DC77
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Posts posted by DC77
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Christ almighty. Blown away by the comparison.
NBC, a foreign broadcaster, is paying the Premier League $2.7 billion for six years
Channel Nine, an Australian broadcaster, is paying the NRL $445 million for five years.
https://www.sportspromedia.com/news/nrl-nine-tv-broadcast-rights-rugby-league-australia-foxtel/
A home market is paying roughly a sixth.
What it indicates is billionaires are not needed (yet) in RL, not by a long way. The money needed to make a big impact is modest in comparison.
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8 hours ago, Sports Prophet said:
That is very true. The rise of club RU in the advent of professionalism has been remarkable.
Then again, so has the rise of soccer since Sky. Whilst always holding a great margin in national interest, it was nowhere near the behemoth it is today.
Back to @Big Picture, who I will agree, demonstrates there is a lesser interest in millionaire/billionaire speculators or supporters investing in RL clubs. I can’t help but think of the momentum the sport had and subsequently lost in the infancy of SL and Branson tied in with the Broncos.
I think it’s always been a behemoth (well since the late 19th century). All Sky (and new entity that was the Premier League) did was package it. Yes there was crowd issues in the 70s/80s (violence/racism) which was accompanied with the economy being on its knees (closure of many industries, strikes etc), but the sport was unchallenged.
Pre Sky:
The highest recorded power surge to the national grid occurred when England played West Germany in the 1990 World Cup.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/5110820.stm
The highest viewing figure ever in the U.K. was for the 1966 World Cup Final. Leeds vs Chelsea in a 1970 FA Cup final replay is in the top 10, and what the second most watched sports event after the ‘66 final (since surpassed by this year’s Euros final) with 28 million.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1970_FA_Cup_Final
The big difference to the English game since Sky coverage started is internationally, with deals such as this announced today.
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1 hour ago, fieldofclothofgold said:
I just wish they would it done and do the research properly by visiting other renouned museums and attractions. We dont want anything cheapskate.
Listening to Tony Collins (who I believe is involved in this project) they have learned from other museums.
redjohns’ mobile idea sounds like a good one. You would get more visitors I’d imagine. Get the feeling that nowadays people can’t be @rsed traipsing miles to somewhere for the like of this.
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3 hours ago, Lapsed Leeds Fan said:
A perfect example of this was on Five Live this morning. They were discussing the upcoming England - South Africa RU test, and basically saying South Africa's tactics are to bring on a completely new front row in the second half to batter the tired opponents into submission. That's as far as my tactical RU knowledge extends as I haven't watched a game for 20+ years, but what struck me was the response of the presenters.
Rachel Burden, as a notorious ruggerphile, was waxing lyrical about these tactics and saying how fantastic it is that they can grind the opposition into the ground through sheer physical force. Rick Edwards, the new presenter and self-confessed 'rugby' novice, didn't sound wholly convinced, and replied something along the lines of 'so it's about getting a load of fresh lumps to batter tired players?'. Burden enthusiastically agreed, as if this is a perfectly legitimate way to play the game. Which I suppose it is is whilst it's still within the laws of the game.There are people like Burden on both sides of the code divide, but I'm pretty sure it won't be them who are waking up in 20 years to a brain which no longer functions.
The problem with RU purists like Burden (and the same to any in RL) is what they like to see, the brutality, will kill off the sport, not just from a safety point of view, from a popularity one.
The last Lions test series was the worst spectacle on record. It was eye gouging stuff.
South Africa have always been a millstone around the neck of RU. Not only have they been awful to watch, their emphasis on physicality and bulldozing the opposition into submission has pushed the others to become more attritional like them. A flair team as France once was would get smashed in the sport today. It’s for this reason France went from 13 stone 3 lb of flair that was Philippe Sella to an 18 stone 13 lb limited bruiser in Bastareaud.
A 5 stone 10 lb change in one position, the centre, the midfield creator (well, meant to be). The problem isn’t so much the huge increase in weight and the nosedive in skill, it’s that such a change makes your team stronger. Only last week someone on here compared the weights of two RL packs and said the heavier pack of a current team, albeit having less skill, would wipe the floor with the more skilled one from the past. When physicality trumps skill, the sport is in trouble.
