National Rugby League

BACKGROUND

Trends in Gen Z Sports consumption have shifted: fans crave athlete and player commentary, they seek out TikTok coverage, and ‘alternate’ experiences are on the rise.

The National Rugby League (NRL) ​​were looking to tap into this shift to reach new audiences and inspire existing fans of the code.

WHAT WE DID

A season-long partnership telling real NRL stories to make LAD’s Aussie sports audience laugh, think and act.

In a LAD-first we gave the NRL exclusive access to our editorial team allowing us to capture next-level player content, straight from source. We went ALL IN on our exclusive access to players – attending games and press days, reporting on all the trending news, creating fresh player content – to give LAD audiences BTS access they couldn’t get elsewhere and guarantee the NRL was top of mind.

Leveraging a format we know our audience loves, we created a series of UGC-style videos featuring Bulldogs players Max King and Matt Burton going undercover to prank unsuspecting cafe-goers. In My Commandments, a video series that popped off on social, we quizzed players about their essential pre-game rituals and key mottos they live by.  We also created our very own SPORTbible take on the Dally M awards, allowing SPORTbible Australia journalists to capture everything that went down at the NRL’s biggest night of celebrations.

RESULTS

We guaranteed the NRL were front and centre for LADs during the season.

We reached 16.8m people and engaged 3.2m. During the campaign, the NRL ranked as the second highest mentioned sport on our social channels, compared to seventh the previous year.  Additionally throughout the partnership period the NRL was the most talked about sport on instagram and saw a 34% increase in average mentions.