Welcome. Welcome to another deep dive. Today's
mission is actually really fun. We are going
to explore the life cycle, the evolution and
I guess the massive cultural footprint of a highly
specific sports media institution, which is essay
rugby magazine. Yeah. And at first glance, I
mean, if you're just looking at the source material
we have today, which is a really comprehensive
Wikipedia article detailing the history of the
magazine. Right. Chronicling everything from
the spring box and super rugby. club and schools
rugby since 1995 exactly you might think okay
it's just a history of a monthly sports publication
but it's actually this incredibly fascinating
case study on print media survival, national
sporting identity, and, well, that really brutal
transition into the digital age. OK, let's unpack
this. Because to get the listener right into
the mindset, I want you to imagine trying to
capture the absolute peak of a nation's sporting
fever, and then bottling it into a monthly physical
object. That is essentially what we are looking
at today. That's a great way to put it, honestly.
So to understand how they pulled this off, we
have to look at their genesis, the bedrock. The
very first issue launched in April 1995. Right.
It cost eight rand and 50 cents. And the very
first cover featured Spring Book's wing Chester
Williams. But the real kicker here is the timing.
It went on sale exactly two months before the
1995 Rugby World Cup. Yeah, which was hosted
right there in South Africa. Right. What's fascinating
here is just the strategic calculation of that
launch window. I mean, launching a magazine requires
massive upfront capital. Oh, yeah. It's notoriously
expensive. Exactly. Doing it under normal circumstances
is a coin toss at best. But timing your very
first issue to hit the shelves literally 60 days
before your home country hosts a global sporting
event, that is is a master class in capturing
a captive market. But wait, was launching right
before the World Cup a stroke of genius, or was
it incredibly risky? Like, if the tournament
had been a flop or, say, the home team got knocked
out immediately, would this magazine have survived
its first year? Oh, it was a monumental risk.
I mean, if the home team crashes out early, the
national fever breaks, people stop paying attention.
And suddenly, you've got this really expensive
monthly print product sitting on newsstands that
nobody wants to look at. Right, they basically
chained their corporate existence to the unpredictable
mood of sports fans. They really did. But the
gamble paid off. The cultural phenomenon of that
1995 tournament provided this foundational bedrock
of readership. It hardwired the magazine into
the national memory. And that initial momentum
was clearly vital because if you look at the
business of keeping this magazine alive over
the next few decades, it was completely turbulent.
Yeah, the publishing side was a wild ride. It
really was. I mean, it's like a rugby ball being
passed around during a totally chaotic play.
So it started with a publisher called Random
House Stroke. Right. Then the title got sold
to strobe publishing, and strobe managed to keep
it going for a while, right up until the December
2001 to January 2002 combined issue. But then
strobe publishing just closed its doors. Which
is usually a death sentence. When a publisher
goes bankrupt, the individual magazine titles
almost always go down with the ship. The staff
scatters, the brand evaporates. Yeah, it's just
game over. Right. But somebody drops the ball.
and Highbury Media, well they were called Highbury
Monarch Communications back then, scoops it up.
They officially rescued and relaunched the title
in May 2002. Right, they essentially ran it down
the field. But why? Highbury wasn't buying printing
presses. What made this failing title worth rescuing?
They were buying a congregation, essentially.
Highbury realized that the audience was still
there, sitting in the pews. Surviving that collapse
just proves the sheer value of the title's brand.
It had become synonymous with the sport itself.
And you can actually track the economics of maintaining
that physical product just by looking at the
cover prices over the years. It's a stark lesson
in print inflation. Oh, absolutely. So we started
at $8 .50 in 1995. Ten years later, for their
100th issue in April 2005, the price had doubled
to 16 Rand 95. And by the 200th issue in May
2014, it was 29 Rand 90. That climb is direct
reflection of the shifting economics of print.
You know, the cost of paper pulp distribution,
paying top writers. Those margins were getting
squeezed tighter and tighter. But people kept
buying it. I mean, the audited print circulation
stood at 24 ,871 copies for the period of October
to December 2018. Which is amazing. for a new
sports magazine in 2018 to hold on to nearly
25 ,000 paid physical copies. That is a very
healthy footprint in an era where everyone was
getting news for free on their phones. And that
brings us to 2017, where they made a completely
counterintuitive business move. For years, they've
been publishing 11 issues a year, combining Jan
and Feb. But in 2017, they shifted to 12 issues
a year. Yeah, bucking the global trend entirely.
While the rest of the print media world was shrinking
and consolidating, they increased their production
schedule. They were basically declaring to advertisers
that their physical product was still a necessary
premium commodity. But to convince readers to
keep paying higher prices, they had to give them
a reason to physically hold the magazine. And
that's where their milestone issues come in.
Right, the power of curation. Exactly. Let's
look at these. The 100th issue in April 2005
featured Ashwin Villamzee. Brent Russell, Victor
Matfield, and Schalkberger. A powerhouse cover.
Yeah. And the 200th issue in May 2014 featured
Francois Stein. But the real heavyweights, literally
heavy, were the World Cup preview giants. Oh,
these are legendary. So the September 2007 issue
was 236 pages. Wow. Then the September 2011 issue
broke that record at an astonishing 260 pages.