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1 hour ago, Sports Prophet said:
Without any facts to back it up, my hunch is that club Rugby in UK has overtaken club RL. I suspect crowd figures are now larger, RU definitely has a wider geographical spread, the capital turnover would surely heavily be in RU favour and the commercial partners would be far more fitting of the tags “elite”, “multi-national” and “global”.
I don’t have the will to investigate all this, so I will leave that as my suspicion, awaiting evidence to the contrary.
I think you’re right in terms of crowds (I believe it’s around 14k average for RU clubs), but that I would put down to a having a larger following as a sport aided by the international game. In terms of profile though I can’t see any difference between the two codes at club level. I’d actually be confident more would have seen the two RL finals than any club RU finals. The only RU coach that I recall seeing on Sky Sports News for example is Eddie Jones, the England coach. Don’t think I’ve seen one club coach nor could I name one.
1 hour ago, The storm said:Unions attendaces ate down 25% however, so they ate in huge debt at every club.
Wasps are 70 million in debt and sale are watched by 5000
Wages exceed income meaning the owners are bankrolling the clubs. All but one club has left London in the hope of making money elsewhere. There’s no solid foundations. Wasps have moved three times is it? I’d hazard a guess and say the financial situation in club RU is more perilous than RL.
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3 hours ago, Wakefield Ram said:
Breaking it down there's two aspects. Concussive impacts and frequency. If the numbers of subs and substitutions were reduced, then the 18-20 stone forwards doing 20 min stints would be eliminated. It would mean players playing longer minutes though. 5-7m instead of 10m might force more play away from the 5 drives and a kick. Not sure how you'd do it, but "big hits" need to go. Rule it as a "reckless" tackle? Reducing contact sessions would reduce frequency of impacts.
At the end of the day, it needs a culture change in the game away from power and macho "smashing" your opponents. Whether the game in general is up to that sort of change who knows. But legal action might force it.
100% agree with the subs issue. Not quite so sure how bad it is in RL (according to Mark Evans it’s not too bad as almost all the players look tired at the end) but in RU it’s a farce. I’m sure most have seen the routine in RU with 50 minutes played at least four fresh 18 stone plus blokes with necks thicker than their heads enter the field en masse ready to finish off those who are knackered. Not only is this adding extra danger to the collisions, it means players can carry around extra bulk knowing they only have short stints. Taking out this double whammy will at least be one step forward. So maximum three subs per 80 (maybe make allowances for an extra sub for anyone deliberately taken out).
Ultimately the goal has to be to get players down to a normal human size. No matter what rules they come up with, if the players remain as big as they are, in a collision sport, this issue will remain.
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It is not the concussions. They do play a part, as the outward manifestation of a distressed brain, but the damage to those brains is constant in a sport like rugby and correlates to the sheer number of blows each brain takes, directly or indirectly, over a prolonged period. “You cannot interpret it any other way,” says Professor Damian Bailey, lead author of the USW study. “You’ve got this noxious, cumulative, recurrent contact that doesn’t actually need to be anywhere near the head, so long as there’s some sort of torsional movement imparted to the brain. And it just builds up over time.” Bailey is the director of the neurovascular research laboratory at USW and works, among other projects, with the European Space Agency on blood flow to the brain of astronauts. He was also a handy scrum-half in his time.
Its kidology to say “head impacts are clamped down on so things will be fine”. The sheer size of these blokes, colliding constantly, they accumulate damage. Players colliding in the amateur era was common, but the players looked human then. Add five stone of muscle and you are now a deadly weapon.
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11 hours ago, cookey said:
Contact with the head has now been virtually stopped in rugby union. No sorrys, no I slipped, no, sorry I was off balance, it has been virtually stopped or is followed by a red card.
In the community ru game, there was a radid increase in dismissals for the first month of the season but already it has been accepted and the game is much safer for it. Most high tackles are down to poor technique or thugs playing the sport.
RU is not “much safer”. It’s more dangerous than ever. The players on average weigh four to five stone heavier than the amateur era, making each collision a mini car crash. And those body collisions (not talking head collisions) have a whiplash effect which causes the brain to move inside the skull. Towards the end of the last NRL season Ryan Papenhuyzen was knocked out cold and his head wasn’t touched.
Due to the size of the players the hits are now enormous, increasing the danger to player health.
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On 17/11/2021 at 11:59, Big Picture said:
RU also has the Premier League in their backyard, but they're not struggling so that can't be the reason why RL is struggling in the UK.
