Daily Mirror: Insight into Warrington's marketing

[Leeds Wire]

Really good article on Wire's approach to marketing by Gareth Walker.

https://www.mirror.co.uk/sport/rugby-league/behind-scenes-look-warrington-wolves-20971324

[Eddie]

Great in depth article and interested to hear about what they’re doing. I really like listening to Fitzpatrick when he’s been on various podcasts, it’s a shame more clubs don’t have people like him running the show. 

[Dave T]

Very nice quote:

Thursday nights are not excuse. As a club we signed up to that TV agreement and accepted the money that comes from it, plus the figures last year have given us great exposure.

[whatmichaelsays]

30 minutes ago, Dave T said:

Very nice quote:

Thursday nights are not excuse. As a club we signed up to that TV agreement and accepted the money that comes from it, plus the figures last year have given us great exposure.

Absolutely, along with comments about away followings. They really are the most pathetic excuses going.

There are people out there looking for something to do on Thursday nights. Go out and find them, speak to them and give them something they want. 

[Dave T]

5 minutes ago, whatmichaelsays said:

Absolutely, along with comments about away followings. They really are the most pathetic excuses going.

There are people out there looking for something to do on Thursday nights. Go out and find them, speak to them and give them something they want. 

I think people take the away following argument too far though. Away support is a very valid income stream worth maybe a few hundred grand a year - probably worth more than your main sponsor at some clubs and we wouldn't bemoan clubs wanting sponsors. 

I agree we shouldn't make short-sighted decisions though based on that one income stream. 

[super major]

23 minutes ago, Dave T said:

I think people take the away following argument too far though. Away support is a very valid income stream worth maybe a few hundred grand a year - probably worth more than your main sponsor at some clubs and we wouldn't bemoan clubs wanting sponsors. 

I agree we shouldn't make short-sighted decisions though based on that one income stream. 

Yes, all clubs signed up to Thursday night but there should be an even spread amongst the teams who host them?

[whatmichaelsays]

48 minutes ago, Dave T said:

I think people take the away following argument too far though. Away support is a very valid income stream worth maybe a few hundred grand a year - probably worth more than your main sponsor at some clubs and we wouldn't bemoan clubs wanting sponsors. 

I agree we shouldn't make short-sighted decisions though based on that one income stream. 

But as a section of the support base, they are the least valuable to each respective club. Someone who goes to every away ground is worth £20-or-so a year to each club (considering that most clubs outsource many ancillary revenue streams such as concession stands). A local is potentially worth far, far more. 

Nobody is saying "away fans are bad" or that they should be discouraged, but they lack of them is not, in my view, a valid excuse for a poor crowd. It's lazy, zero-growth thinking. 

Clubs know which teams bring low away followings - those games are ample opportunity to push themselves to locals. 

[GUBRATS]

27 minutes ago, whatmichaelsays said:

But as a section of the support base, they are the least valuable to each respective club. Someone who goes to every away ground is worth £20-or-so a year to each club (considering that most clubs outsource many ancillary revenue streams such as concession stands). A local is potentially worth far, far more. 

Nobody is saying "away fans are bad" or that they should be discouraged, but they lack of them is not, in my view, a valid excuse for a poor crowd. It's lazy, zero-growth thinking. 

Clubs know which teams bring low away followings - those games are ample opportunity to push themselves to locals. 

Sizeable away support contributes massively to the match experience for many home fans , much more should be done to encourage them to attend even when the game is televised 

All games should be pushed to both home and away fans , errespective of who they are or the support they historically bring 

 

[Dave T]

17 minutes ago, GUBRATS said:

Sizeable away support contributes massively to the match experience for many home fans , much more should be done to encourage them to attend even when the game is televised 

All games should be pushed to both home and away fans , errespective of who they are or the support they historically bring 

 

I agree. And they add £

I agree that we shouldnt put too much onus on it, but many have gone the other way and dismiss it as an irrelevance when it is a decent part of the experience and an income driver.

[whatmichaelsays]

38 minutes ago, GUBRATS said:

Sizeable away support contributes massively to the match experience for many home fans , much more should be done to encourage them to attend even when the game is televised 

All games should be pushed to both home and away fans , errespective of who they are or the support they historically bring 

 

The simple fact is that they should be pushed to as wide an audience as possible, but the level of influence that "away fans" seems to have in debates around crowds and expansion is way over the top. 

There are two Super League clubs that will clearly bring small away followings. Clubs will also have years and years of data on the historical crowds and away followings of each and every club. It should be obvious where away followings will be high and where they will be low. I'd rather my club focused on using that data to attract locals that are much more valuable and bring in much more ££s over the long term. 