That's just massive. And the 2015 issue was 188
pages, which was also the first one to be published
in Africa. by the way, running an Africans edition
from September 2015 to June 2016. But wait, I
have to ask about that 2011 issue. A 260 page
magazine isn't a magazine, it's a textbook. It
really is. Did people read these cover to cover
or were they essentially buying a collectible
artifact? Like was this just a vanity project?
Definitely not a vanity project. It was a calculated
shift in how consumers interact with the media.
A 260 page issue doesn't compete with daily news.
It sits on your coffee table for the entire six
week tournament. was a reference guide. Exactly.
Fans dip into it to check stats, read deep dives,
or settle debates in the living room. It's a
physical companion to the TV broadcasts. OK,
speaking of settling debates, here's where it
gets really interesting. For their 20th anniversary
issue in April 2015, they executed the ultimate
curation. They got 2007 World Cup winning coach
Jake White and veteran writers Mark Keoghain
and Gavin Rich to pick the 20 best bucks since
1995. That is a brave thing to print. Right.
Printing a definitive top 20 list seems incredibly
risky. You are guaranteed to alienate people
who think their favorite player was snubbed.
But that's the point, isn't it? In media, calculated
alienation drives engagement. A safe list is
boring. Putting those experts in a room to make
a historical declaration shapes the sports narrative.
You want people arguing about it in pubs. Well,
let's look at who actually made the cut, because
we have to list them. Starting at fullback, they
picked Andre Joubert and Percy Montgomery. Legends.
And on the wings, naturally, Chester Williams,
who was on that very first cover alongside Brian
Havana. For the centers, it was Jean de Villiers,
Jacques Fourie, and Francois Stein. And at fly
-half, Joel Stransky and Henry Hannibal. Then
for scrum -halves, Juiced, Wander Westweizen,
and Fourie -du -Prise. So that's the back line.
Yeah, an incredible lineup. And the forward serve
just is dominant. For loose forwards, you have
Francois Pienaar, Juan Smith, and Schalkberger.
For the locks, they went with Mark Andrews, Victor
Matfield, and Bacchys Botha. At hooker. John
Smith and Bismarck Du Plessis. And finally, rounding
it out at prop, Austerant. Just a phenomenal
roster. And by physically printing that list,
the magazine basically carved those legacies
in stone. But doing that level of authoritative
curation requires some serious editorial stability.
Who are the architects behind this narrative?
That is the hidden engine of their survival.
Simon Borchardt was the editor who navigated
the most critical era. from 2002 all the way
to 2019. That's a huge tenure in publishing.
It is. He built on the work of previous editors
like Chris Showman and John Dobson. And Dobson
is a crazy piece of trivia, right? Because he
eventually became the coach of Western Province.
Yeah. Going from editing the magazine to actually
coaching the team shows just how deep their tactical
expertise was. Exactly. The staff had serious
pedigree. Gary Lemke, Highbury's sports editorial
director, was the 2015 SAB Sports Journalist
of the Year. John Cardinelli, their chief rugby
writer, won the same award in 2013. You also
had Craig Lewis, Mariette Adams, and all these
global freelancers. And they even won the 2002
PICA award for innovation and magazine publishing.
Right. But pushing print innovation in 2002 is
one thing. To survive the next decade, they had
to make the digital leap. They did. In February
2013, they launched Sirugbemag .co .zaid. They
brought their news, added live text commentary,
videos, logs, and the metrics by 2022 are just
staggering. They had 5 ,814 ,879 users. Unbelievable.
And over 38 ,205 ,052 page views. If we connect
this to the bigger picture, the scale of that
digital pivot is what separates them from other
legacy media. A lot of magazines launch websites
as an afterthought. This magazine treated digital
as the primary engine for growth. It's like a
rugby team changing its entire play style at
halftime. They went from the slow, deliberate
impact of a 260 -page print issue to the rapid
-fire, agile pace of live text commentary. Yeah,
and that requires rewiring a journalist's brain.
Operating on a minute -by -minute deadline while
still maintaining the authority of a monthly
deep dive is a massive operational achievement.
So what does this all mean? We've gone from an
8 -rand 50 -print magazine in 1995 surviving
bankruptcies, curating the greatest players,
to pulling 38 million page views. It's the ultimate
story of adaptability. They were born in the
fervor of a home World Cup, survived the print
apocalypse by offering premium curation, and
successfully mutated into a digital juggernaut
without losing their identity. It really makes
you, the listener, think about how you consume
your own niche interests today. Do you rely entirely
on the instant gratification of a 38 million
page view website, or do you still crave the
physical weight of a 260 page print edition sitting
on your desk? This raises an important question
though. As sports journalism becomes increasingly
instant and digital, what happens to the historical
record? When there are no more 250 page physical
collector's items to pull off a bookshelf 20
years from now, how will future generations remember
the titans of the game? Wow, yeah. If it's all
just live feeds that disappear, where are the
artifacts? That's definitely something to think
about. While we warmly thank you for joining
us on this deep dive today, keep exploring, keep
questioning, and we'll catch on the next one.
Farewell.