The club game in RU is no more prominent than club RL. I’d say the profile of RL would be slightly higher at club level. Club RU teams invariably make losses. I honestly couldn’t say what channel club RU is on or who the last champions were.
RU has the good fortune of the international game being much more established which ultimately bankrolls the sport. This is what separates it from RL.
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2 hours ago, Dallas Mead said:
Things don’t look good for this great game of ours, certainly in its present gladiatorial guise. I used to love watching the physicality of it, massive hits and player’s heads going back after a massive collision. Great shot lad! He’s hurt. He’s going off in Disneyland. Get in there! I cringe every time I see a big hit now if I’m honest
these mini car crashes are leaving people with lifelong problem.
I remember Steve mascord a year or two ago saying he feared that full contact “rugby” would be dead within 20/30 years when more is understood about the cost people are paying for these hits.
I fear Masco is spot on with his assertion sadly….
It might be bad for the purists who get off on watching the bish bash stuff (an enjoyment which I’m not denigrating btw as all tastes are valid), but for others such as myself I hope it means more of the more skilful stuff which I’m in no doubt would raise the profile of the sport. Not one big bruiser has ever been known to joe public, but maybe 6 or 7 players who made eye catching runs/plays were. To paraphrase Garry Schofield, the bruisers do the donkey work, the backs make the plays. Can’t say I’ve ever watched a game of rugby (either code) and reacted to a big hit. Baz and Tez get excited though so it’s their reaction I’d enjoy more than the actual hit. In RU I basically ignored the pack (the much less talented big/wide fellas), which makes it nigh on impossible to watch now as it’s now completely pack dominated...”forwards win games, backs by how many” (backwards onus i feel, it should be the other way round).
That Sky Sports News story on Stevie Ward was an eye opener. Hopefully he can make a good recovery as constantly having migraines would be torture.
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1 hour ago, RayCee said:
UK SL just can't seem to catch the eye of any billionaires with lazy money to throw at a sport. The value for relatively little outlay makes SL clubs a steal. I guess the sheer size of Soccer overshadows everything when the super rich are in the spending mood. The low profile of RL in the UK means it is doomed to fly below the radar for an investor. Good on Souths for their windfall.
“SL club’s a steal”. Don’t agree with that. A steal is a bargain. Throwing money away with no return is not a steal. The cost of owning a SL club might be low, but they make nothing back. Anyone looking to own one does it solely for the love of the game. David Hughes for instance, £20 million spent on London and the club are now semi pro. Koukash? His pockets are lighter. The bloke at Huddersfield bankrolling that club to a few thousand spectators rattling around a stadium. From a business point of view it’s madness as they not only make nothing, they don’t increase their brand as owners.
What really attracts billionaire owners in football is it’s international profile. Having a domestic profile (however large) is nowhere near enough. Games screened in Dubai for example, a viewer there feels as though they have a stake in a club, and so anyone with money from there feels they are buying into something that’s relevant to Dubai. You see footage of bars there with people wearing different teams jerseys, celebrating/shouting just like anyone living locally to the club. That’s their team every bit as much as the locals. The Premier League might be English, just as the Beatles are English, as Shakespeare is English, but their audience extends far beyond the shores of England. It’s a global entity and the various nationalities of the owners reflect that.
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It occurred to me while watching the Ire vs NZ match (tbh it’s rare that I watch RU now, but as it was against NZ i did) that there really is no chance for RL to gain any traction in nations where RU is established (and vice versa with RL, namely Aus). Seeing the scenes at full time, the spot for a collision based game that involves throwing an oval ball backwards is taken. There’s not much of a crossover in interest between them, so the view that “whoever establishes itself first becomes the popular one” that Tony Collins spoke about definitely applies to the rugby codes. They are almost too similar to follow both...one cannot exist where the other exists. They are essentially eating from the same trough. There isn’t the contrast that other sports have with each other so as not to take up the same footprint.
Eating from the same trough is what made Wales a RU nation, as they continually beat an England team that had been weakened after the Northern Union was formed and had taken away half the England players. As Tony Collins states, the creation of English RL inadvertently strengthened Welsh RU, giving the Welsh something to celebrate. Had Wales kept losing (which they would have done), they don’t get the same foothold in Wales.
