RugbyPass.com Channels Insights to Target Next-Gen Rugby Audience

Having successfully engaged existing rugby fans across Asia since launching in February 2016, RugbyPass will turn its attention to the next generation of Asian rugby fans, evolving its content offering and packaging to complement and support rugby’s growth in Asia.  

“A year on we have developed a unique insight into rugby’s support base across Asia both from an online audience and community perspective,” says RugbyPass.com CEO Tim Martin. “Rugby is deeply concentrated in passionate clusters across Asia, and structured in ways that defy traditional segmentation. Our analysis shows that the game appeals to a broad pattern of interest that reflects Asia’s diversity as well as its global connectivity.”

“What has been key is our ability to deliver consistent and predictable high definition access to games involving the team you have a connection with. People follow teams, not tournaments, so RugbyPass.com is providing the fan in Asia the ability to form a closer relationship with your team, be it England, Munster, Toulon or the Hurricanes,” says Martin. “We have delivered for our core rugby constituency, which gives us a launch pad to push the rugby audience frontier further into China in partnership with Alisports as well as other Asian markets where rugby continues to break through.” 

“There is no doubt that the revival of British rugby post-Rugby World Cup, including Ireland’s win against the All Blacks, the resurgent Scots and a transformed England side, are boosting the game’s appeal across Asia as we advance towards the most important World Cup in the game’s history in 2019 in Japan,” says Martin.

In the coming months, RugbyPass.com will continue to evolve, with new content initiatives complemeting its core match centre offerings, says RugbyPass.com COO, Richard North. 

“Since launching the world’s first dedicated OTT rugby platform a year ago we have witnessed a massive shift toward flexible content, available wherever and whenever you want it. We also invested heavily in rights to ensure that RugbyPass.com offers the most comprehensive rugby service, at times streaming up to eight live games concurrently,” says North. “While our growth in Asia has been strong, we are still far from achieving our vision. The global pool of rugby fans is far greater than the 23 markets we currently serve. Rugby fans are fans every day of the week, not just when their team is playing live, so we are significantly ramping up our content output, starting with news and original opinion pieces, along with an exciting new Fantasy Rugby experience for the Super Rugby competition, and engaging more with fans on Facebook and Twitter.”

“As a result, we have seen unique visitor numbers more than double month on month, and we expect even higher growth over the remainder of the year as the depth of our content programme grows, leading into our coverage of the All Blacks v Lions series in New Zealand,” says North.