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Do we deserve to be in the National Papers?


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The Eddie Waring documentary midweek made a telling point. Every few weeks upto 1996, RL was broadcast into everybody's home. The sport picked up a lot of interest from the casual sports fan all over the country. That, sadly, was partially abandoned. RL's visibilty to the public at large has reduced, and along with it the interest.

Agree very much but one question. Was the game rewarded properly for providing programme content? It seems to me that when the game was on free to air BBC TV, attendances at games fell and overall, including whatever the BBC paid, income was reduced.

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You have to admit you were lying though?

It is beyond the wildest dreams of even Parksider that RL outside the north could be even nearly as big as RU in the north

you mean lying as in "you'l be hearing from Carter-Ruck"? :P

I've just checked what I wrote because at my age, my short term memory isn't what it was. I wrote "Union is as regional as league at the pro level" not "RL outside the north could be even nearly as big as RU in the north"

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you mean lying as in "you'l be hearing from Carter-Ruck"? :P

I've just checked what I wrote because at my age, my short term memory isn't what it was. I wrote "Union is as regional as league at the pro level" not "RL outside the north could be even nearly as big as RU in the north"

Well okay then explain to me how RU having full time professional teams in all 9 regions of England is just as regional at the pro level as RL only having full time pro sides in 3 regions, and even including semi pro sides only has them in 4 out of 9 regions and that's a stretch including a side that is semi-pro in little more than name.

Seriously how can your statement be anything but an extreme lie, not just a small one, but an absolute extreme black is white level one? You may as well say RL is bigger than soccer on the grounds you like it more and it would be no more a lie.

I know you obviously like RL more than RU, as do I, but that's no excuse to make up childish lies

Edited by bowes
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What I cannot fathom is that as far as I know newpapers struggle more than ever circulation wise YET none try to differentiate from their competitors. Surely, a paper that targets sports not catered for by its rivals could attract more readers by doing that. So a paper offering proper RL coverage, proper Angling coverage, proper Boxing coverage and so forth would get readers on that basis.

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Well okay then explain to me how RU having full time professional teams in all 9 regions of England is just as regional at the pro level as RL only having full time pro sides in 3 regions, and even including semi pro sides only has them in 4 out of 9 regions and that's a stretch including a side that is semi-pro in little more than name.

Seriously how can your statement be anything but an extreme lie, not just a small one, but an absolute extreme black is white level one? You may as well say RL is bigger than soccer on the grounds you like it more and it would be no more a lie.

I know you obviously like RL more than RU, as do I, but that's no excuse to make up childish lies

What is wrong with you? Why are you choosing to turn this discussion into personal abuse?

well, just lookie here!

No unlawful or objectionable content. Unlawful, harassing, defamatory, abusive, threatening, harmful, obscene, profane, sexually oriented, racially offensive or otherwise objectionable material is not acceptable.

Edited by JohnM
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What I cannot fathom is that as far as I know newpapers struggle more than ever circulation wise YET none try to differentiate from their competitors. Surely, a paper that targets sports not catered for by its rivals could attract more readers by doing that. So a paper offering proper RL coverage, proper Angling coverage, proper Boxing coverage and so forth would get readers on that basis.

Still wouldn't work Allan. Everyone knows the whole world is interested in the Premiership. ;)

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If you're going to tell lies at least make them believable, talking rubbish ruins your whole argument, soccer is actually less national at premiership level than RU if anything, the South West, Yorkshire and East Midlands are hardly premiership soccer hotbeds (used to be for the latter 2), where's most clubs are London or North West. RU has Premiership teams in 8 out of 9 English regions and a team from the 9th region (West Midlands) just got relegated.

Come on! There are some pretty big Championship soccer clubs in the East Midlands - Forest, Leicester, Derby etc. There are two union prem clubs.

If you look at the union premiership, outside of the East Mids/M4 corridor/South West axis get relatively poor crowds compared to lower league soccer and RL.

I think looking at the 'where pro clubs are based' thing is a bit simplistic. These days plenty of people move around the country, and there are plenty of people from 'traditional' RL strongholds (Yorks, Lancs, Cumbria) that live elsewhere. Plus, there is a national amateur structure, the student game, the forces etc. This means there ARE people who are interested in League throughout the country. Arguably League is a more national game now than it has ever been.

We deserve coverage just as much as many other sports. We don't help ourselves and there are issues of bias at newspapers etc that it's a struggle to overcome. I mean, last Monday the Guardian's sport section devoted the middle three/four pages to union match reports. Is there really that much interest in the sport? I'd argue not.