In relation to this, what really gives RL no chance is RU’s smallness in that the nations that play RU will always be competitive as so few play it. Nine nations (max) do to any real degree, so automatically your nation is in a quarterfinal of a RUWC (unless you are the odd one out), so it has a national prominence without having to do much. Scotland can just about put out a XV (and rely heavily on two clubs sides to do so), it’s the bare bones of a set up, and yet they can beat the Aussies for the third time in a row. Comparatively speaking the Scottish football team is more talented than their Union team but because they face much sterner and greater number of opposition they struggle to qualify for a tournament never mind be in the quarterfinals of one. Wales are in the same boat...from Rush to Giggs to Bale, they’ve had world class footballers who have never played in a World Cup, yet their Rugby side is in the last eight of a tournament without having to do a thing. This easy (instant) pathway for the RU teams in tournaments means their profile will always be high, it’s nigh on impossible for it to slip. They always sit at the top table in RU as it’s a small table, making it mission impossible for a code that eats from the same trough.
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3 hours ago, Harry Stottle said:
Anfield is OK if you have got a 20" leg length, the seat spacing is ridiculously narrow, the most uncomfortable seats I have ever sat in, I vowed I would never go again after the NZ test, but I will definitely go to Wigan.
Never had a problem in the Kop, nor the redeveloped main stand, and I expect the redeveloped Anfield road end will also be fine.
The main issue with Anfield for rugby league is its never looked right having it played in it.
It’s the most iconic club stadium in the country, and the one foreigners want to experience more than any other, but it’s because it’s so iconic as a football stadium, “This is Anfield”, anything else played there looks like trespassing. What makes it famous is its atmosphere, flags, banners, songs etc. You don’t get any of this when rugby league is there. The ground is almost always packed so seeing swathes of empty seats (a more than half empty Kop) for a rugby league game, that’s not Anfield. A less iconic football ground is more receptible to another sport being played in it.
Robert Elstone spoke from a football background when talking about Anfield: “On behalf of the Super League clubs, we’re delighted to be taking the Dacia Magic Weekend to one of the most famous stadiums in the world.”
What he experienced in football (and his Everton team invariably got a hiding there) cannot be replicated in rugby league. Rugby league has its own identity.
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On 10/11/2021 at 17:00, Dave T said:
To take this to its logical conclusion, I find it a shame that you think Football and Rugby Union are such superior sports to RL as shown by their greater crowds, TV figures and investors.
*I wouldn’t agree with him putting RU in as a comparison.
Sports are different. They have different characteristics in their gameplay. The difference in popularity is not simply just down to marketing.
The two biggest sports on Earth, football and basketball, have barely changed in the fundamentals of their gameplay. Individuals still stand out as before (in football it’s only got even more so with pristine pitches to play on and deliberately taking players out long since penalised). They are continually breaking scoring records (Salah the latest one to do so).
The fault with RL I feel is it’s best quality, the running (especially solo runs with dummies etc), that generate the most excitement, number far less than they should.
I won’t keep harping on about what I feel needs to change as I’ve said it multiple times as Dunbar rightly points out, but I think RL (and RU even more so) is it’s own worst enemy as it doesn’t showcase its best self. It’s just one example but Rangi Chase being showcased on Sky Sports News after that behind the back pass he pulled off, that type of stuff goes viral. I don’t think I’d ever heard of him until I’d seen that move, which he re-enacted on the news. He elevated himself. Multiply that kind of stuff, solo runs etc. and those players will make themselves known. They need to be given the platform on the field to do that though, as the big names in the distant past were. Chucking some unknown on Question of Sport, that’s not going to change things one iota. What he does on the field will.
Lomu had a statue in Madame Tussaud’s as he lit up the field in RU. He’s the last to do so in Union (and will be for the foreseeable as it’s impossible now in the game of giants). He was a money making machine for the whole sport. He was put on posters, adverts etc. his image sold the game, got people tuning in. A draw. Who would either rugby code put on the cover of a video game today? That’s the crux of the whole advertising/marketing issue.
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There should be no such thing as “equal pay”.
You should be paid what you earn.
The women’s yank footballers beating a group of villagers from Thailand 24-0 in front of a small crowd, and then demanding “equal pay” with men, nonsensical.
*Side note; a under 17 boys team from Texas beat the US women’s senior team in a game.
