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Catalans plan Barca return - what are our Clubs doing?


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5 hours ago, Lowdesert said:

Wigan v Hull in Oz was innovative so was the game last weekend,.  Genuine question Spud.

 

Innovative but was it successful? I must admit I'm still not sure what the point of that Wigan-Hull game was.

More generally, I think there has to be a bit of strategy behind it. Clearly Catalans playing at Camp Nou is a great way to connect with the wider Catalans region they represent, potentially increasing fanbase, sponsorship opportunities or maybe just simple brand awareness.

If the RFL/SL had been commited to the Canadian influence I think holding a top level game there at a bigger stadium alongside a Toronto fixture might have been a useful idea. It still might be a useful idea in Ottawa and New York.

But elsewhere I'm not convinced the benefits stack up against the costs for many suggestions. What would Wigan really get from playing at Bolton, or Saints at Anfield to offset the expense (hiring such stadia isn't cheap, not to mention the additional marketing it would involve to get a decent crowd)?

A broader game-wide strategy might be a better option with the clubs collectively funding an event (or events) to expand the sport's reach.

Maybe something like playing a round of fixtures all on the same weekend in the same stadium located in an area worth targeting for growth of the sport. Like say Newcastle. That would be a magic idea.

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24 minutes ago, roughyedspud said:

Wigan v hull only happened cos they where both down under anyway..

Not true Spud.  Iirc, the game was announced mid year and took place the next year, in February.  I also seem to remember Radlinksi saying he had been negotiating it fir many months before that.

 

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3 hours ago, westside said:

Seems like Saints should be playing a big match at Anfield every year.

If Saints are intending on attracting more supporters from the Liverpool area then there are more cost effective ways of doing it than playing at Anfield.

Expanding their community outreach programmes further in that area for example. Open training sessions somewhere, supporter travel packages to home games (train and bus), work with local schools, pop-up events with the players in the city centre.

Sure most of that is slow burner stuff but it's far more sustainable and better value for money than chucking a butt load of cash at a football club, chucking even more at making people aware it's happening, sacrificing one of your most profitable matches, and hoping some of it sticks. You've then got to work out how to keep these new fans.

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1 hour ago, Moove said:

If Saints are intending on attracting more supporters from the Liverpool area then there are more cost effective ways of doing it than playing at Anfield.

Expanding their community outreach programmes further in that area for example. Open training sessions somewhere, supporter travel packages to home games (train and bus), work with local schools, pop-up events with the players in the city centre.

Sure most of that is slow burner stuff but it's far more sustainable and better value for money than chucking a butt load of cash at a football club, chucking even more at making people aware it's happening, sacrificing one of your most profitable matches, and hoping some of it sticks. You've then got to work out how to keep these new fans.

Agree with all of that but if you top that with a game at a pinnacle moment of all that happening vs Wigan at anfield that can help push interest over the edge.. the joi pin between top and bottom if you like... just doing our reach programmes is a struggle with no carrot, just doing the game but with no grass roots is a struggle, out the two together and maybe that is what will work, 

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English clubs in towns such as my own (Warrington) will likely never be regional attractive en masse.

Likewise, Liverpool people will never en masse support a rugby league team in St Helens, althiugh they may gather a few.

Catalans have a unique opportunity to be a regional team.

There's room for both.

 

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13 hours ago, Lowdesert said:

Would be genuinely interesting to know.  

Does anyone have an idea what their Club is doing regarding new ways to market and attract bums on seats, merchandise, social media etc etc?

Are there any more Club transcontinental games planned?  

They could start with their match day marketing.

I have been in a pub 200 yards from a certain Super League ground on a match day and some of the drinkers in there didn't even know there was a game on.

Now they obviously wasn't Rugby League fans, but not to know that there was a game happening that day 200 yards from where they are drinking beggers believe.

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8 hours ago, The British Lion said:

English clubs in towns such as my own (Warrington) will likely never be regional attractive en masse.

I think you're right (although Widnes in their heyday got quite a lot of fans from N.Wales and Wigan used to get quite a few coming down the M6 from points further North in Lancashire & Cumbria.)

It's interesting to think whether that could change though. Is there a way for Warrington to become Cheshire's team - and start drawing reasonable numbers from the towns to the south that don't have any significant football teams?

Living in East Anglia, it's very noticeable that Norwich get fans from the whole of Norfolk (well over an hour away from the ground), Ipswich the same for Suffolk and people will happily spend an hour plus travelling into London to watch Spurs, West Ham etc. and have done since their dads took them as kids decades ago. Even in Yorkshire, it seems like there are people living across the county who support Leeds Utd.

