Rugby Thoughts – Rugby World Cup Blogging

By the time you read this the Rugby World Cup will have started. As a fan I’m excited and looking forward to the games but as a blogger there’s an element of trepidation.

The noise or number of pieces and blogs is just going up so to be heard or seen is going to be even harder. For example I liked the LV=Cup as there is less competition for eyes and ears. I’ve not been actively looking but two new blogs have come to my attention, one poor and the other decent however neither know what they are doing. That’s not necessarily a bad thing, you have to start somewhere but it’s a sign that there are amateurs and professionals who are all putting more out there. There’s probably some of you thinking “that’s a rich coming from him” and maybe I don’t know what I’m doing but I am learning as I go along. There are 3 things that I’m deliberately not doing that I see the bigger/professional blogs so:

1. This is all me, myself and I
2. No regurgitation of press releases or team videos to pad out the content
3. Profiting from other people’s regular content in return for providing “exposure to be found”

I do Sharing Sunday to share the love and to give other blogs some exposure, just like I have written some guest posts for other sites.

I feel there are 3 levels/types of Rugby bloggers and this probably applies to YouTube and podcasting to a certain extent too:

1. Posting occasionally when they feel like it. Amateur and happy to be so.
2. Posting regularly to a schedule. Acting professionally during spare time around family and work.
3. Posting regularly to a schedule and deriving a full-time income. I’m not aware of any that don’t work like a paper with contributors.

I feel I’m on group 2 and have a fairly strict publishing routine. The Rugby World Cup will throw this out of the window. Not all games are at weekends and there is not clear delineation of rounds in the pool stages. At the time of writing I haven’t decided how I’m going to tackle the tournament. So the trepidation comes from juggling a new routine with family and work along with wondering if anybody will see/hear it through all the noise anyway.

Now I’ve written this, I realise that I have laid myself out there so let’s hope it’s a good Rugby World Cup and we all enjoy it.