Women's tennis players get equal pay, and rightly so because they generate as much as men.
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59 minutes ago, Dunbar said:
You've made this same point now about 7,000 times. It really is time to give it a rest.
By the way, I am sure that other people on here make some points repetitively and indeed I am probably guilty of this myself but, and here is the key part I think, we usually make points about Rugby League.
Fair point.
Dont think I ever gave the weight comparison before though. I had a look for the weight differential in RL, and a post you made a year ago came up;
From 14st 6lb to 16st 9lb.
It’s a bigger jump for RL than I had envisaged. It’s certainly more noticeable in Union in the way it has transformed the game.
The response to your post kinda summed up an issue here though..”the 2019 pack would beat the 1988 pack on physical attributes alone despite not being better players.” Size/power beating ability. A sport should never be about that.
In the Tony Collins podcast on both rugby codes he and Mark Evans touched on both codes having to constantly monitor the rules in order to keep the fundamentals of the game essentially the same, something I think those who run both have neglected.
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4 hours ago, NW10LDN said:
Was looking at a rugby union forum and they had a video of South African school rugby. They were celebrating how SA rugby was going to be great going forward. These kids were 14/15 and were massive. The teachers were encouraging them to hit hard. No way they weren't taking steroids or something. One Irish union coach dismissed the concussion concerns as just being a part of the game. And these folks wonder why participation is dropping. Let's face it. For union to get better, it has to become more like League but the chiefs can't bring themselves to admit that. Only 30% of schools have League. We should make that figure higher and I can bet rugby will get a higher profile.
“Modern international rugby players have grown significantly since their counterparts played 25 years ago. In a study, published in the BMJ Open Sport & Exercise Medicine, it revealed that the mean body mass of international players increased from 84.8kg in 1995, to 105.4kg in 2015.”
Thats an increase of almost a quarter. The onus now is on bulk. Welsh backs from 2015 were bigger than NZ forwards from 1987. Collisions are now mini car crashes. The result is you have brain damaged blokes in their 30s queuing up for compensation. This contrasts with the like of JPR Williams and Campese, older blokes who played when the players looked human, they are healthy. It’s now an attritional borefest with concussions aplenty, and line breaks and space a rarity.
There’s no longer any consolation saying RL is better than RU, as that ain’t hard. As a sport RU as gone backwards, hence there is no individual playing today whom Joe public could name. It’s 80 minutes of big blokes blending into one another, the odd close in try (perhaps a breakaway), but next to nothing from an individual as they cannot excell like ones did in the past. It’s become a faceless game. Who on earth could the BBC, Sky, whoever use to advertise a RU game? The answer is nobody. They wouldn’t be known.
RL has an opportunity to take advantage of the decline in RU but it would need to make changes with what’s happening on the field. 7k at Wigan, for a playoff game vs Leeds. It makes the whole advertising debate pointless as advertising is not the reason for that crowd. What’s happening on the pitch is.
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9 hours ago, unapologetic pedant said:
The rules and how they are applied can be controlled. At the moment they`re applied to suit those who obsess about forward passes and knock-ons. With dire effects on the game as a spectacle.
Effective marketing can lure people to infrequent events like internationals. But to maintain regular attendance at club games of any sport, I have to believe that a consistently attractive product is essential.
If I`d taken a Union fan to a League game 30+ years ago, I would have confidently expected the product to deliver more than enough to make the exercise worthwhile. Particularly in comparison with how Union was then played in the UK.
Now I wouldn`t be so sure. Some of our games consist of around 80 % dummy-half runs and one-out hit-ups. Anything that deviates from the "complete your sets" formula risks a call from ref or touch judge. Can we credibly contrast that with supposedly turgid RU?
Someone watching League who is used to Union will notice that currently where a Union ref will play advantage, the League ref will blow his whistle. So that Union refs facilitate off-the-cuff broken-field action, whereas League refs call a halt and restore the rigid pattern.
If when a Union player mishandled the ball and the opposition regathered, the ref didn`t play advantage but instead stopped the game and jogged off to the middle of the field to choreograph a 20-phase pick-and-go session - we`d no doubt poke fun at boring RU. Yet something similar is now routine in League.
Our administrators devote too much time to off-field matters like structures and marketing. I`d rather they thought more about the on-field product deficiencies they`ve allowed to set in.
