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RL could end up like Speedway in 5 years


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The difference is that they have the money to do it. Their clubs are also entering a high profile competition that gets regular national media coverage.

That said Melbourne aren't a roaring success and without their Grand Final wins, they would have also likely been relocated.

but they did get the grand final wins (ok by cheating but still) and look at the reaction to the cheating by the fans.. they seem to have a good base there and the juniors are starting to really get to grips with it.. ARU get a super 15 team in there beucase of it as well.. before RL gets the grip of AFL land.. (grand final very early 1999?? helped this out as well and was done without the cheating that the last few have come with)

but chicken and egg.. do you throw money at the exapansion and get the national coverage or do you sit back anf hope it comes so that you have the money to expand.. well the latter doesnt work so how about the former?

its relative money, get quins etc competative on the field and your away.. but you have to do it early,.. there is now apathy in london becuase of continued faliure and movement..

(i dont agree they would be relocated i think australia would gie it some time)

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but they did get the grand final wins (ok by cheating but still) and look at the reaction to the cheating by the fans.. they seem to have a good base there and the juniors are starting to really get to grips with it.. ARU get a super 15 team in there beucase of it as well.. before RL gets the grip of AFL land.. (grand final very early 1999?? helped this out as well and was done without the cheating that the last few have come with)

but chicken and egg.. do you throw money at the exapansion and get the national coverage or do you sit back anf hope it comes so that you have the money to expand.. well the latter doesnt work so how about the former?

its relative money, get quins etc competative on the field and your away.. but you have to do it early,.. there is now apathy in london becuase of continued faliure and movement..

(i dont agree they would be relocated i think australia would gie it some time)

The whole point is that we aren't going to get national coverage. Whatever we do, the national media will ignore us.

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but they did get the grand final wins (ok by cheating but still) and look at the reaction to the cheating by the fans.. they seem to have a good base there and the juniors are starting to really get to grips with it.. ARU get a super 15 team in there beucase of it as well.. before RL gets the grip of AFL land.. (grand final very early 1999?? helped this out as well and was done without the cheating that the last few have come with)

but chicken and egg.. do you throw money at the exapansion and get the national coverage or do you sit back anf hope it comes so that you have the money to expand.. well the latter doesnt work so how about the former?

its relative money, get quins etc competative on the field and your away.. but you have to do it early,.. there is now apathy in london becuase of continued faliure and movement..

(i dont agree they would be relocated i think australia would gie it some time)

In 2004 prominent people were talking about relocating them because crowds had dropped massively. You can't budget for Grand Final success. Heck if Quins had appeared in 4 Grand Finals in a row then I reckon they'd have a pretty decent set up down there.

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In 2004 prominent people were talking about relocating them because crowds had dropped massively. You can't budget for Grand Final success. Heck if Quins had appeared in 4 Grand Finals in a row then I reckon they'd have a pretty decent set up down there.

many people can talk about many things it doesnt mean it is going to happen.. god RL as a sport proves that the amount of times they talk about things and ###### all ever seems to happen..

yes thats the thing success can really achieve things.. and thats why weight needs to be thrown behind these things not just talk from up onhigh and ticking the map and forgetting about it

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The whole point is that we aren't going to get national coverage. Whatever we do, the national media will ignore us.

sorry thats just not true.. "whatever we do, the national media will ignore us"... we do plenty of things the national media do not ignore.. not all positive but with success etc then they may become interested again.. we CAN get national coverage becuase nothing is set in stone...

an expanding game over the last 10 years can open up corridors into companies and into news media with the universities etc.. this is still a bit off as it takes time for people to move up a ladder but you cannot write off the whole future of the universe becuase of what is happening today..

they CAN be brought back on side if we get things right.. whether they WILL or not is down to getting these thigns right but to sit back and say "it wont happen no matter what" is (sorry to say) daft.

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The lack of relegation and promotion is a problem but so was the previous system. A return to promotion and relegation is not a simple answer. Even when we had it there were numerous problems and crowds in the lower divisions had been dropping. Most clubs already didn't see Super League as achievable because they were too small.

