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Why can’t we do this in London?


EssexRL

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I’m watching BBC London Inside/Out. NFL in partnership with Barnet and Southgate College has set up an Academy to find young people in London who might want to play the sport. There are 85 places and 1000 people applied. Trails at White Hart Lane. 

The College has a link with Skolars. We don’t have enough RL players down here. Shame our sport couldn’t have tried to do something innovative like NFL. 

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1 minute ago, EssexRL said:

I’m watching BBC London Inside/Out. NFL in partnership with Barnet and Southgate College has set up an Academy to find young people in London who might want to play the sport. There are 85 places and 1000 people applied. Trails at White Hart Lane. 

The College has a link with Skolars. We don’t have enough RL players down here. Shame our sport couldn’t have tried to do something innovative like NFL. 

The NFL is flush with money, which means they can afford things like this.

 

It also comes off the back of a few years of games being showcased in london, raising it's profile and popularity over here

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1 minute ago, TboneFromTO said:

The NFL is flush with money, which means they can afford things like this.

 

It also comes off the back of a few years of games being showcased in london, raising it's profile and popularity over here

Yeah exactly, most lads in London will never have even heard of rugby league, yet plenty of them will watch NFL every week and think its the bees knees (which indeed it is). 

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4 minutes ago, DoubleD said:

This was the thing I was hoping Toronto/Argyle would bring to the Skolars

Maybe when we get some washouts from the NFL camps we will finally get some grid iron converts lol

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10 hours ago, EssexRL said:

I’m watching BBC London Inside/Out. NFL in partnership with Barnet and Southgate College has set up an Academy to find young people in London who might want to play the sport. There are 85 places and 1000 people applied. Trails at White Hart Lane. 

The College has a link with Skolars. We don’t have enough RL players down here. Shame our sport couldn’t have tried to do something innovative like NFL. 

They also have football, athletics, basketball, tennis and boxing academies.

So to get an answer to your question you could always ask them: what's required for a rugby league academy.

Build a man a fire, and he'll be warm for a day. Set a man on fire, and he'll be warm for the rest of his life. (Terry Pratchett)

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17 hours ago, TboneFromTO said:

The NFL is flush with money, which means they can afford things like this.

 

It also comes off the back of a few years of games being showcased in london, raising it's profile and popularity over here

Does that mean we couldn't do it? 

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Those  stats mean 915 young enthusiasts, looking for some sport to play are left disappointed.

What if we got 30 of them? Or 30 others? 

What did it cost?

Can it be replicated? 

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Am I the only person that’s read that the college has a link with London Skolars? There is a pathway for kids from North London to play an “alien game” in the form of Rugby League, just as there is for them to try American Football, though likely on a smaller financial scale. 

If the point of this thread is to ask why we can’t get coverage on regional news in a region in which we have two sides, one of which who has just completed a season at the games’ summit, that’s a good question. 

 

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18 hours ago, EssexRL said:

I’m watching BBC London Inside/Out. NFL in partnership with Barnet and Southgate College has set up an Academy to find young people in London who might want to play the sport. There are 85 places and 1000 people applied. Trails at White Hart Lane. 

The College has a link with Skolars. We don’t have enough RL players down here. Shame our sport couldn’t have tried to do something innovative like NFL. 

Without knowing more details on this, have Skolars offered open trials, open training sessions?  Doesn't cost much and for the RL training sessions they dont even have to want to play, just get fit.

Forget about what the NFL are doing just concentrate on what you can do and control.

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The thing nobody has mentioned yet is that Union has the London market for anyone interested in a rugby. It's what they'll watch, and it's what al their friends will play. Giving them reasons to play League over Union is much more difficult than a NFL academy which is completely different to anything that you usually find in London and will get more attention.

If it was that easy why isn't there a huge presence of Canadian Football in NFL strongholds?

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4 minutes ago, fevtom said:

If it was that easy why isn't there a huge presence of Canadian Football in NFL strongholds?

Because they had a highly entertaining and totally embarrassing attempt in the 1990s.

Build a man a fire, and he'll be warm for a day. Set a man on fire, and he'll be warm for the rest of his life. (Terry Pratchett)

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14 minutes ago, fevtom said:

The thing nobody has mentioned yet is that Union has the London market for anyone interested in a rugby. It's what they'll watch, and it's what al their friends will play. Giving them reasons to play League over Union is much more difficult than a NFL academy which is completely different to anything that you usually find in London and will get more attention.

If it was that easy why isn't there a huge presence of Canadian Football in NFL strongholds?

while you have a point, the two are quite different games too and when I was at South London when you actually had development officers etc there was great growth in the game at school and junior levels.. Its a more simple game, it doesnt have the perceived ties in certain communities that Union does and equally if you are happy to go in and do it yourself in these areas they dont turn you away.. 

what they need in London, as they always have, is some investment. When the RFL did invest it worked.. sadly they dont anymore. 

The NFL is investing vast, eye watering amounts of money into the game in the UK that if they invested into Super League itself would no doubt be a game changer! they also get some high profile players and ex players dropping by as the NFL has massive pull on players and ex players as if they were just simply contracted to the NFL as an organisation and loaned out to the teams for 10-15 years before continuing on their employment with the NFL as ambassadors etc. something the RFL and SL can only seem to dream of (player buy in). 

As per usual with this sort of discussion though, other sports are thinking of different things and thinking outside of the box.. for the most part we cant even seem to get past the fact that "match experience on game day" goes beyond the 80 minutes on the pitch!!

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33 minutes ago, fevtom said:

The thing nobody has mentioned yet is that Union has the London market for anyone interested in a rugby. It's what they'll watch, and it's what al their friends will play. Giving them reasons to play League over Union is much more difficult than a NFL academy which is completely different to anything that you usually find in London and will get more attention.