Ultimately it’s the on field product that sells a sport.
You can market/advertise all you want, but people won’t just buy/watch if they don’t like what they see. You can put lipstick on a pig, but it’s still a pig.. which applies to anything.
I concur with your general view on RL in England (not so much the NRL with its higher standard, sharper/slick attacking play). It looks very rigid. The main culprit I feel is the way the PTB is policed in England, as it takes forever, with the defending team given licence to slow it down by slowly getting off the man one by one, allowing the defence to reset, get organised, making it harder for the next attacking player...and so on. Mark Evans (worked with Melbourne Storm) on the Tony Collins podcast talked about how this spoiling tactic was discouraged in Australia, it clearly isn’t in England. There’s a suffocating feel to the game in England with the attacking players held back and restricted in what they can do (the amount of times I’ve felt like shouting “Get Off” as the big hallions slowly peel off the fella on the ground). Restrict, suffocate, stifle, three of the terms I’d use to describe this. It would explain why most of the RL try scoring records are from decades ago, resembling those in Athletics still held by East Germans.
The players are also bigger/stronger (although not gone anywhere near the damaging extent RU has with players now “80% neck”) which further makes it harder for the attacking players. RU has taken on a plethora of RL defence coaches to really strangle the life out of attacking play even further, so obviously the standard of defensive coaching in RL is high, which ain’t good for attacking play in either code. The wrestle also makes it a less open game. A Hanley or an Offiah ain’t doing in today’s game what they did previously.
People in Wigan don’t need marketing or advertising to know Wigan are playing. Yet they get 7k for a playoff game vs Leeds. They are voting with their feet. If people entrenched in a RL environment aren’t taking in a game, it’s a bit much to expect a casual viewer from outside this environment to do so.
6 hours ago, gingerjon said:I basically disagree with all of this but especially the part where rugby union is a beacon of letting things go.
They've always had a more relaxed attitude to forward passes and knock ons. It's why their "greatest try of all time" would never have been allowed in league. But whole sections of the match - three or four minutes at a time - can be taken up by setting and resetting a scrum. Penalties are given for opaque reasons , the kicking of which then chew up time. And whilst there is probably too much safety first attacking build up in league, that really doesn't compare too badly with the same forwards running the ball into the same impact space again and again because there is no limit to the number of times they can do it. Until they get a penalty. Which eats up clock.
Which is my way of saying that whilst there are things I'd do to tinker around the edges with the rules of league and their enforcement, they're not going to be the things that bring people back to the game again and again. The product is a brilliant product. We've enough evidence of that to know it to be true.
Yeah RU ain’t a sport to be looking to for improvements in your own. Transformers colliding for 80 minutes, its become nigh on unwatchable. And that “greatest try of all time”, played when there was actual space on the field as the players looked like humans, nothing remotely close to that try could be scored today. The first runner would get clobbered before a sequence could take off. RU is in enormous trouble with court cases galore from players suffering brain damage in the pro era, while players from the amateur era their health has been largely unaffected. And given this decline in RU both in its watchability and it profile, it’s baffling how it has been used on here as something to emulate. RU has built in advantages with the Six Nations, so casual viewers like me have watched it over the years, but no sport has inflicted damage on itself more than RU. Ask Joe Bloggs to name a solitary RU player, if it’s not “J.Wilkinson” the response will be crickets. RU has taken suffocating attacking play to another level altogether, hence games are a drudgery, and no household name in England has emerged in over a decade and a half.
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2 hours ago, Futtocks said:
I assume you mean the England RU team. Something that has little or nothing to do with growing Rugby League.
We can't afford not to reach out to everyone and anyone who might be interested. Otherwise, we stagnate and rot within unnecessarily self-imposed limits, just because it makes us feel we are "keeping it real". In fact, if the game aims upwards, then maybe we'd end up with a few more influential people on our side in the long run.
The Twickenham rabble can carry on with the same public school focus that has begun to destroy the game in Australia, and that'll be just great by me.
The main thing that’s killing RU is the transformation in player size, making it a much more attritional sport, less watchable, and much more dangerous. Interested (and not surprised) with recent findings;
The potential dangers of professional rugby have been highlighted by a study that found players from the amateur era had no change in cognitive function until the age of 75, according to the body that funded the research.