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1 hour ago, JonM said:

I think you're right (although Widnes in their heyday got quite a lot of fans from N.Wales and Wigan used to get quite a few coming down the M6 from points further North in Lancashire & Cumbria.)

It's interesting to think whether that could change though. Is there a way for Warrington to become Cheshire's team - and start drawing reasonable numbers from the towns to the south that don't have any significant football teams?

Living in East Anglia, it's very noticeable that Norwich get fans from the whole of Norfolk (well over an hour away from the ground), Ipswich the same for Suffolk and people will happily spend an hour plus travelling into London to watch Spurs, West Ham etc. and have done since their dads took them as kids decades ago. Even in Yorkshire, it seems like there are people living across the county who support Leeds Utd.

What other teams are there in Norfolk to support without travelling a fair distance? Obviously Norwich will be the main attraction in a sparsely populated county.

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7 hours ago, The Future is League said:

They could start with their match day marketing.

I have been in a pub 200 yards from a certain Super League ground on a match day and some of the drinkers in there didn't even know there was a game on.

Now they obviously wasn't Rugby League fans, but not to know that there was a game happening that day 200 yards from where they are drinking beggers believe.

That was my experience at the Summer Bash, no-one I spoke to (Blackpool people) knew it was going on! 

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2 hours ago, scotchy1 said:

Elland road is incredibly easy to get to. You can walk it from the train station or bus station in 30minutes, there are buses that run and get you there is a few stops. When full its atmosphere is amazing. The seats arent great and the old girl needs a bit more than a lick of paint but for huge numbers of people it's far easier and more attractive tha  headingley 

 We absolutely should be taking a game there each year. This is a club that averaged 18k and has fallen quite drastically because it doesnt put anywhere near the amount of effort in to things like this that it used to

I think you underestimate how much of a money-making machine Headingley is - it's huge. Leeds haven't spend £45m on mostly corporate hospitality facilities and premium seating for nothing. 

I'd suspect that taking a game to Elland Road represents a big cost to Leeds. Even a sold-out Elland Road would cost the Rhinos compared to the lost revenue from an average Headingley game. It's not about putting 'bums on seats' any more, it's about putting three-course meals in front of business executives - and Headingley serves a lot of chicken dinners. 

The priority for Leeds really should be about developing the matchday experience and putting on something that will get the crowds back. Whilst on-field performances certainly haven't helped, the matchday offering at Leeds just seems a little bland. 

This is where I do take issue with comments like this:

16 hours ago, GUBRATS said:

Yes , it's easy on here to just say " do this , do that , market the life out of it " ,

Because it confuses marketing with advertising. Marketing isn't about just "shouting louder and in more places" about something that the evidence suggests people aren't interested in. It's about creating something that they are interested in - that's totally within the clubs' power and remit. Indeed, it's essential for their survival in the same way that it is for any other business.   

 

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16 hours ago, Moove said:

Innovative but was it successful? I must admit I'm still not sure what the point of that Wigan-Hull game was.

More generally, I think there has to be a bit of strategy behind it. Clearly Catalans playing at Camp Nou is a great way to connect with the wider Catalans region they represent, potentially increasing fanbase, sponsorship opportunities or maybe just simple brand awareness.

If the RFL/SL had been commited to the Canadian influence I think holding a top level game there at a bigger stadium alongside a Toronto fixture might have been a useful idea. It still might be a useful idea in Ottawa and New York.

But elsewhere I'm not convinced the benefits stack up against the costs for many suggestions. What would Wigan really get from playing at Bolton, or Saints at Anfield to offset the expense (hiring such stadia isn't cheap, not to mention the additional marketing it would involve to get a decent crowd)?

A broader game-wide strategy might be a better option with the clubs collectively funding an event (or events) to expand the sport's reach.

Maybe something like playing a round of fixtures all on the same weekend in the same stadium located in an area worth targeting for growth of the sport. Like say Newcastle. That would be a magic idea.

Not sure what the point is?

Wigan made £500k from sponsorship for that one trip.

They tapped into a market and made money. That’s exactly what clubs should be doing.

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1 hour ago, deluded pom? said:

What other teams are there in Norfolk to support without travelling a fair distance? Obviously Norwich will be the main attraction in a sparsely populated county.