If it was that easy why isn't there a huge presence of Canadian Football in NFL strongholds?

Who said was easy,?  I set a team up in a small town which was all union and football.  If you never try then you won't get anything.  

Just look at how many people do Boxercise now without boxing.

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7 minutes ago, Lowdesert said:

Who said was easy,?  I set a team up in a small town which was all union and football.  If you never try then you won't get anything.  

Just look at how many people do Boxercise now without boxing.

I just think people are always comparing Rugby League to NFL expansion attempts and we have completely different scenarios. There's a relatively large niche NFL following in London and very little competition for their sport, hence they can get 1000 applicants pretty easily. We have almost the exact opposite situation so Rugby League has to take a different approach. Setting up new clubs is a fantastic way to do that.

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20 hours ago, Eddie said:

Yeah exactly, most lads in London will never have even heard of rugby league, yet plenty of them will watch NFL every week and think its the bees knees (which indeed it is). 

define 'plenty'?

What are the 'lads' in London viewing numbers for NFL either as a paid package or the highlights? Most lads in London won't have watched any NFL or could even tell you the name of a single player, a large % of lads aren't even that bothered about sport full stop. You're over-egging the popularity of NFL in London and indeed the wider populous.

That's not to say that London/RFL/SLE couldn't do more.

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5 minutes ago, Denton Rovers RLFC said:

define 'plenty'?

What are the 'lads' in London viewing numbers for NFL either as a paid package or the highlights? Most lads in London won't have watched any NFL or could even tell you the name of a single player, a large % of lads aren't even that bothered about sport full stop. You're over-egging the popularity of NFL in London and indeed the wider populous.

That's not to say that London/RFL/SLE couldn't do more.

I disagree, NFL is massive in this country already, as are Sunday night viewing figures on sky. Go out and look around you, so many people have NFL fear on, not the playing shirts but hoodies, t-shirts, caps, bobble hats in winter etc. 

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20 hours ago, TboneFromTO said:

The NFL is flush with money, which means they can afford things like this.

 

It also comes off the back of a few years of games being showcased in london, raising it's profile and popularity over here

The NFL also has a high profile, that's why 1000 applicants sought the 85 places.  RL's profile is much lower, I'm not sure that they'd even get as many applicants as places for an RL equivalent of that at this point.

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56 minutes ago, Eddie said:

I disagree, NFL is massive in this country already, as are Sunday night viewing figures on sky. Go out and look around you, so many people have NFL fear on, not the playing shirts but hoodies, t-shirts, caps, bobble hats in winter etc. 

No it isn't. again, put forward some facts, what is "massive"? Just because you have a handful of games getting 80,000 doesn't make the sport 'massive'. Yes there is a following, yes there is serious interest from a hardcore of fans but it's not as big as you think it is, if it was this would have been tapped up already and a professional league running by now across the country, there isn't is there.

You do know that the league mainly runs financially on the annual subs paid by the individual players right? You do know that the 'Britbowl' just about gets a 1,000 fans turning up for their Grandfinal, sorry but you're just wrong and the facts back that up.

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1 minute ago, Denton Rovers RLFC said:

No it isn't. again, put forward some facts, what is "massive"? Just because you have a handful of games getting 80,000 doesn't make the sport 'massive'. Yes there is a following, yes there is serious interest from a hardcore of fans but it's not as big as you think it is, if it was this would have been tapped up already and a professional league running by now across the country, there isn't is there.

You do know that the league mainly runs financially on the annual subs paid by the individual players right? You do know that the 'Britbowl' just about gets a 1,000 fans turning up for their Grandfinal, sorry but you're just wrong and the facts back that up.

How can I quote facts? Have you got any facts to prove I’m wrong?

 I’ve never heard of the Britbowl but I assume it’s the UK American football competition? If so what has their low crowds got to do with anything? They aren’t NFL. Also what does the fact that we haven’t got a team here prove, it’s like saying the Premier League isn’t big in the Far East because there’s no team there.  NFL is massive here, they play four games a season which sell out 90,000 in about 15 minutes. If they played a game every week they would all sell out. 

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9 minutes ago, Eddie said:

Here you go Denton. That’s pretty big imho, though you’re obviously welcome to disagree. 

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what a load of pony, what is the income into american football from British fans, what is the paid viewing numbers and paid footfall within the British game.. 

Generating bull dust numbers that don't add up when it comes to gridiron in the UK participation, footfall and income (which is pretty much nil) shows you what an utter fabrication that is.

Rugby league 1.4million fans in attendance for regular rounds in Super league alone, you're bigging up 150,000 tickets for the most marketed product in the UK, as I said, there are hardcore fans and there will be people wanting to go to a show piece event, this does not mean that the sport is "massive" as you and indeed the NFL liars allude to.  

how many paid subscribers do they have for a TV service, oh wait, there isn't even a paid TV service in the UK is there? How many fans paid to watch British American football in the last season?

 

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Quite angry about it aren’t you. I can’t be bothered to argue about it but few of your points are valid, for example why would they need a paid service when it’s all on Sky which is already a subscription channel. 

The fact is if I asked most people I know (blokes in their 30s and 40s) about NFL the vast majority would say what team they support and would know a fair bit about it. The same could not be said for any other sport except football. NFL in this country is quite simply bigger (in terms of interest and tv viewing as opposed to people attending games, though if there was a London team based at Wembley their average gate would be 90,000) than rugby league is, which is a shame as far as I’m concerned but true. Participation is also irrelevant in this instance. 

Going back to my original point about why so many people in London are trying to get onto the NFL’s scheme, which prompted your stream of vitriol, I have explained why, it’s because it’s a very popular sport in London. 

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