Nice Premium: Paul Henri, how is the RNCAUR subscription campaign going?
Paul Henri Safayan: This first subscription campaign started quietly on August 1st, during a period when many people are still on vacation. While others are thinking they will get their card at the start of the school year. So we’re on a moderate pace. “Logic respected” if you consider it’s a first, that the communication around the offer is subject to our budgetary constraints, and that it’s very rare to see a subscription plan being set up in the First Federal Division. But it’s a choice to satisfy all audiences, to set up from today all the elements that will one day make the RNCA a great club.
NP: What package are you offering to subscribers?
PHS: The biggest challenge was to create a product that fits between the free seating system launched last season—which will be renewed this year—and a beneficial commercial offer allowing the buyer to still find financial value. It’s in this sense that we thought of the slogan “Subscribing means winning!” and decided to implement a Socios Card, deriving from the subscription card and the supporter club card. It therefore offers the combined advantages of plans often separated in other clubs. Thus, for a reasonable amount of 50 euros, it allows entry to all championship matches at Arboras and away, with a fixed, numbered seat in the central honor stand, but also provides a mark of recognition, a sense of belonging to the club through privileges, gifts, and distinctive events provided in the package. It was our wish to see the first RNCA supporter club emerge from this operation. You can find the details of the offers on the homepage of the club’s website www.rugby-nice.com or by calling 0891701706.
NP: Any other surprises throughout the year for subscribers?
PHS: It’s evident that in addition to the offers already proposed and validated with the Socios plan, our subscribers will have the first access to information and event invitations throughout the year. As for the details, everything is ready, but it wouldn’t be a surprise if we communicated them now. We won’t shamelessly tease to sell the card! The person who joins us by taking their Socios card makes an important gesture that is part of the long term, showing their human and financial support behind our team and project. They become an actor of the club, positioned somewhat between members, sponsors, shareholders, or even volunteers, each contributing their part to the structure.
NP: Are you also working on events for the next Rugby World Cup?
PHS: Given the multiplication of events around the World Cup, in our region but all over France, the costs of setting up, questions around the broadcasting rights and their price, the absence of matches in Nice, we decided not to take financial risks for the club. To do a professional job, a large-scale operation like we love—glamorous, chic, qualitative—the budget to raise was unreasonable. Without guarantees. I like the concrete, and I estimated that the risk involved was too great for an event drowned in the event. We have 600 registered in the club, including 300 children, and with the club’s treasurers, Madame Moynot and Mister de Muner, we will not commit to an expenditure that could one day put them in danger. I think it is important to position ourselves, to communicate, but not at any cost and if it’s to have a poor yield it doesn’t interest me.
My idea is that Nice rugby and the entire rugby community will benefit regardless from the impacts of the global event. It is not by showing up drowned by the event that the RNCA will be stronger. However, this new audience, opened to rugby by the World Cup, it will be crucial to capture after the final. That’s where all the work begins: “You liked the handsome guys on TV, come see those in Nice!” It’s this target, this new clientele, that it will be important to charm when it searches for the highest-level club closest to home. We must follow the World Cup and extend its effects when everyone will have stopped selling beer, closed bodegas, and stored away beach rugby posts.
After these thoughts, we decided to focus on a VIP event, the “Rugby Nice Experience” evening, on the opening day of the World Cup for our partners and guests, and to keep the Arboras club house open to the public and members to watch all matches on a big screen. Two operations at opposite ends but allowing everyone to find their place and live the event with us. Because this club is open to everyone…
