Wallabies chase brand bounce with Lions tour

Rugby Australia and the Wallabies are banking on the British & Irish Lions Tour to boost revenues and reengage fans in the lead-up to the 2027 Rugby World Cup.

Rugby Australia CEO Phil Waugh photo: Tim Hunter

The British & Irish Lions Tour is a critical moment for the future growth of Rugby Australia and the Wallabies brands, according to Rugby Australia chief executive Phil Waugh.

The international tour, which kicked off on Saturday in Perth with the first of nine games across six cities, is predicted to inject upwards of $400m into local economies and provide a well-needed boost in fan engagement in the lead-up to the 2027 and 2029 Rugby World Cups in Australia.

The tour, which is delivering an influx of between 30,000 – 40,000 travelling fans from the UK, is forecast to “break all attendance records for a Lions series” with more than 500,000 ticket sales across the nine games.

It comes at a crucial time for the sport in Australia as it struggles with declining participation rates at junior levels and increasingly disenfranchised fans, as it loses out to competing codes, such as rugby league and Australian rules football.

However, the code’s woes are not unique to Australia with rugby facing challenges in a number of core markets such as New Zealand and the UK as injury risks and competing sports impact engagement.

“The beauty of this tour is that the whole world is watching,” said Mr Waugh.

“Not only are we capturing Australian audiences and some that may have been a little bit disenfranchised by rugby over the last period of time, but also other sports supporters that have a preference of a different code. This will capture those people and so the performance then, on the back of those opportunities, is critical. It will have the whole of the northern hemisphere watching what happens in our market.

“For us to perform on the field with as many people watching it as there will be allows us to elevate our own brand, individual player brands, but equally the attractiveness for other commercial brands that want to partner with Rugby Australia.

“We can’t underestimate the opportunity that we have in front of us over the next six weeks,” he said.

The tour is the first big moment for Rugby Australia and the Wallabies since the significant brand fallout from the 2023 Rugby World Cup, where the Wallabies failed to make the group stage of the tournament.

The aftermath of that event, which included the departures of Wallabies coach Eddie Jones and Rugby Australia chair Hamish McLennan, has not helped the brand’s existing challenges.

The Wallabies were ranked the seventh most valuable rugby brand at $149m in 2023, according to Brand Finance. However the team’s brand strength index (BSI) score has dropped to 73 out of 100, an eight point fall since 2019 and the biggest of all top 10 national rugby teams. New Zealand’s All Blacks remain the most valuable at NZ$452m ($418m) and a BSI score of 88.9.

“We obviously had a fair bit of brand damage on the back of the Rugby World Cup in 2023, and over the last 18 months we have done a lot to rebuild trust, and not just among our stakeholders within rugby, it was also rebuilding trust externally with the Australian public,” Mr Waugh said.

However, despite the work of Rugby Australia the most significant driver of brand health remains the team’s on-field performance, according to Brand Finance Australia managing director Mark Crowe.

“The Wallabies brand is certainly under significant pressure and when it comes to sporting brands. The best marketing plan is winning,” Mr Crowe said.

“The brand has weakened, it is not as strong commercially and that is having a detrimental impact on revenues and therefore the ability to invest in the Wallabies brand and the game itself. The ongoing benefit from the Lions tour will be heavily reliant on the Wallabies putting on a good show.”

The Wallabies brand would also benefit from the emergence of star players that could help attract and galvanise support for the team and the game, said Mr Crowe. “Star player power is extremely important because when it comes to digital content and social media it is the individual players who have far higher followings than the teams they play for.”

Mr Waugh agrees. “We need to be winning, we need to be performing, we need to be successful and we need to be world leading,” he said.

“When we go back to some of the most well known names within rugby over the last three decades, it was those names that were successful and world-leading within their position.

“ So, while you can build brands individually, ultimately, they’ll come back to how dominant that individual is in their specific field. A lot of what we need to do is set the team up for success, set individuals up for success and then elevate those (player) brands.

“We need to set up the structure so that we put ourselves in the best possible position to win and win frequently and have individuals that individually attract spectators and supporters of the game.”

However, Mr Crowe suggests the difficulty for rugby in Australia and its ability to attract commercial sponsors is its lack of year round content.

“The NRL and AFL can offer up to 40 weeks per year of content on a regular basis, which makes the brand assets very lucrative. Whereas, the Wallabies, at best, are playing 13 - 15 times per year, with no ongoing consistency, which makes it a lot harder to leverage than the other sports.”

Despite this, Mr Waugh is confident that on-field success for the Wallabies during the Lions tour, along with family-friendly game schedules and improving education around the rules, will help rugby overcome its challenges.

“We’re very conscious that in a lot of ways for World Rugby, we are the canary in the coal mine because of the competitive nature we have with rugby league and AFL in our market.”