A number of former professionals have been diagnosed with early-onset dementia in their thirties and forties.
Lauren Pulling, the chief executive of the foundation, said: “These findings are broadly reassuring for players from the amateur era. However, given the findings of the Drake study and recent cases of early-onset brain disease in ex-players from the professional era, the results do call into question how long-term health might differ in players from the modern era. The evidence we have so far suggests the sport may be travelling in the wrong direction.“
I can’t see RU reversing its decline unless player size goes back to a time when they were normal. It’s now a brutal, tedious product and no amount of marketing can cover that up.
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5 hours ago, Damien said:
Agreed. I do get the impression that whatever action the game takes that Schofield would then take the opposite viewpoint and say its wrong.
Having listened to him on the Forty20 podcasts he’s been very consistent with his viewpoint. He was a maverick as a player, an attacking player who got people off their seat, so it’s natural someone of that ilk wouldn’t find some (much?) of the current product his cup of tea.
The folk at Wigan are voting with their feet. What was it 7k for a playoff game vs Leeds?
Shaun Wane (to me anyway) is a millstone around the neck for RL. He wins yes, as does Wayne Bennett, but he wins in a style that doesn’t excite. Spurs fans just got their new coach sacked (only been in the job for three months) as the stuff he churned out was negative. Sit back, soak up pressure, hit teams on the break...as a result Harry Kane has barely got a kick of the ball in the attacking third and his goals have dried up. Mourinho (another dinosaur) is effectively finished as no top club would now be desperate enough to tolerate his similar pragmatic, cautious, defence first approach. RL is full of pragmatism, of defensive organisation, of slowing down the opposition (getting off the ball carrier one by one during the PTB to reset the defensive line), of squeezing the opposition’s attacking threat to a minimum, and ultimately grinding down the opposition with the aid of “bigger, stronger, faster”. In RU this war of attrition is even more pronounced. RL isn’t the same product is was, Schofield makes this abundantly clear, and he does so as it’s the sport he loves.
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4 hours ago, The Future is League said:
Schofield was a very good player, but as a PUNDIT he's an attention seeker.
A majority of fans laugh at his opinions as in the modern game he's way of the pace.
I think he’s being honest rather than seeking attention.
He was a very creative player who has been outspoken on the less open style of play in the game today (he isn’t a fan of Wayne Bennett that’s for sure).
In terms of negativity, there probably is too much of it (perhaps cliches like “RL is dying” is due to the sport’s perceived struggle for survival since its origin). But I think viewpoints like Schofield’s can be misconstrued as negative when he’s actually wanting to see the game be the best it can be (constructive criticism).
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4 hours ago, The Daddy said:
How do you know, Did you do a survey?
I’m afraid he’s making it up as he goes along.
First it was “Mancs have county cricket”, when Lancashire county cricket included Liverpool who were part of Lancashire. Then it was “Manchester has RL teams”, when it’s Greater Manchester that has RL teams just as Merseyside has a RL team.
Basic history/geography, especially to anyone from the region.
And if Mancs have this greater interest in RL, why is their 2021 RL thread less than 1 page (total 24 comments) while the equivalent 2021 RL thread on RAWK (LFC) is 4 pages? And Geordies? No thread at all... zilch, nada, goose egg. Scousers have the greatest number of posts, on RL, in their busiest football forum.
Four pages (while the most) isn’t much at all. For comparison sake the 2021 cricket thread on RAWK, 269 pages....scousers have no interest in cricket apparently. “Ahh but that number must be solely down to foreigners as LFC have a global fanbase” (which still wouldn’t counter why RAWK has more RL comments than the Manc and Geordie forums).
The interest in RL across all three groups is small, as I said from the get go, but the casual interest in sports other than football is significant across all three.
Back to the original point, no region is shut off. Make something appealing enough and it will attract new interest. If you look at stuff that goes viral, across all sports, more often than not it’s eye catching plays. Without question there are infinitely less of them in RU than there used to be, hence no household RU player today, and I’d say it’s almost certainly the same for RL, and it also doesn’t have a household name today. The increase in size, the increase in power, the lack of wide open spaces like before, no individual can excell like an attacking player once did which made them star. The coverage has increased, yet fewer kids could name a RL player today (outside the heartlands, i don’t think they could name any)
Mark Evans on the Tony Collins podcast (12:30 onward) talks about the change in physique (he thinks RU will have radical rule changes, and also go down to 13 players). He mentions smaller players from both are still around (Shane Williams in RU, Reagan Grace in RL), but there are far fewer of them now, and the like of them don’t weigh 11 stone like many once did neither.
