A week after hosting the first Rugby Sevens tournament in Sydney, the Australian Rugby Union "heralded the success of the event introducing new people to the sport and and highlighted the marketing strategy as a way forward for the sport," according to Simon Canning of MUMBRELLA.
Sydney "looked to mimic the success of overseas tournaments such as the Hong Kong Sevens, working closely with Destination NSW to host the event and use it as a springboard for other tournaments including Super Rugby and the local club competitions." ARU COO Rob Clarke said that "he was delighted with the outcome of the strategy." Clarke: "In every respect and in every metric we were very excited and very, very positive about the start of this tournament and we hope for a long-term future here in Sydney." The ARU revealed that 50% of the overall ticket sales "came from people who had never bought a ticket to a rugby event before, or those who had attended a rugby event in the past, the code succeeded in attracting a much younger demographic than traditional go to the sport." Clarke said, "It’s not surprising it attracted a younger audience because the social media statistics that came in and around the event with Facebook, Twitter and Instagram were all significantly up and that’s where the younger audiences live as we know." Clarke said that another key to the success of marketing the event "was taking advantage of the fact that 16 nations were competing." Clarke: "We went out and deliberately engaged with those local communities supporting those nationalities, whether it be through their embassies or high commissions, and so we really did engage those community groups to get them involved" (MUMBRELLA, 2/29).
