With the official theme song of ‘Rug Rug mein Rugby’, the inaugural season of India's Rugby Premier League (RPL) got underway last week. The tournament is in full swing at Mumbai Football Arena (Andheri Sports Complex). However, questions still arise over the popularity of the sport in India. Can just the celebrity glamour change Rugby's fortune? Rahul Bose, President of Rugby India, is hopeful of this league to be a game changer for the sport.
Indian Premier League (IPL), Pro Kabaddi League (PKL), Indian Super League (ISL) have registered tremendous response from the audience over the years. IPL just completed its 18th edition. Ultimate Table Tennis (UTT), Ultimate Kho-Kho League are a few other examples of various sports starting with their league. Basketball Federation of India (BFI) recently announced its first Premier league as well.
However, response for RPL is a little doubtful. Most sports fans in India (especially in rural parts of Maharashtra) don't even watch rugby or half of the people don't even know its rules. This league includes participation of 30 marquee international players across the world. Even the coaches of all six teams are from abroad. Among them, Mumbai Dreamers is the only team with an Indian Captain. Indian Rugby team captain Mohit Khatri is part of Bengaluru Bravehearts.
Rahul Bose |
While speaking exclusively to FPJ, Rahul Bose highlighted how this league can be a stepping stone for huge success for the sports at large. “For a sport to actually become successful in a country, which means it needs to reach about top 20-25 percent of the people, it will take about 50-75 years. If you look at Indian cricket, first Test match was in 1932 and the first significant series win was in 1971. So when you look at a 100-120 member sport like rugby 7s, 75 years. So you want to compress that timeline and a well-run league does that,” he shared.
Abhishek Kaddi, who is a regular follower of sports updates said, "Even though I know something about rugby and South Africa won last Rugby World Cup etc. I haven't watched a full game of it till now."
Whereas, one fan from Gen Z generation, Ira Tilwe highlighted that "Even though there are less fans of rugby in India, this league will give platform to players and franchise to attract fans." Few fans even declined to attend matches, even though they are getting free tickets.
Actor Abhishek Bachchan is also associated with RPL as Sports Ambassador. The main aim behind RPL is to make rugby one of the five top of mind sports for India's youth to play. In a survey conducted by famous sports organization, in India, on an average only 122 out of 1,000 people have played or watched rugby once in their life. Thus, RPL will try to provide career opportunities to players and hope it will also automatically attract fans from around the country.
“If it is run well which means six teams will look for talent across the country. After the league is over, they will start looking for talent. They will feel that they need a nutritionist, we need a physiotherapist etc. So there will be sub-infrastructures, software, human beings and hardware. So that's the internal engine. This game is easy to follow as well. You are getting a winner in just 22 minutes. You just have to get the ball, dodge your team-mates and get to the other side. So I've never had a doubt about the Indian people's ability or propensity to try everything once. Give it a shot. So I don't think this is actually going to be that difficult to sell. Having said that I'm wondering if we have done enough to popularise the league and create awareness. We will get the answers to that by June 29th for the next year,” Bose concluded.
So if you want to just witness the thrill of rugby once, do attend this sporting carnival before next Sunday at Andheri.
Just 200 spectators per day
When asked about total attendance on a daily basis, we got to know that there are around 200 spectators per day to watch matches. The Mumbai Football Arena holds capacity of 6,500 people. Few football fans also shared their disappointment over this ground being used for Rugby. The Mumbai City FC team in Indian Super League plays their home matches at Mumbai Football Arena every season. Hence they feel it should be kept only for football matches. Like other clubs across the world do so.