The gist of it is, the collision codes have to change the rules, in order to stay the same (that’s maintain the basic elements of the game). The problem for both is while players have got bigger, stronger, faster, it’s also dramatically changed the look of both (more so RU, but that’s academic). It’s made them harder, more attritional. So if no individual can stand out now anywhere close like before, who is there for casual observers to get interested in?
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4 hours ago, Eddie said:
Wrong I’m afraid.
Deluded. Also note you cut out the part that refuted your comment about what sports are played where.
2 hours ago, Saint Toppy said:They can see its football dominated and thats never going to change.
It’s never going to change (in all likelihood), likewise for Manchester and Newcastle. However, most people who follow football are also casual viewers of other sports, and it’s those that should be targeted.
Go on the busiest forum of Liverpool FC (Rawk), Man Utd (Redcafe) and Newcastle (NUFC) and look at the other sport (general) sections, you will see a plethora of other sports being debated. The threads on US sports are substantial (large number of fans of the three clubs from North America use the forums), while cricket, boxing, F1, tennis (during a slam), golf (during Ryder Up/major) get significant comments/views. To a lesser extent RU also garners some interest, and then to a lesser extent there’s RL, the latter of which generates most interest in the Liverpool forum (one thread made up of four pages), the Man U one has one page in its thread, while Newcastle doesn’t have any RL thread.
The interest in RL is small among the three places (as it is with RU really), which harps back to the point I’ve been making about both codes becoming more attritional, more physical, more defensively orientated/structured, providing less of a platform for individuals to make eye catching attacking plays and really stand out (thus becoming household names and generating clicks/interest) as Offiah, Hanley Robinson, Tuigamala were afforded previously. Being a much tougher, more restrictive game for attacking players has resulted in there being no star (ie. household name) in either code today so there’s no-one to talk about or pull in the casual viewer.
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6 hours ago, Eddie said:
Mancs have county cricket, Sale, Salford and Swinton, and I think a pro basketball and ice hockey team. Newcastle has both codes of rugby. There is a reason why Liverpool has none of that, as people above who’ve actually lived there and know what they’re talking about have stated.
Greater Manchester (Salford) has Old Trafford as it dates from the mid 19th century when it was in Lancashire, a county (represented by Lancashire county cricket club) that included Liverpool and Manchester before the recent modern boundaries came into force. This venue was also there before (association) football was even a thing. Sale, Salford, Swinton, these are all Greater Manchester. The equivalent for Liverpool (Merseyside) has St Helens. RU in Newcastle (which only got off the ground after being bankrolled by John Hall) caters to the middle classes of the NE.
Radio Merseyside has one hour of Rugby League per week, straight after the football. Does Radio North East? The Cricket thread (especially for the Ashes) is busy on Liverpool message boards (which I use a lot). The NFL thread is also busy. Ryder Cup thread for golf was a hive of activity, likewise any tennis slam.
Its a complete myth that “scousers are only interested in football”. It dominates the sports scene yes, but no more than it does with Mancs and Geordies.
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The Broadcasting and Business side of the NRL.
in The Australian Rugby League Forum
Posted · Edited by DC77
https://www.sportspromedia.com/news/nrl-nine-tv-broadcast-rights-rugby-league-australia-foxtel/
NRL $445 million (£330 million) for five years on Nine.
I’ve seen the status of the NRL in Aus compared to the Premier League here, but is that accurate?
NBC in the US are paying the Premier League $2.7 billion over 6 years, roughly six times what a domestic broadcaster in the form of Nine is paying the NRL. That’s probably an unfair comparison as it’s a different market size (still blown away by the difference mind).
A better comparison, Optus in Australia are paying £43 million per season (so £215 million over the same length of Nine’s NRL deal) for the Premier League.
https://www.thesun.co.uk/sport/football/16784688/premier-league-nbc-sports-australia-contract/
So, £215 million, for a foreign league, vs £330 million for a domestic one.
That comparison doesn’t suggest the NRL has anything like the status the PL does here. Accurate?