Taking up the Soweto Challenge

In the cold crisp air of this winter’s morning, it would be a difficult task to find anyone who doesn’t believe that the Soweto rugby experience wasn’t a success – both in terms of marketing, rugby and nation-building.

But rugby’s biggest challenge now is to see how to take this further, and use the momentum created by the Bulls' Super 14 victory to the greater good for the sport.

While it is fair to say the Bulls stumbled upon this goldmine thanks to the fact they couldn’t use their regular stadium at Loftus Versfeld thanks to the Fifa World Cup, the opportunity to take a massive rugby game into the townships was more than just a resounding success.

With it the Bulls proved once again what we see every day in this country. Despite our political, ideological and cultural differences, there is a massive need on both sides of the fence to have these opportunities to learn about each other.

Black South Africans learnt about rugby and white South Africans discovered that a township isn’t a no-go area as we were all brought up to believe. In the process the Bulls – whose market research claims they have more black supporters than white – gained a massive following from a fan base that rugby hasn’t either tried, or been successful to reach until now.

Not surprisingly the government has jumped onto the bandwagon to congratulate the Bulls for their decision. Everyone from the President to Winnie Mandela was at Orlando over the past two weeks and whether they knew it or not, the Bulls also set an amazing platform for the upcoming Soccer World Cup with these two crazy weeks of rugby.

With our attention now firmly focused on the Springboks and the Soccer World Cup, the big challenge comes now to how will rugby use this momentum? No longer will it be acceptable to play just the odd Vodacom Cup game in a community stadium – Orlando showed that a big game is more than welcome there.

Yes there are challenges. The Bulls regular suite holders and season ticket holders all pay a premium for a regular seat at Loftus Versfeld. It is their base and their following like the Fortress to be there.

But for their marketing department there is an unbelievable opportunity of underlying their massive support base across the country.

And there is a lesson also for the other Super 14 franchises and SA Rugby. Rugby desperately needs new homes and new fans. The success of the Springboks and Bulls franchises should not be taken for granted and should be capitalised upon.

It is good to hear that the Golden Lions are thinking about moving their Tri-Nations test to Soccer City in Soweto. A month after the World Cup final, what better stadium for such an occasion? Commercially it makes a lot of sense too, with Soccer City able to take 94 000 – many more than the 40 000 crammed into Orlando on the weekend.

With this in mind, it would be wonderful if the Lions don’t just see the test as a money making exercise, and also include a portion of the tickets to entice black rugby fans to the test as well.

But the question will extend further than that. Given that rugby extended a hand into the townships, and was welcomed with open arms, it is a wonderful challenge that should not be ignored.

The Bulls could possibly have done more to involve the local community, but being a semifinal and a final, the occasion was always going to be bigger and the team had a need to be focused.

They now know Soweto loves them. What they need to find out now is how to love Soweto back...