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Well okay then explain to me how RU having full time professional teams in all 9 regions of England is just as regional at the pro level as RL only having full time pro sides in 3 regions, and even including semi pro sides only has them in 4 out of 9 regions and that's a stretch including a side that is semi-pro in little more than name.

Seriously how can your statement be anything but an extreme lie, not just a small one, but an absolute extreme black is white level one? You may as well say RL is bigger than soccer on the grounds you like it more and it would be no more a lie.

I know you obviously like RL more than RU, as do I, but that's no excuse to make up childish lies

The strength of the game is definitely in the south.

The 3 northern clubs first home games got 5,000 5,500 and 7,500. This is against the Aviva league average of 12,000.

Of course it is bigger and more spread but as far as the Aviva league goes the real interest lies in the south.

When you consider that Exeter are new this year and that the 3 Northern clubs are not well supported, it is a fairly regional league. Compared to the amount of press it gets, how many people do you think are genuinely interested in the results of the Aviva Premiership. I would suggest there are a handful of people in the north.

League clearly deserves to be in the National press in comparison and it would be if the M62 happened to run through London.

Edited by Maximus Decimus
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I think looking at the 'where pro clubs are based' thing is a bit simplistic. These days plenty of people move around the country, and there are plenty of people from 'traditional' RL strongholds (Yorks, Lancs, Cumbria) that live elsewhere. Plus, there is a national amateur structure, the student game, the forces etc. This means there ARE people who are interested in League throughout the country. Arguably League is a more national game now than it has ever been.

I have no issue with that, at schools level RL has a better spread (it gets worse as you move up the pyramid, things will improve as these players grow up) but he said at the professional level which is just a lie

Edited by bowes
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The strength of the game is definitely in the south.

The 3 northern clubs first home games got 5,000 5,500 and 7,500. This is against the Aviva league average of 12,000.

Of course it is bigger and more spread but as far as the Aviva league goes the real interest lies in the south.

When you consider that Exeter are new this year and that the 3 Northern clubs are not well supported, it is a fairly regional league. Compared to the amount of press it gets, how many people do you think are genuinely interested in the results of the Aviva Premiership. I would suggest there are a handful of people in the north.

League clearly deserves to be in the National press in comparison and it would be if the M62 happened to run through London.

3/4 of the population is in what you're calling the south though and Harlequins would kill for any of those crowds, not great admittedly. Rugby League isn't even well spread in the north (nor is RU in the South East in fact, the 2 areas RU is insignificant are in fact East Anglia and the South Coast (excluding South West of course)

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What is wrong with you? Why are you choosing to turn this discussion into personal abuse?

well, just lookie here!

No unlawful or objectionable content. Unlawful, harassing, defamatory, abusive, threatening, harmful, obscene, profane, sexually oriented, racially offensive or otherwise objectionable material is not acceptable.

Stop abusing the rules to avoid admitting you were wrong. A lie is a deliberate mistruth by definition and I had already debunked this myth earlier in the thread before you repeated it. If you want to try to oppose my claim with facts then I will welcome that as this is a discussion board, instead you said a meaningless comment and made no attempt to debate whatsoever that if I wanted to push the rules I could claim is equally an abusive comment.

RU played full time professionally in 9 out of 9 English regions, including 1/4 of the top flight in the north where there's 1/4 of the population.

RL played full time professionally in 3 out of 9 regions, all bar one of these clubs in a straight line and the other club being very poorly supported.

What in that do you disagree with?

If you don't want to debate then this stops here, but I'd rather you debated my points on an individual basis then we could have a more civil debate.

Edited by bowes
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Crusaders are northern but they're not M62. I personally think BBC's coverage in Wales especially has gone down hill this year despite the team performing well. They cut the live radio coverage that they did from Bridgend every game, they refused to recognise South Wales Scorpions online, they refuse to acknowledge any development, they editted out the under 23 Wales side from rhe online release plus of course they still don't show The Super League Show. BBC1 Wales news have been okay but that's down to one man who works there rather than the corporation itself.

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I'm certainly not going to "debate" anything with you, seeing as you indulge in personal abuse and incivility.

You must be getting old! The JohnM of the past would have swatted an extreme reaction like that like swatting away a dying autumn wasp! If there is personal abuse do what CKN is advises us to do till he is blue in the face - report it and get on with providing your entertaining but cutting posts.

Bowes - there is a difference between an extreme opinion and an 'extreme' lie (I'd like to know the measurement scale). Calm down, make your usually valued contribution in a civil manner and enjoy the debate.