Indeed, only about 900k people in Norfolk. I guess that's largely true of Cheshire too albeit with much better roads. Warrington RLFC are comfortably bigger than Crewe Alexandra or Macclesfield town (as indeed are Widnes) and there's a reasonably well populated area south of Warrington, places like Northwich & Knutsford.

Not saying it's easy or possible - just interesting to think what Warrington could do to become more of a regional club. Same argument maybe applies a bit more to places that clearly are the centre of a larger region like York or Hull.

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41 minutes ago, scotchy1 said:

I don't underestimate it, and largely it is probably the right thing to do. But the value of the corporates is linked to the prestige and interest in the club. The club aren't going to be shifting tonnes of corporates for a half sold headingley every week. Conversely if they can sell out headingley every week the value of the corporates will go up. 

 The club has gone from 18k per week and selling 39k tickets for a WCC to 14k for the opening of the north stand in a game against Cas. We are looking at around a third lost from the peak. To me the club has a lot smaller presence in the city, it by now means has the same visibility it did and if it is to get away with charging what they are charging they need to create a growing, not shrinking market for the club. 

 To do that it needs to reach new people in new ways. There is no reason why Elland Road on a Friday night in mid-summer couldn't target a corporate market that Headingley can't, and I don't just mean selling hospitality, I mean the city centre workers. The professionals in the city looking for somewhere to spend their money. 

 I said before that the club needed to have shown more ambition in going to Elland Road last year. It needed to work hard and fill the place, it needed to get out there and actually sell the tickets. Not advertise and take orders, sell. It needed to do so because the building work was always going to get some people out of the habit of going and we needed to widen that base because we would have to make some other people, new people, regulars and season ticket holders. 

 The club has for a few years had the air of being fat and happy. Happy to keep ticking over, making a bit of profit on the 14/15k we could rely on, happy to milk the corporates, cut a few costs here and there and as an entertainment option it has been left behind somewhat. We have a premium product, in premium packaging, charging a premium price. But the club has done very little to create a premium market. 

I agree on the goals, but I don't believe that Elland Road is the best mechanism for achieving them. 

There's nothing stopping Leeds dragging corporates to Headingley. Indeed, the facilities are arguably better at Headingley, a Friday night in Headingley is much more attractive than a Friday night in Beeston and dragging them to Headingley puts cash in the Rhinos' till, not Leeds United's. I don't see what market Elland Road can cater for that Headingley can't. 

There's nothing stopping the club getting 18k a week at Headingley (although the average historically has topped out at around 16k if I remember rightly) with the right offering. The club doesn't need to go to Elland Road to do that. 

The club doesn't need to go to Elland Road to increase its presence in Leeds. Indeed, the better way to do that would be with more community based work, about working with major employers, with above-the-line advertising and PR. 

I'm still not seeing what benefits Elland Road offers that would justify forgoing a significant chunk of matchday revenue. All Elland Road offers more seats, but not much else other than a long list of drawbacks. 

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1 hour ago, whatmichaelsays said:

I think you underestimate how much of a money-making machine Headingley is - it's huge. Leeds haven't spend £45m on mostly corporate hospitality facilities and premium seating for nothing. 

I'd suspect that taking a game to Elland Road represents a big cost to Leeds. Even a sold-out Elland Road would cost the Rhinos compared to the lost revenue from an average Headingley game. It's not about putting 'bums on seats' any more, it's about putting three-course meals in front of business executives - and Headingley serves a lot of chicken dinners. 

The priority for Leeds really should be about developing the matchday experience and putting on something that will get the crowds back. Whilst on-field performances certainly haven't helped, the matchday offering at Leeds just seems a little bland. 

This is where I do take issue with comments like this:

Because it confuses marketing with advertising. Marketing isn't about just "shouting louder and in more places" about something that the evidence suggests people aren't interested in. It's about creating something that they are interested in - that's totally within the clubs' power and remit. Indeed, it's essential for their survival in the same way that it is for any other business.   

 

As much as I don't know about marketing, the last few sentences are what I an getting at.  Granted we don't have the weather here but Catalans have a band playing in the ground most home games and more often than not, childrens activities.  Their shop sells quality clothing.  These things in themselves are just a small part of what they offer.

Despite complaints from visiting fans, you can get a beer very quickly with their bar system.  (FFS I was offered beer out of a plastic carrier bag this year at a SL ground).  Catalans personalised their drinking vessels years ago.  Little things regularly are just as important as the big occasion.

 

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17 minutes ago, scotchy1 said:

Those more seats are quite an important. Elland Road also has more cache in the local psyche, and you aren't going to see people have a night out in beeston, they are going to have a night out in the city. 