To not use that data to run tactical initiatives designed to fill the 'away end' with locals is where the excuses around lower crowds and the arguments against expansion become feeble. Thankfully, Warrington seem to have the right attitude on that. 

Atmosphere is intangible. Some of the best atmospheres I have experienced both in the UK and abroad have been at games where the away fan presence is minimal. 

[GUBRATS]

This type of work should be happening at every club , be they SL,Championship or L1 , but it won't , quite simply because quite often the people running them don't understand the benefits that can be gained 

Several years ago on a different MB I suggested the RFL should have employed and funded a ' marketing person ' to each and every club outside SL ( they should and can afford it themselves ) , these ' marketeers ' would be under the control of a local manager who would the be supervised by an executive in charge of the league 

Each club would then get the whole team of marketeers and manager focusing on one home game per month , the marketeers would gather and collate information for their particular club which would be used to make best use of the team when it was their particular dedicated match 

Best practice and ideas could then be shared as to what works best at each club when playing each other both at local and league level 

Similarily I contacted and suggested to clubs ways they could work together and that their on field opponents were not the main rivals to their success , but rather it was other RL ( SL ) clubs and other sports clubs like football , the responses I received were disappointing to say the least , they really don't understand how things like this work 

[whatmichaelsays]

16 minutes ago, GUBRATS said:

This type of work should be happening at every club , be they SL,Championship or L1 , but it won't , quite simply because quite often the people running them don't understand the benefits that can be gained 

Several years ago on a different MB I suggested the RFL should have employed and funded a ' marketing person ' to each and every club outside SL ( they should and can afford it themselves ) , these ' marketeers ' would be under the control of a local manager who would the be supervised by an executive in charge of the league 

Each club would then get the whole team of marketeers and manager focusing on one home game per month , the marketeers would gather and collate information for their particular club which would be used to make best use of the team when it was their particular dedicated match 

Best practice and ideas could then be shared as to what works best at each club when playing each other both at local and league level 

Similarily I contacted and suggested to clubs ways they could work together and that their on field opponents were not the main rivals to their success , but rather it was other RL ( SL ) clubs and other sports clubs like football , the responses I received were disappointing to say the least , they really don't understand how things like this work 

I get the thinking behind that. 

Certainly at SL level, I don't think that centralising marketing to such an extent would be the way to go. It's pretty clear that different clubs are prepared to run at different speeds when it comes to marketing, prepared (or able) to invest to different levels, will have different audiences and different priorities. My club Leeds, for example, is very clearly aiming its marketing activity at premium audiences to fill those expensive seats and corporate areas. That's completely at odds with Huddersfield's "flog it off at rock bottom prices" approach. 

Admittedly, the levels below SL have different challenges but I think many of those issues would still be there. What you don't want is a cohort of clubs that really "buy into" a collective model and a cohort of clubs that don't - you merely end up with one set carrying (and bearing the cost for) the other set. The last thing you would want is a situation where the good work being done up in places like York is being "held back" because their budgets are being diverted into projects that support other, less-willing or less-able clubs. 

There's so much that doesn't actually need an awful lot in terms of specialist skills and resources. So many issues facing the game that could be addressed with simple, relatively low-budget things - basic CRM, some market research and some creative thinking - the sort of things the Warrington team discuss in this feature. 

I actually don't think that the issue at many clubs is a lack of skills but rather, a culture of zero-growth thinking that comes from higher up the club hierachy. 

[GUBRATS]

9 minutes ago, whatmichaelsays said:

The simple fact is that they should be pushed to as wide an audience as possible, but the level of influence that "away fans" seems to have in debates around crowds and expansion is way over the top. 

There are two Super League clubs that will clearly bring small away followings. Clubs will also have years and years of data on the historical crowds and away followings of each and every club. It should be obvious where away followings will be high and where they will be low. I'd rather my club focused on using that data to attract locals that are much more valuable and bring in much more ££s over the long term. 

To not use that data to run tactical initiatives designed to fill the 'away end' wityh locals is where the excuses around lower crowds and the arguments against expansion become feeble. Thankfully, Warrington seem to have the right attitude on that. 

Atmosphere is intangible. Some of the best atmospheres I have experienced both in the UK and abroad have been at games where the away fan presence is minimal. 

These best atmospheres ? , What % of the stadium was occupied ?

