the situation is really that sponsors are giving up cash for little to no material benefit. Yet they do it anyway, because they’re great people who care about the game, the players and the organization.

But is this sustainable? We don’t think so. If you’re an established club, with a proud history and a constant influx of new members, it can definitely work. In rural Australia (Kiama Cows) and metropolitan Canada (Vancouver Rowing Club) I witnessed this. These clubs are able to attract members year in and year out because of the dedication of their stalwarts, prime real estate and loyal old boys. Most other clubs are not so lucky. 

Economics of Amateur Rugby

I have been involved with 5 amateur rugby clubs in 3 countries during my playing career. Aside from minor differences in history, culture and administration, they’re remarkably similar organizations. Having spent 2 years as both a player and board member in my current club, I’ve come to realize that rugby club boards spend an inordinate amount of time organizing finances. Money is both the root of all evil and the life blood of every amateur rugby organization.

Costs range from insurance to coaching and gear to referees. These costs are seldom fixed and major financial issues can arise at any moment. As with any relationship, money comes between club members, causes conflicts and fosters resentment. In the USA, club, college and high-school teams need to travel extensively to play games which puts a further strain on the purse strings. Without a constant, predictable flow of revenue, clubs die.

Time Poor, Cash Poor

Operating revenue isn’t the only challenge. Most clubs are also under-staffed at an administrative level. This happens because the majority of tasks at the club are performed by volunteers who can only donate the time they have available outside of work. The result is that responsibilities are constantly being filtered into the hands of a very few dedicated members who are being stretched thin to cover them. There’s no money to pay professionals and there’s no time to do everything, so important tasks slip through the cracks.

Some Solutions

I get fund-raising emails about 3 times a week with hair-brained ways for our club to raise money. But there’s always a catch and its usually that our players need to spend time handing out flyers and coupons or selling sub-par merchandise to their friends and colleagues. Either that or the board needs to outlay thousands of $ for some pyramid-like scheme whose payoff isn’t worth the risk. None of these makes sense. Rugby players, especially the younger ones who have yet to become immersed in the culture of club rugby don’t want to do this shit. Sometimes you can get them to collect parking $, but even that’s tough.

And can you blame them? Try telling a star college Football player to come try rugby and the first thing you do is give him a Square and 30 singles and tell him to stand by a gate. It’s not glamorous and it doesn’t give him or her the incentive to keep going with the game. Players are happy to support their clubs passively. But Gen-Yers like myself believe ourselves to be time-poor because we’re disorganized. Having your board tell you where to be and what to do is like gaining a new set of parents. It makes us recoil and run.