Right, the Solomon job over I'm off to put some Sunday morning miles in - hope I don't get lost!

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As much as rugby league being under represented, we also have certain sports over represented. Compared to soccer and speedway, we can be quite happy with our coverage. If rugby league is less reported than a single Manchester United game, that does give a general reflection of the level of interest.

However, some sports, e.g. cricket and rugby union are wildly over represented through a number of factors, which basically come down to where national journalists and their ideal customers went to school.

To compare ourselves to cricket and ru coverage says as much about the coverage of these sports as it does about our own.

"You clearly have never met Bob8 then, he's like a veritable Bryan Ferry of RL." - Johnoco 19 Jul 2014

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Bowes - there is a difference between an extreme opinion and an 'extreme' lie (I'd like to know the measurement scale).

The difference is whether something is measurable, which something like spread of teams is, but there's no point carrying this on of course. You can't have an opinion on whether a cow or elephant is bigger

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As much as rugby league being under represented, we also have certain sports over represented. Compared to soccer and speedway, we can be quite happy with our coverage. If rugby league is less reported than a single Manchester United game, that does give a general reflection of the level of interest.

However, some sports, e.g. cricket and rugby union are wildly over represented through a number of factors, which basically come down to where national journalists and their ideal customers went to school.

To compare ourselves to cricket and ru coverage says as much about the coverage of these sports as it does about our own.

County cricket is overrepresented but I wouldn't say international is as there is a lot of interest. Club RU should in honesty get more coverage than club RL but not to the extent it does as the crowds are only a little higher on average and big RL crowds are very big. Depends on how well a particular paper sells in the north as well I suppose as people from RL areas are more likely to buy a left leaning paper I would have thought, hence the Guardian gives more RL and there's much less in the Daily Mail

Edited by bowes
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Surely a measure of how popular these sports are at certain levels is Sky viewing figures. All sports have their top league and some international games shown by SS.

engage Super League coverage more often than not outstrips RU Premiership coverage, often by a considerable amount. How does this then translate that more people want to read about the RU Premiership than engage Super League? That doesn't make much sense to me tbh.

We can have no complaints at Test level, as RU tests often have double the viewing figures of a RU test, but tbh if we had half their coverage it would be a hell of an improvement.

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I think its less about the Geographical spread and more about whether that Geographical spread includes London and the London centric national media.As far as I know none of the national papers in terms of the UK has its head office outside the South of England.

Other sports like Basketball have a wider Geographical spread at the top level than RL, the distant third most popular sport here in Cardiff is probably Ice Hockey, also a wider Geographical spread. It gets a few articles a week in the local during the season, it used to get far more national coverage when there was money in the League to attract top talent and a London team regardless of the numbers watching it.

The key here is that neither has a top flight team in London and RL attracts far more people to its matches than these sports. I think that in terms of numbers itself RL is worth substantial National Media coverage, but clearly the National Media does not.

Clearly a successful London RL side is paramount to getting substantial National Media coverage.

Edited by cardifcrusaderrob

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I think its less about the Geographical spread and more about whether that Geographical spread includes London and the London centric national media.As far as I know none of the national papers in terms of the UK has

Other sports like Basketball have a wider Geographical spread at the top level than RL, the distant third most popular sport here in Cardiff is probably Ice Hockey, also a wider Geographical spread. It gets a few articles a week in the local during the season, it used to get far more national coverage when there was money in the League to attract top talent.

The key here is that neither has a top flight team in London and RL attracts far more people to its matches than these sports. I think that in terms of numbers itself RL is worth substantial National Media coverage, but clearly the National Media does not.

Clearly a successful London RL side is paramount to getting substantial National Media coverage.

Indeed, however, sports that are underreported (speedway and ice-hockey) are by definition not as noticeable when we compare our coverage to others.

Many national journalists really believe that RL has generous coverage. They see the figures, but as there are not that many rugby league fans, they think there must be another explanation. When St Helens win sports team of the year, they believe it must be a fix as they know there are not many rugby league fans. When they have huge numbers of letters asking for more coverage, they believe it must be all the fans organising together as they know there are not many rugby league fans.

Simply, most of the people these journalists meet socially will be fans of RU or cricket and have possibly been interested in soccer since 1990. There might be numbers that say there are lots of rugby league fans, but as they do not meet them, it seems fair to assume that people are only watching the league as they do not have the chance to watch union.

Edited by Bob8

"You clearly have never met Bob8 then, he's like a veritable Bryan Ferry of RL." - Johnoco 19 Jul 2014

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