 And lets not forget, size matters. A big crowd in a big stadium makes an impact. Even in leeds the game is thought of as quite small, a big crowd at eland road makes an impact and changes impressions that other marketing and advertising cant really do. It creates an event people want to be a part of. It makes the game seem important. Something a normal game at headingley doesn't really do

Suggesting that Elland Road has more cache is stretching it a little. It's hardly a salubrious venue and if we're making the comparison of Leeds taking games to Elland Road being akin to Saracens playing at Wembley or West Ham, I think we're in totally different ball parks. 

Even if Elland Road does have more cache, you can quickly deminish that cache if you aren't very careful. 

For WCCs and arguably semi-finals, I'd be inclined to agree that Elland Road would be a worthwhile venue, but those fixtures are events in themselves. It's hard to make an 'event' out of a run-of-the-mill fixture simply by changing venue, certainly to the extent that it's worth the financial hit, unless that venue is an attraction in itself - a Wembley or Camp Nou for example.

If Leeds were playing out of a rented venue where their matchday revenue was restricted to predominantly ticket sales, it's a slightly different discussion, but there's a reason why Leeds have invested in developing what they have and I don't believe that Headingley prevents them from doing many of the things that both of us seem to agree they should be doing more of.

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Maybe the Leeds promotional efforts were not sufficient for the "grand opening" but their was plenty going on.  The singer in one of the North concourses was very very good but no body was taking any notice - just a small example. Their was lots happening.

I only note the above, as what was happening at the ground was what people  often suggest clubs need to do. It didn't attract people.  Maybe is was down to the promotion of the game. I guess the marketing team need to do their homework as to what outside of the game will bring in extra.

The hospitality was sold out and buzzing.  So that side was successful.  Having been fortunately invited by sponsor I can say the facilities are 2nd to none compared to other RL clubs and soccer stadiums I've been luck to sample.

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8 hours ago, whatmichaelsays said:

I think you underestimate how much of a money-making machine Headingley is - it's huge. Leeds haven't spend £45m on mostly corporate hospitality facilities and premium seating for nothing. 

I'd suspect that taking a game to Elland Road represents a big cost to Leeds. Even a sold-out Elland Road would cost the Rhinos compared to the lost revenue from an average Headingley game. It's not about putting 'bums on seats' any more, it's about putting three-course meals in front of business executives - and Headingley serves a lot of chicken dinners. 

The priority for Leeds really should be about developing the matchday experience and putting on something that will get the crowds back. Whilst on-field performances certainly haven't helped, the matchday offering at Leeds just seems a little bland. 

This is where I do take issue with comments like this:

Because it confuses marketing with advertising. Marketing isn't about just "shouting louder and in more places" about something that the evidence suggests people aren't interested in. It's about creating something that they are interested in - that's totally within the clubs' power and remit. Indeed, it's essential for their survival in the same way that it is for any other business.   

 

" Developing the match day experience " , easy to say on an internet MB , but if so easy , contact them and offer to assist on a commission basis , I'm sure they'll snatch your hand off 

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28 minutes ago, GUBRATS said:

" Developing the match day experience " , easy to say on an internet MB , but if so easy , contact them and offer to assist on a commission basis , I'm sure they'll snatch your hand off 

Whatever it is no doubt "match day experience" can be improved at many stadiums - that is just getting the basic right would be a start for some clubs.

I do agree with you, ultimately the glamour and profile of the action as well as the on field participants in our celebrity age (particularly the younger) is the missing ingredient. The rest won't double the crowd.

It would be nice to think that the hard working, community grounded, down to earth honesty of the sport and players brought in people wanting to watch... but that only reaches the small numbers that we are part of....

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3 minutes ago, Lowdesert said:

Going to be interesting seeing what York come up with when their new stadium opens.  Continually in touch through email notifications, offers, promotions and are making efforts despite not being the richest club.

Not necessarily when it opens , but 3 years down the line when the ' new stadium ' factor has subsided 

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Elland Road is a poor stadium and having sampled both, its corporate facilities are nowhere near those of Headingley in quality (and that's before the new development). I have no desire to go to a half empty stadium which is a pain to get to from almost anywhere in the north of Leeds, which remains the club's base. The opposition would need to be Cas, Wigan, Saints or Wire to make me even think about going there again and those are the games Headingley will generate the most income at. The experiences last year with access and quality of experience were awful and the  economics don't come close to stacking up.

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