The General 'Toronto Wolfpack' Discussion Thread

[gingerjon]

Just now, GUBRATS said:

And indeed Leeds 

See easy isn't it , leave it the insults , debate the point 

Nobody would pretend that football isn’t more popular than rugby in Leeds.

[Tommygilf]

1 minute ago, GUBRATS said:

And indeed Leeds 

See easy isn't it , leave it the insults , debate the point 

Absolutely, thats the major problem with the game played between towns being subsumed in relevance. 

[Harry Stottle]

1 minute ago, Tommygilf said:

If they have bigger profile and support from a the biggest UK sports broadcaster than RU and RL I think thats a pretty good indicator of success on its own.

Do you think if SKY had to finance it all without Comcasts influence they would do so?

[Harry Stottle]

1 minute ago, gingerjon said:

I’m not the one pretending to care about whole game solutions but really only moping about what plays best for one club in one small town.

Can't give up can you.

[GUBRATS]

5 minutes ago, Tommygilf said:

That's great deduction Harry but the end result is what matters. 

Which is what ? , A TV channel that is watched by who ? , And how profitable is it ? 

Are the school kids of Britain all clambering to play gridiron at school ? , There's more NYY caps around than NFL ones , do the people wearing them even know what sport they refer to ? 

 

[Tommygilf]

1 minute ago, Harry Stottle said:

Do you think if SKY had to finance it all without Comcasts influence they would do so?

They've been doing NFL well before comcast owned them to be fair H so it's not unthinkable. I agree that could have smoothed the pathway though.

[GUBRATS]

4 minutes ago, gingerjon said:

So, to clarify, you’ve got the number of games wrong, you’ve got all the details of any broadcast deals wrong or are just guessing, you’re ignoring any and all facts relating to the popularity of the game and any and all facts relating to participation.

So it’s not a debate, is it? Just you repeating the same lie about three road games etc etc

Well you'd think if it's profile was do big , a sports fan like myself would know how many games they play , but I don't , because apart from a relative few people nobody cares 

Anyway some work to do 

[Tommygilf]

Just now, GUBRATS said:

Which is what ? , A TV channel that is watched by who ? , And how profitable is it ? 

Are the school kids of Britain all clambering to play gridiron at school ? , There's more NYY caps around than NFL ones , do the people wearing them even know what sport they refer to ? 

 

I'd love for RL to have the profile NFL has on our nations premium broadcast network. 

The Yankees is yet another example of another American sport being successful abroad. They were pioneers but have fallen way behind the NFL abroad.

[Harry Stottle]

2 minutes ago, Tommygilf said:

They've been doing NFL well before comcast owned them to be fair H so it's not unthinkable. I agree that could have smoothed the pathway though.

How about 'would'?

[GUBRATS]

7 minutes ago, Tommygilf said:

My proof is they have a dedicated TV channel people scroll to before they'll ever get to any RL for example.

Past 

[Tommygilf]

Just now, Harry Stottle said:

How about 'would'?

Doesn't really make a difference, this is the point. Regardless of how its happened it has and in the meantime we've gone in a decade from games on 401 and 402, kicking off about any time sky dared to put us on the measly 403 or heaven forbid 404, to now 408 and 416. Relevance waning sadly.

Could argue exactly the same regarding skys ownership with RL and the Murdoch's in the first place.

[Robin Evans]

19 minutes ago, GUBRATS said:

Which is what ? , A TV channel that is watched by who ? , And how profitable is it ? 

Are the school kids of Britain all clambering to play gridiron at school ? , There's more NYY caps around than NFL ones , do the people wearing them even know what sport they refer to ? 

 

Rovrum isn't a typical pan uk example....

But I see loads of kids in NFL merchandise. Other than the blue Jays or leafs stuff I brought back from Toronto for our lot i can't recall any baseball or nhl stuff being flashed around rosehill park in a way NFL stuff is.

Seemingly RL might as well be played on Mars for all the relevance it has to folks round here. 

[Tommygilf]

3 minutes ago, GUBRATS said:

Past 

Repeated advertising eventually gets things in peoples heads

[Harry Stottle]

7 minutes ago, Tommygilf said:

Doesn't really make a difference, this is the point. Regardless of how its happened it has and in the meantime we've gone in a decade from games on 401 and 402, kicking off about any time sky dared to put us on the measly 403 or heaven forbid 404, to now 408 and 416. Relevance waning sadly.

Could argue exactly the same regarding skys ownership with RL and the Murdoch's in the first place.