About 10 years ago Leigh had just played and we'll beaten Widnes , we were due to play them again three weeks later on a Thursday night discuss NRC game , the home club used to receive £ 1,000 to ' market ' the game , I asked Alan Rowley the Leigh CEO what they intended to do with it " the usual fireworks and stuff ' was the reply , I suggested we use it to subsidize away travel for the Widnes and to encourage more to attend given we'd just we'll beaten them , he agreed and told the Widnes club , Steve O,Connor their owner offered to match what we did , bearing in mind this was a shared gate , they brought 8 coaches carrying over 400 fans ( which meant we opened the away end ) many who might not have bothered , adding a considerable amount of taking at the gate , improving the match experience and atmosphere 

It paid off in cash terms , and we battered them again

[GUBRATS]

16 minutes ago, whatmichaelsays said:

I get the thinking behind that. 

Certainly at SL level, I don't think that centralising marketing to such an extent would be the way to go. It's pretty clear that different clubs are prepared to run at different speeds when it comes to marketing, prepared (or able) to invest to different levels, will have different audiences and different priorities. My club Leeds, for example, is very clearly aiming its marketing activity at premium audiences to fill those expensive seats and corporate areas. That's completely at odds with Huddersfield's "flog it off at rock bottom prices" approach. 

Admittedly, the levels below SL have different challenges but I think many of those issues would still be there. What you don't want is a cohort of clubs that really "buy into" a collective model and a cohort of clubs that don't - you merely end up with one set carrying (and bearing the cost for) the other set. The last thing you would want is a situation where the good work being done up in places like York is being "held back" because their budgets are being diverted into projects that support other, less-willing or less-able clubs. 

There's so much that doesn't actually need an awful lot in terms of specialist skills and resources. So many issues facing the game that could be addressed with simple, relatively low-budget things - basic CRM, some market research and some creative thinking - the sort of things the Warrington team discuss in this feature. 

I actually don't think that the issue at many clubs is a lack of skills but rather, a culture of zero-growth thinking that comes from higher up the club hierachy. 

As you put ' the sort of things the Warrington TEAM discuss in this feature ' some clubs , those at lower tier level cannot afford a team , but having a team all working for them say once a month will achieve more than just having one person on their own trying to drag along their club every week 

And as I put , having that team and their managers sharing best practice and ideas with each other will produce better results than somebody working solo , approaching an owner,CEO or board of directors with an idea that they have already proved can work somewhere else will more likely get a positive response 

[whatmichaelsays]

1 minute ago, GUBRATS said:

These best atmospheres ? , What % of the stadium was occupied ?

About 10 years ago Leigh had just played and we'll beaten Widnes , we were due to play them again three weeks later on a Thursday night discuss NRC game , the home club used to receive £ 1,000 to ' market ' the game , I asked Alan Rowley the Leigh CEO what they intended to do with it " the usual fireworks and stuff ' was the reply , I suggested we use it to subsidize away travel for the Widnes and to encourage more to attend given we'd just we'll beaten them , he agreed and told the Widnes club , Steve O,Connor their owner offered to match what we did , bearing in mind this was a shared gate , they brought 8 coaches carrying over 400 fans ( which meant we opened the away end ) many who might not have bothered , adding a considerable amount of taking at the gate , improving the match experience and atmosphere 

It paid off in cash terms , and we battered them again

I'm not, and never had, suggested away fans are a bad thing. But those Widnes fans turned up once, and probably didn't again until the next time they were playing Leigh. 

That £1,000 could equally have gone into local marketing to attract supporters who may have gone on to have a longer-term value to the club. Higher risk? Absolutely. Higher potential reward? I'd say so. Assuming the same cost to get a home fan and an away fan through the turnstyles, the home fan will almost always be worth more in the medium-long term. Again, I'm not suggesting for a second that the approach taken there was the wrong one - but I maintain that in the wider debate, "away fans" are given too much importance. 

As for the atmospheres, some the best RL atmospheres I can remember have been England internationals, WCC games, various football games across Europe (where away followings are much smaller) and NFL games in the US. I'd say the occasion contibutes far more to the event in some situations. 

[GUBRATS]

1 minute ago, whatmichaelsays said:

I'm not, and never had, suggested away fans are a bad thing. But those Widnes fans turned up once, and probably didn't again until the next time they were playing Leigh. 

That £1,000 could equally have gone into local marketing to attract supporters who may have gone on to have a longer-term value to the club. Higher risk? Absolutely. Higher potential reward? I'd say so. Assuming the same cost to get a home fan and an away fan through the turnstyles, the home fan will almost always be worth more in the medium-long term. Again, I'm not suggesting for a second that the approach taken there was the wrong one - but I maintain that in the wider debate, "away fans" are given too much importance. 

As for the atmospheres, some the best RL atmospheres I can remember have been England internationals, WCC games, various football games across Europe (where away followings are much smaller) and NFL games in the US. I'd say the occasion contibutes far more to the event in some situations. 