The game is hard to play and the RFL should run different levels where there are easier versions such as 5m and tag.

Working it's way down the country is an ideal but not realistic, you need places to actually want Rugby League and you can only move where they do.

A lot of work has been done in schools and I read in a teacher paper last year that RL was actually the fastest growing sport in schools. It is now played in 33% of secondary schools in comparison to 66% for Union, which I didn't think was that bad considering our geographical isolation.

There is no point ring fencing 14 top teams for 3-years whilst alienating the other 20-odd clubs. Especially when many of the clubs below SL have equal or better facilities than SL clubs. It isn't right

Annual promotion needs to be awarded preferably to 2 clubs. Perhaps the promoted clubs could be ring fenced for 1 year. Who gives a ###### if potentially the 12th club goes down? At least we'd have recycling and keep everyone happy (bar the poor little SL clubs going down)

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the only way RL will get any kind of national coverage in the media will be if we force them to.. if the game becomes so popular that they will have to relent. and for that to happen we need major investment in the sport from a number of different sponsors. which in all honesty isnt going to happen anytime soon..

the RFL will have to make some very big decisions if they seriously want to get RL back on an upward spiral, although i honestly think we are on that upward spiral already, its just going to be a slower journey than some of us would like.

One way would be to switch from sky to a competent and willing terrestrial TV broadcaster. which i believe in a short space of time would go some way to forcing the nations media to take notice. but for that to happen we'd have to not re-new with sky and have in place a suitable replacement. no terrestrial TV company is gonna give the RFL 60mil+ like sky have/do.. so we'd need to generate a greater pool of sponsorships to supplement any losses a new TV deal might create, which would be difficult in these times of financial uncertainty.. but not impossible.

another way would be to insist on certain things when the next TV contract comes round, things like:

  • Increased presence in all news ltd national papers
  • An increase in promotion from sky
  • A new and improved, and up-to-date RL magazine programme
  • An increase in RL's visibility in other sky broadcasts (sports bulletins, variety shows, quizs etc)
  • RL to be featured in Sky sports subscription promotions, nationally
  • RL to form part of the sky sports advertising campaigns, nationally. (Print and TV)
  • etc, etc

today while watching SSN i saw a piece about an indian business man who is willing to invest over 100m into blackburn rovers (100m for transfers apparently, and in cash, with the promise of more to come!). There are people out with obscene amounts of money, wanting to invest in sport. RL should be trying to identify these people and attempting to get them on board. the game of RL is an absolutely fantastic sport, as we all know.. and would be an attractive proposition for any sport loving business man, and also a sport that could be invested in at quite a low level of investment in comparison to a sport like football.. and i imagine the potential returns, upon greater exposure could be huge. it stands to reason, with greater exposure comes greater awareness, with that awareness comes a greater appreciation of the sport, with that appreciation new fans will be created, which will increase the popularity of the sport, which could then produce avenues to expand in the exposure to other countries (for instance), through more TV deals.

RL really doesnt do much for its sponsors, not really.. to get more out of our sponsorships we need to do more for our sponsors.. as has been said on these boards time and again our elite competition is known as Superleague to pretty much everyone, not the Engage Superleague. the RFL should be insisting that the competition is constantly refered to as the 'Engage Superleague', in all forms of written and visual media. Gilette is probably the biggest brand we're associated with but you'd only really know that if you happened to watch an England game or looked at the list of sponsors of the RFL website.. a major international brand has an association with us! lets use that association where we can.. the only thinkg i can think of that RL has been involved with, with Gilette is from the first Tri-nations DVD, where leeds players are signing autographs at a bloody supermarket!

we appear to have picked up a couple more major brands in recent times in Valvoline and Dewalt, two big recognisable brands, we should be going out of our way to include these brands in RL as much as possible, not just a logo on a website!.. with good sponsor relations comes an opporunity to increase our own identity through these sponsors.. raise awareness of our game and increase revenue.

im going slightly off tack now.. so will end this little post!.. apologies if i've waffled.. am seriously ill today and whacked off my #### on night nurse! :D

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I find it staggering that everyone in this thread is talking about the global nature of the modern sporting landscape and yet the solution, according to some, is to retreat into the M62 corridor. Unbelievable.

