I just recently started my internship with Sporting News Australia, which got me involved in writing about rugby league in Australia, and with State of Origin coming up, it became my first task.
Game 1 of the Women's Origin opened Magic Round, so I felt honoured to write about the game and the players. And then I went to see one of the games with a friend, which was the moment I started writing down questions so that I could look for answers after I got home. I didn’t go there to write this article but ended up being given an opportunity to do so.
Game 2 of Women’s State of Origin was a “do or die” for both teams. For Queensland, losing the game would mean losing the series, while for New South Wales, a loss would mean falling into last year’s pattern, where they won Game 1 before dropping the next two. So the event meant everything to every person on the field.
The Crowd
One would think this kind of situation would incentivise the media to write more about the game to promote the event, therefore attracting fans to the stadium, but it either didn’t work, or not enough was done.
Comparing the number of Game 1 spectators in Brisbane this year, which was a little over 26,000 people, Allianz Stadium in Sydney only brought a little over 16,000 people to the seats for Game 2. A 10,000 difference – with Brisbane’s population half the size of Sydney’s.
Additionally, Sydney is home to eight NRL teams and hosts major events like the State of Origin and the NRL Grand Final. It’s reasonable to infer that NRL betting participation in Sydney is at least on par with, if not higher than, the national average. Obviously, there are people interested in rugby league – so what made them miss the game?
Organisation and Vibes
Something else was missing, and it was not just bums in seats. The attending fans were actually pretty pumped, and not only reacted to every cue from the people holding the mic behind the speakers, but were also loud and emotional throughout the game, just everyone in their own small groups. It’s the cues that were rarely given.
It’s a full-time job to organise a crowd and bring the energy to the technicolour world on the sidelines, but it needs to be done. Especially when it comes to different ages and backgrounds – some of the people watching the game were only just getting familiar with rugby league and the way things happen on the field, including me. When you’re in that situation, you need support to get you hooked onto the game, otherwise you get lost in the rules and people’s faces around you.
There were just two or three times when a person motivated the fans to scream “New South Wales!” during the game. That’s all. Very formal, to my taste.
Weather
Despite the weather not being in its best mood, it only added to the game. The girls on the field were laser-focused on their goals, and they made the most out of the turf being slippery by sliding on it both for the sake of the game and for fun after the fabulous win (or loss, depending from where you’re reading this).
But what does that have to do with the energy at the stadium? When you’re either learning about the game or came there to support a team, you don’t care if your hair is wet. Also, we see it happen all the time – most of the big stadiums don’t have a roof, so that makes it part of the game.
Should More Be Done to Market the Game?
That is the question I left the stadium with. Even though the game was tough, and emotional, and many more things, a relatively small crowd saw the real thing offline.
We saw plenty of marketing materials promoting Game 1. There were many factors contributing to that, including the fact that the game was opening Magic Round. Even I, being a person who researches a lot about rugby league now (given I’m an intern at a sporting media organisation), wasn’t exposed to many banners about the event. Might be that no one collected and sold my data in the past couple of weeks, but I’m not sure I believe that.
Will I Go Again?
Well, absolutely. And I don’t see why everyone else wouldn’t. I’ll just bring more friends to help the organisers get a taste of how it’s done.
It is truly more than just a game – it’s an absolute pleasure to see how the players interact with each other, even when it gets dangerously close to a fight. It’s a huge thing for a human being to be a part of something like State of Origin, especially when you know some names of the players and know bits and pieces of what it took them to end up pulling on that jersey.