Latest / Cut The Kak / Rugby League vs Union: Which is Better?
Transcript
- Chad: I mean rugby league's better, everyone's bigger, You don't ever see anybody wanting to go over to league. We always seem to take people and bring them over from league into union. Byron: It's this crazy thing where you've got the two sports, one of them is better than the other, Chad: yeah, it's a constant thing. And ⁓ on TikTok, there's constantly ⁓ brawls in the section about ⁓ Union versus, ⁓ League. ⁓ all the time. Byron: first lead. And I don't think it should be which one's better than the other. I think if you enjoy exactly. It's like people boxing in MMA, right? You have your own preference. There are diehard boxing fans out there that can't stand MMA. And then you've got your jujitsu guys who love MMA or your wrestlers love MMA can't stand watching boxing. Chad: No, they're different sports. Similar. Yeah. Byron: They're both combat sports, but they're different sports for different reasons. Just like rugby league and rugby union are both games of rugby, but it's not the same sport. So like, if you prefer one over the other, fantastic for you. But our argument here isn't which one's better. I mean, you know which one I prefer, it's union. But the argument is why are they trying to turn rugby union into rugby league? Chad: Yeah. Byron: Is it just because the spring box are good at scrums? Because if that's the case, that is even worse than what they're currently doing. Chad: I was gonna say then, yeah. Byron: They're trying to change the whole sport because we figured out scrums. That would be insane. But at this point, I just can't think of another reason. Chad: Yeah, I've got those numbers here. Okay, let's have a look. I've broken them. It's broken it all down for us. just a global audience. rugby league is about 30 to 50 million fans worldwide. rugby union Byron: Hit me. don't know how you would find that number, ⁓ they say. Chad: Rugby Union 800 million. Let's look at... Yeah, Union vs League. the NRL Grand Final. this is a bit tough because there's so many different leagues for for union but nrl grand finals is about three or four three to four million watching that ⁓ super rugby there's one to three million globally top 14 is four to five million and then the english prem is one to two million so combined even on the short end we had six million to 10 million Byron: And then if you, if you, is there something that compares international league with international union? Chad: on union. uh yep so rugby league world cup there is 30 to 40 million cumulative viewers for the rugby world cup 857 million in 180 plus territories. So a little bit more. Byron: a little bit more. Yeah, and which one has scrums and which one doesn't? I'm not saying scrums is what's bringing the views, but my argument is that the combination of contests in rugby union makes it exciting to watch. Because there are running games, there's sevens, there's league, that involves a lot more running, I would say, than what you see in union. Chad: Yeah, almost 11 times more. Yeah. Byron: However, Union still has more viewers. And my argument is it's because of the combination of places to compete for the ball and how the sport has all these different dynamics and ⁓ strategic moments in set pieces that doesn't exist in the other games. And I don't know why they're trying to change it. Chad: Yeah. I think I know what we have to do, Byron. We have to get South Africa into league and we just have to go in and absolutely dominate and just take over rugby as a whole. Sevens, Union, League, whatever they want to do, touch, flag, just do it all and then no one can complain anymore. Byron: Just. Hahaha! Chad: Maybe that's what we have to do. We usually have to get the, I think our league team's called the Rhinos. Byron: And I was about to say, we do have a horrible name for our league side though. Maybe that's why we don't want to make it big, because we don't want to embarrass ourselves. Chad: You know, it's like, I'll play some Rhinos and be like... Byron: Yeah, I'm a big South African rhinos, Chad: Yeah, but maybe that's what we have to do. Send Rusty there for two, three years. Byron: Let's. Let him watch the game, understand the game and then let us go win a league world cup and then what? Chad: Yeah. Yeah. Byron: I dunno, it's... I just, I dunno why I'm- Chad: We just solved rugby Byron. We fixed. We fixed rugby. Union and league. No, we fixed this for sure. Byron: Did we fix it or did we make it worse? Because if the