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Showcasing the Springboks: The commercialisation of South African rugby heritage

ABSTRACT This article is concerned with how sport museums, and in particular rugby museums, in South Africa tell the story of South Africa's rich rugby heritage. By drawing on the author's observations at the opening of the Springbok Experience Rugby Museum, making several visits to the museum, sourcing hitherto untapped archival sources from the South African Rugby Board archives, and conducting ten in-depth interviews with curators of private and commercial rugby museums in South Africa, this article unpacks the sports heritage within broader heritage debates. It draws attention to the commercial nature of sport heritage initiatives, such as the Springbok Experience Museum. Through active branding, the South African Rugby Union (SARU) has established a commercial rugby museum, which has turned previously 'hidden' rugby memorabilia and artefacts into an accessible experience. This article teases out the complexities of how the representation of South Africa's rugby heritage has changed. It is proposed that the professional turn in rugby in South Africa since the mid-1990s has made rugby heritage a viable commercial proposition, used not only tell the story of the country's rugby past, but also to solidify the Springbok brand through the use of sport heritage modalities. The politics of representation in corporate sport museums are probed, with reference inter alia to the silences.