"Just as we had been Cathars, we were treizistes, men apart."

Jean Roque, Calendrier-revue du Racing-Club Albigeois, 1958-1959

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the only way RL will get any kind of national coverage in the media will be if we force them to.. if the game becomes so popular that they will have to relent. and for that to happen we need major investment in the sport from a number of different sponsors

As far as I am aware the top 30 club rugby attendances of all time wouldn't include a single union match - yet which sport is claiming with a lot of success in the media that various of its games have broken the club rugby attendance record?

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As far as I am aware the top 30 club rugby attendances of all time wouldn't include a single union match - yet which sport is claiming with a lot of success in the media that various of its games have broken the club rugby attendance record?

more than anything that just shows how good they are at this.. they used 2003 and ran with it.. we dont even get positive stories out there to be seen, where is the media bod at league headquarters shouting that this isnt true, where are they when we have records broken, where are we with the millenium magic weekends the media is poor..

union have the jump on us becuase they are prepared to bend the truth knowing no one will call them on it.. that is what the media person at league HQ should do.. but they are caught between a rock and a hard place becuase if they do crow about it they will get called chippy and "everyone knows what we mean" which to be honest to a huge swathe of hte population Rugby is Union.. rightly or wrongly..

wherever we are now it doenst mean we are here to stay we can change it with the expansion and with increased success of the expansion teams.. if crusaders do well it will galvanise a welsh interest that has been latent for example

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I find it staggering that everyone in this thread is talking about the global nature of the modern sporting landscape and yet the solution, according to some, is to retreat into the M62 corridor. Unbelievable.

Where exactly is this said?

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The whole point is that we aren't going to get national coverage. Whatever we do, the national media will ignore us.

They wouldn't ignore a successful national team. But we don't have one of those. All efforts should be channelled into getting one, if RL really, really wants to crack the national media. Having that successful national team playing in the biggest, most iconic venues in front of big crowds would help too.

Tinkering about with the club game will not increase national media coverage.

(For the sake of balance, and sorry to disappoint the conspiracy theorists, but I believe The Times have also ditched their staff rugby union reporter too, so it isn't just RL on the backfoot here).

.

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more than anything that just shows how good they are at this.. they used 2003 and ran with it.. we dont even get positive stories out there to be seen, where is the media bod at league headquarters shouting that this isnt true, where are they when we have records broken, where are we with the millenium magic weekends the media is poor..

Wasn't there an 8 page pullout in the People for this?

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They wouldn't ignore a successful national team. But we don't have one of those. All efforts should be channelled into getting one, if RL really, really wants to crack the national media. Having that successful national team playing in the biggest, most iconic venues in front of big crowds would help too.

Tinkering about with the club game will not increase national media coverage.

(For the sake of balance, and sorry to disappoint the conspiracy theorists, but I believe The Times have also ditched their staff rugby union reporter too, so it isn't just RL on the backfoot here).

I think this is about more than the ditching of one person, it's about the profile of the whole game and it is diminishing.

A successful national team is part of the answer but even that is only going to do so much because there is only really 1 maybe 2 international teams that it is worthwhile beating. People would soon see through this.

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Our friend from Leigh.

Is that exactly what he says or just the spin you would like to put on it?

He talks about poorly thought through expansion clubs and to be honest just because they are expansion clubs doesn't mean that they weren't poorly thought out.

A failing expansion club such as Quins probably does the image of our game more harm than it does good. It certainly does more than anything else to give the impression that RL is simply a northern game as it struggles so badly in the south.

Face it, if Quins were a northern RU club we would be laughing at them, claiming it proves that the north doesn't want RU.

