The impact report of the Ruby League World Cup 21 was launched last week and its comprehensive nature means it’s a lesson in the planning and measuring of outcomes and impact. Well done to the team.
The impact of sport in a community is incredible. Sport is a community superpower and an economic superpower and by choosing how we set-up a sporting tournament or how a club engages with its community we can choose who receives the social and economic benefit.
How you can use the report:
The report evidences the tournament’s role in levelling up the north, in leveraging funding, in connecting communities. It illustrates how a tournament can work on long-term societal issues through collaborations – and it gives commercially-useful data on viewership and match-attendance – plus incredibly strong lessons in inclusion. I felt quite emotional reading some of the case studies that stand alongside the data (on inclusive volunteering in particular.)
The report gave me the opportunity to learn more about the creative programme – something I hadn’t heard enough about at the time. Just like the WEUROS 22 (which had a *much* bigger creative programme) it worked through libraries and local events but the RLWC programme was focused on offering communities to develop skills through the Arts. I’m a big believer in social inclusion via the Arts and I think I’d still like to learn more about their ’deep’ rather than (solely) ‘broad’ activity here. (There shouldn’t be embarrassment about depth over breadth though I appreciate funders-demands).
As someone who is open about having suffered from depression, (what a big gang we are) I’ve long-loved the focus on mental health, or mental fitness as the tournament termed it to encourage the view that mental health, like physical health can go up and down. I’d encourage you to look at the report to see how the programme was delivered and measured.
The tournament team achieved their goal in being the biggest, best and most inclusive RLWC ever and the 108 page report is a good testament to why they believe this.
I was proud to work with the team in 2022 to review the communication of their social impact programme.
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