Yep, I will agree with that, just shows how popular Rugby League is or not in the UK, maybe with the "new deal" on the horizon Comcast may just have more than a little influence in those proceedings, your observations of the waning relevance by the broadcaster is not a good indicator for the future of our sport.

It won't be long before on field attendances really matter, and clubs will be wanting/needing as many 'away' fans through the gates as possible, just saying, after all it is the Toronto thread

[Tommygilf]

1 minute ago, Harry Stottle said:

Yep, I will agree with that, just shows how popular Rugby League is or not in the UK, maybe with the "new deal" on the horizon Comcast may just have more than a little influence in those proceedings, your observations of the waning relevance by the broadcaster is not a good indicator for the future of our sport.

It won't be long before on field attendances really matter, and clubs will be wanting/needing as many 'away' fans through the gates as possible, just saying, after all it is the Toronto thread

Hey sneaked that one in cleverly!

I think the upcoming TV deal with sky (if the current one is not extra-ordinarily extended 1 season due to covid) is massive. Looking at the channels sky has to offer RL, to me there's a lot to be lost and gained by requesting Main Event slots. Sky exclusivity isn't worth it without that as total lack of exposure is driving the game backwards. There's an element of that being Sky's fault/design too, they're advertisement and placement of RL is poor compared to other sports. 

Ps. I hope "on field attendances" stick to 26, don't want any more than that surely

[Harry Stottle]

43 minutes ago, Tommygilf said:

Hey sneaked that one in cleverly!

I think the upcoming TV deal with sky (if the current one is not extra-ordinarily extended 1 season due to covid) is massive. Looking at the channels sky has to offer RL, to me there's a lot to be lost and gained by requesting Main Event slots. Sky exclusivity isn't worth it without that as total lack of exposure is driving the game backwards. There's an element of that being Sky's fault/design too, they're advertisement and placement of RL is poor compared to other sports. 

Ps. I hope "on field attendances" stick to 26, don't want any more than that surely

Yeah, it seems a concerted effort from the broadcaster placing RL ever moreso on the 'bottom drawer' channels, is this a deliberate policy for the future negotiations emphasising that as much as the RL/SL and we fans consider we are really important to SKY they may well have developed a different interpretation in recent years.

I wonder how many Sky Sports subscribers do so primarily because of the RL content, it is the reason I take the sports channels I would not do so if there was no RL, are there enough of those with the same respect of me and is the additional contribution of the advertisers enough to cover the outlay?

Wasn't the last contract 200M for 7 years?

[Tommygilf]

6 minutes ago, Harry Stottle said:

Yeah, it seems a concerted effort from the broadcaster placing RL ever moreso on the 'bottom drawer' channels, is this a deliberate policy for the future negotiations emphasising that as much as the RL/SL and we fans consider we are really important to SKY they may well have developed a different interpretation in recent years.

I wonder how many Sky Sports subscribers do so primarily because of the RL content, it is the reason I take the sports channels I would not do so if there was no RL, are there enough of those with the same respect of me and is the additional contribution of the advertisers enough to cover the outlay?

Wasn't the last contract 200M for 7 years?

I think there's a mixture of the two and in part they probably feed eachother somewhat.

On the second point I think there's a difficulty to assess that. Naturally within a household people subscribe for a variety of content. RL either needs to balance the money from Sky with the exposure of FTA or get far more exposure out of Sky. A discussion with BT Sport wouldn't be a bad start.

I think it was £200m for 5 years making it a £40m payment each season - just under half of which goes to Super League, the rest to the RFL for distribution the Championship, L1, and RFL themselves. They've agreed to a reduced amount this season in return for Sky continuing to pay money (about 3.5million a month) each month during the 4 months without a game.

[Dave T]

1 hour ago, Tommygilf said:

Doesn't really make a difference, this is the point. Regardless of how its happened it has and in the meantime we've gone in a decade from games on 401 and 402, kicking off about any time sky dared to put us on the measly 403 or heaven forbid 404, to now 408 and 416. Relevance waning sadly.

Could argue exactly the same regarding skys ownership with RL and the Murdoch's in the first place.

I'm not sure this is a fair point Tommy. We have been a victim of a really odd approach from Sky where they seem to have had an off belief that all channels were equal and Channel number was not important, but I dont believe it is any reflection of a decline in RL's popularity that we are shown on the channels we are. 