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more than anything that just shows how good they are at this.. they used 2003 and ran with it.. we dont even get positive stories out there to be seen, where is the media bod at league headquarters shouting that this isnt true,

Maybe he did point out the claims were wrong but was ignored which wouldn't be beyond the realms of credibility.

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A successful national team is part of the answer but even that is only going to do so much because there is only really 1 maybe 2 international teams that it is worthwhile beating. People would soon see through this.

Beating those teams would be a start, wouldn't it? It's a big enough task for now. We could worry about people seeing through it later, so long as they were actually paying attention to it in the first place, which right now, they aren't.

.

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Maybe he did point out the claims were wrong but was ignored which wouldn't be beyond the realms of credibility.

And as he pointed out himself, we just get wrote off as chippy northerners.

We don't have the soapbox from which to shout our game up. Union doesn't need to try, the media do it for them and in certain area's such as internationals there is a genuine national interest in the outcome.

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A successful national team is part of the answer but even that is only going to do so much because there is only really 1 maybe 2 international teams that it is worthwhile beating. People would soon see through this.

Really? What about in rahrah? How many times have England beaten Australia down under? Or New Zealand anywhere? Sixty years since Wales beat New Zealand. Scotland have never done it, Ireland similar I think.

What about the England football team? One trophy in the cabinet, and yet this recent world cup was the first in recent memory where the entire country wasn't convinced we were champions before the kick off.

Competitiveness is an illusion. You just need the friends in the media to help you with the slight of hand.

"Just as we had been Cathars, we were treizistes, men apart."

Jean Roque, Calendrier-revue du Racing-Club Albigeois, 1958-1959

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Beating those teams would be a start, wouldn't it? It's a big enough task for now. We could worry about people seeing through it later, so long as they were actually paying attention to it in the first place, which right now, they aren't.

I don't disagree with you but it's not the only answer like some would believe. Many people seem to think that we would see something along the lines of England RU in 2003. We still wouldn't get a fraction of this.

Plus, isn't this a big reasoning behind licensing? To get more English playing the game so that we can beat the Aussies. It's not like the RFL are doing nothing now.

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Really? What about in rahrah? How many times have England beaten Australia down under? Or New Zealand anywhere? Sixty years since Wales beat New Zealand. Scotland have never done it, Ireland similar I think.

What about the England football team? One trophy in the cabinet, and yet this recent world cup was the first in recent memory where the entire country wasn't convinced we were champions before the kick off.

Competitiveness is an illusion. You just need the friends in the media to help you with the slight of hand.

You're first point is related in no way to what I was talking about.

In Union and Football there are many many more competitive international teams than in RL, so it is less likely to get old. Winning is a real achievement. Beating Australia would be but once it's been done then it's been done, there's no other level to go to.

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I don't disagree with you but it's not the only answer like some would believe. Many people seem to think that we would see something along the lines of England RU in 2003. We still wouldn't get a fraction of this.

There's no point fretting about how much coverage RU gets, because there's nothing any of us can do about that. However, a successful national RL team would get more national press coverage than an unsuccessful one, and more coverage than a successful club RL side ever will. Moaning in advance that however much coverage that might be will not be as much as other sports get by default is a waste of energy, IMO. It'll still be more than RL gets now, which is the important thing.

Plus, isn't this a big reasoning behind licensing? To get more English playing the game so that we can beat the Aussies. It's not like the RFL are doing nothing now.

They're not doing nothing, but they're not doing enough. The whole game is club-centric and we pay a price for that.

.

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The driving force for the Media needs to come from the RFL. They should have a team that has targets to perform. They should utilise spending power to help the teams in the Championship to market themselves.

We need a whole game view, there should be some different options for marketing, such as a voucher season ticket, 6 games for 5 and fans can use these to go to any Championship 1 or 2 game look at the success Fax had. There should be some taster session options.

Salford had teams from Glasgow playing on Sunday and have spent a considerable time coaching etc in Scotland.

How can we get the Magic games more exposure?

We need to raise the profile of the challenge cup and invite some headline grabber to stand at the side of Steve Prescott.

We always seem to settle for second best.

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