So these great atmospheres had 70/80 % full stadiums already , get a stadium ,30/40 % full and a good away following will dramatically improve the atmosphere 

[whatmichaelsays]

3 minutes ago, GUBRATS said:

As you put ' the sort of things the Warrington TEAM discuss in this feature ' some clubs , those at lower tier level cannot afford a team , but having a team all working for them say once a month will achieve more than just having one person on their own trying to drag along their club every week 

And as I put , having that team and their managers sharing best practice and ideas with each other will produce better results than somebody working solo , approaching an owner,CEO or board of directors with an idea that they have already proved can work somewhere else will more likely get a positive response 

As I acknowledged, things aren't easy in the levels below Super League and there is some merit in the thinking. 

But I'm not convinced that we should approach a club like York (I'll use them as an example), who are doing some very commendable stuff, and insist that they sacrifice some of their (presumably) small budget to fund a person or team of people to drag other clubs (probably kicking and screaming) along with them. York don't have a secret formula for what they're doing. I'm almost certain they don't have an enormous budget, but what they're doing seems to work for them. There's lots of best practice guidance out there for people prepared to look for it and even then, when the clubs are targeting different markets, what works for one may not work for another.  

[whatmichaelsays]

6 minutes ago, GUBRATS said:

So these great atmospheres had 70/80 % full stadiums already , get a stadium ,30/40 % full and a good away following will dramatically improve the atmosphere 

When a club is running at 30-40% occupancy, the problem goes far beyond how many away fans are turning up. 

[GUBRATS]

Just now, whatmichaelsays said:

When a club is running at 30-40% occupancy, the problem goes far beyond how many away fans are turning up. 

Not really , depends how big their stadium is ? 

Plenty of lower tier clubs are running at or below those figures 

[Cowardly Fan]

1 hour ago, GUBRATS said:

This type of work should be happening at every club , be they SL,Championship or L1 , but it won't , quite simply because quite often the people running them don't understand the benefits that can be gained 

Several years ago on a different MB I suggested the RFL should have employed and funded a ' marketing person ' to each and every club outside SL ( they should and can afford it themselves ) , these ' marketeers ' would be under the control of a local manager who would the be supervised by an executive in charge of the league 

Each club would then get the whole team of marketeers and manager focusing on one home game per month , the marketeers would gather and collate information for their particular club which would be used to make best use of the team when it was their particular dedicated match 

Best practice and ideas could then be shared as to what works best at each club when playing each other both at local and league level 

Similarily I contacted and suggested to clubs ways they could work together and that their on field opponents were not the main rivals to their success , but rather it was other RL ( SL ) clubs and other sports clubs like football , the responses I received were disappointing to say the least , they really don't understand how things like this work 

I also discussed with them about a similar suggestion, though I'd suggest the team is centralised and they can use a portion of the time of everyone. That way you can have specialists available for a few hours a week for each club.

I understand money can be tight, but something new like this should have been the priority when they received Toronto's share of the TV money. 

[Eddie]

I’d much rather go to a game with loads of away fans rather than just a few, it’s so much better. 

[Bedfordshire Bronco]

4 hours ago, whatmichaelsays said:

Absolutely, along with comments about away followings. They really are the most pathetic excuses going.

There are people out there looking for something to do on Thursday nights. Go out and find them, speak to them and give them something they want. 

Yep. I've said it before I like Thursday fixtures... Either going to watch live if it's our home game or on the telly if its up north

Makes a nice long weekend! 

[Bedfordshire Bronco]

6 hours ago, Leeds Wire said:

Really good article on Wire's approach to marketing by Gareth Walker.

https://www.mirror.co.uk/sport/rugby-league/behind-scenes-look-warrington-wolves-20971324

Great copy for the sport

Their marketing ideas are so simple and quite a cheap investment. 

Amazing more clubs don't do it

[GUBRATS]

2 hours ago, Cowardly Fan said:

I also discussed with them about a similar suggestion, though I'd suggest the team is centralised and they can use a portion of the time of everyone. That way you can have specialists available for a few hours a week for each club.

I understand money can be tight, but something new like this should have been the priority when they received Toronto's share of the TV money. 

My suggestion was an RFL initiative , funded by them , this was back in licencing times when we had 20 clubs outside SL , all needing more profile given that many fans of these clubs were unhappy with the structure , as I put 1 person specifically dedicated to a single club but dividing time between their club and working together in a team for a specific match at a home game of one of their team each month , supervised by a manager who would again work with all of his team's clubs individually and overseeing the specific match event 

[EssexRL]

Good stuff that all senior clubs should be doing. Goodness knows though how my club, in L1, outside the heat lands, can build crowds/profile.