In reality, when our games are being played if it was done in the old way, we would still appear on SS1, 2 or 3, just like we always were. The new system means that if we don't make SS1 then we are on 408 at best, which is the flaw as there could be no live sport on the other 6 channels. 

In any case our numbers are still holding up very well. 

[TIWIT]

5 pages of Monty Python-esque humour: people arguing for the sake of argument without having a clue what they're talking about.

The NFL is simply the largest, richest, most successful sports league in the world. It's like a national holiday in the States this weekend as they start playing, inaugurating 2 brand new multi BILLION $ stadiums. And the other 4 major sports are all in full swing, but the NFL dwarfs them all.

Once more the ignorance of the British sports fan regarding North American sports is exposed. LOL.

[ATLANTISMAN]

Numbers are doing well at present.

Also I think there is millage in a Championship deal for sponsorship as well (Needs to be separate to Betfred Super League) there are some very pleasant places to visit in the championship in summer Cumbria/Toulouse/London:) alone with the traditional heartlands.

[Dave T]

8 minutes ago, TIWIT said:

5 pages of Monty Python-esque humour: people arguing for the sake of argument without having a clue what they're talking about.

The NFL is simply the largest, richest, most successful sports league in the world. It's like a national holiday in the States this weekend as they start playing, inaugurating 2 brand new multi BILLION $ stadiums. And the other 4 major sports are all in full swing, but the NFL dwarfs them all.

Once more the ignorance of the British sports fan regarding North American sports is exposed. LOL.

The British sports fan is far more aware of the major US sports leagues than the NA sports fan is of SL.

[The Rocket]

12 minutes ago, ATLANTISMAN said:

Also I think there is millage in a Championship deal for sponsorship a

Is that anything like `trouble at mill`. I thought all those places closed down years ago.

[Tommygilf]

9 minutes ago, Dave T said:

I'm not sure this is a fair point Tommy. We have been a victim of a really odd approach from Sky where they seem to have had an off belief that all channels were equal and Channel number was not important, but I dont believe it is any reflection of a decline in RL's popularity that we are shown on the channels we are. 

In reality, when our games are being played if it was done in the old way, we would still appear on SS1, 2 or 3, just like we always were. The new system means that if we don't make SS1 then we are on 408 at best, which is the flaw as there could be no live sport on the other 6 channels. 

In any case our numbers are still holding up very well. 

I agree I don't think it necessarily reflects a decline in RL's popularity, but certainly won't help boost it either. We're hardly ever on Main Event which is a major gripe of mine and that leaves us stuck on originally 2 channels but now 1 and a half with mix too. Whether that is qualitively much different than before is kind of irrelevant, the equivalent multi sport channel we're on is way down the pecking order behind Main Event, 2 football channels, Golf, Cricket, F1 and now NFL too. Its odd I agree but that is the reality.

If that is what Sky is offering we have to be quite honest about the value of that. RL is fortunate that we have a committed and persistent fanbase that will find and watch games, but the strategy from Sky Sports (both in advertising and programme placement) is certainly not helping us boost those numbers. Standing still is going backwards comes to mind.

Without wanting to sound too much like some other posters I think we should be exploring the possibility of bundling the NRL and Super league into a joint TV package that compliments eachother for a Sky Sports style RL channel. If thats not possible, or sky aren't interested, then having some SL exposure on FTA/Amazon etc should be looked at. I really don't see the value in Sky sports exclusivity if we're on Thursday nights on Mix (416).

[Tommygilf]

19 minutes ago, ATLANTISMAN said:

Numbers are doing well at present.

Also I think there is millage in a Championship deal for sponsorship as well (Needs to be separate to Betfred Super League) there are some very pleasant places to visit in the championship in summer Cumbria/Toulouse/London:) alone with the traditional heartlands.

The Championship is a very vibrant competition, but struggles immensely with identity. 

If its a second division competition with clubs fighting to get into Super League those clubs need to be near enough ready for Super League already. That is, full time professionals. Currently we don't have that but we were close a few years ago to having nearly half the league at that stage.

There's a few other definitions I could give of what the comp is or could be, but don't have time right now. Probably deserves its own thread!

[Big Picture]

3 hours ago, GUBRATS said:

So with all the resources and money the NFL have , after 4 decades they've still not expanded outside the US 

Very succssessful

They could have expanded to Canada years ago when Paul Godfrey led a consortium seeking to get a franchise for Toronto.  They consciously left Canada alone so as not to hurt the CFL, although Buffalo played a few matches in Toronto at one point.