Using data insight to track and promote grassroots rugby

Challenge

As governing body for rugby union in England, the Rugby Football Union (RFU) is responsible for developing the game at all levels across the region. To drive greater participation across Age Grade (under-18) Rugby, the RFU needed to better understand the motivations and attitudes for playing the game at youth level.

Insight

To track the impact, and drive strategic decisions, of changes made to Age Grade Rugby, the RFU needed to create baseline metrics around participation and satisfaction in youth rugby that could be tracked regularly.

Solution

Through its unique relationship with rugby players across England, the RFU could capture the feelings and expectations of current and lapsed Age Grade players, as well as other stakeholders such as coaches, officials and parents. By doing so, the RFU could measure the impact of changes made to Age Grade Rugby, and create data-driven, insight-led strategies to drive long-term participation growth.

Action

Two Circles analysed all data held by the RFU on its youth players, in addition to demographic and playing trends, to gain an understanding of the different stakeholder segments in Age Grade Rugby. The insights uncovered were used to co-create a set of hypotheses aimed at creating and testing the desired benchmarks that would allow the RFU to track the impact of changes to Age Grade Rugby.

These hypotheses served as the foundation for a tailored and bespoke online survey, built by Two Circles, that was delivered through the RFU network to all relevant stakeholder segments. Survey responses were then used to create a comprehensive set of baseline benchmarks related to player participation and attitudes; these now form the framework for tracking the impact of changes made to the Age Grade game, and are used by the RFU to continuously assess how the governing body can adjust or implement new strategies to drive long-term participation growth.