Sponsorship

[whatmichaelsays]

3 minutes ago, Curly perm said:

A team that he’s responsible for and where he most likely has overall sign off for a high profile sponsorship deal?

Was it a high profile sponsorship deal?

It was some flashes on an advertising hoarding and some digital pre-roll ads. A deal that has a cash value of at most, even making some generous assumptions, around £2,500 a week. 

[binosh]

2 minutes ago, The Future is League said:

Well you and i and many others know that isn't going to happen.

The facts are Leigh is a suburb of Wigan,  who a vast majority of the country has never heard of let alone where it is unless they read these forums.

As a Super League club they offer nothing apart from being the 12th club in Super League which is the minimum that the Sky contract allows. No new sponsors of note will come on board because they have been gifted a Super League place.

But they are in so suck it up buttercup.

I wonder if football fans sit there on a daily basis pondering the commercial value of Burnley to the Premier League or wether they just get tanked up and watch the soccer instead.

Maybe its just a Rugby League thing to be constantly negative about everything.

[Dave T]

3 minutes ago, whatmichaelsays said:

The point being is that the sport can't allow geography to become an excuse for not adapting to the modern sports business landscape. 

The fact that Tommy Makinson does those acrobatic finishes in St Helens rather than London doesn't make them any less spectacular. The fact that Bevan French scores full-length, mazy run tries in Wigan rather than New York doesn't stop them going viral. The fact that Konrad Hurrell plays in Leeds instead of Toronto doesn't make his personality less marketable. 

We can complain about geography all we like, but there's not a lot that can realistically be done about that until another millionaire comes along wanting to stick a pin in a map. What the game can do is become a much more effective media brand, making sure that it's capitalising on the very best of the hours and hours of content that it is producing and ensuring that it's producing as many of those spectacular moments as possible. 

Every single club should be capable of doing that.

This is an interesting post, and I do always enjoy reading your posts even where I don't necessarily agree. 

This one is interesting because tbh, it could be seen as a 'get our own house in order' kind of approach, as opposed to the outward  geographical expansion (and I know you have made the point many times about your views on geographical footprint). I think it is hard to disagree with an approach that says we need to do improve our existing operation to be world class. 

I do however share scotchy's concerns about the fact that from a geographical point of view, it can be very difficult for people interested in RL to access the game (live). I do think that needs to be addressed, and that is why I would focus my expansion efforts on population centres, and using event games including internationals in the short to medium term to drive interest. 

I do think we need to address both. 

[Dave T]

1 minute ago, whatmichaelsays said:

Was it a high profile sponsorship deal?

It was some flashes on an advertising hoarding and some digital pre-roll ads. A deal that has a cash value of at most, even making some generous assumptions, around £2,500 a week. 

To be fair, it probably became far more high profile than anyone expected with all thee debate about it

[sweaty craiq]

Leigh have announced record shirt sponsorship of £750k for 2021 but don’t break the individual sponsors down by value

[whatmichaelsays]

5 minutes ago, Dave T said:

This is an interesting post, and I do always enjoy reading your posts even where I don't necessarily agree. 

This one is interesting because tbh, it could be seen as a 'get our own house in order' kind of approach, as opposed to the outward  geographical expansion (and I know you have made the point many times about your views on geographical footprint). I think it is hard to disagree with an approach that says we need to do improve our existing operation to be world class. 

I do however share scotchy's concerns about the fact that from a geographical point of view, it can be very difficult for people interested in RL to access the game (live). I do think that needs to be addressed, and that is why I would focus my expansion efforts on population centres, and using event games including internationals in the short to medium term to drive interest. 

I do think we need to address both. 

I completely agree that it is neither one nor the other - it's about both. I too would like to see a more ambitous approach to internationals - one played in London, one played in Manchester and the a third at another large venue, be that Elland Road, Newcastle or wherever. 

But the game does have to work with what it has and first and foremost, I think the thing it has more than anything else is a wealth of content that is criminally under-utilised. 

Scotchy's point about it being difficult to get to games is right, but we also have to think about putting bums on sofas, getting eyeballs on screens and creating a demand for RL content in areas that are not, and likely never will be, within easy reach of a stadium on Friday nights. 

[Dave T]

1 minute ago, whatmichaelsays said:

I completely agree that it is neither one nor the other - it's about both. I too would like to see a more ambitous approach to internationals - one played in London, one played in Manchester and the a third at another large venue, be that Elland Road, Newcastle or wherever. 

But the game does have to work with what it has and first and foremost, I think the thing it has more than anything else is a wealth of content that is criminally under-utilised. 

Scotchy's point about it being difficult to get to games is right, but we also have to think about putting bums on sofas, getting eyeballs on screens and creating a demand for RL content in areas that are not, and likely never will be, within easy reach of a stadium on Friday nights. 

Fair, sounds like we are in the same place. 

As somebody who lives in Edinburgh, I find the lack of geographical reach a real challenge. I think a healthy handful of internationals spread across the country each year can address that more so than any SL club can.

[Scotchy1]

11 minutes ago, whatmichaelsays said:

The point being is that the sport can't allow geography to become an excuse for not adapting to the modern sports business landscape. 

The fact that Tommy Makinson does those acrobatic finishes in St Helens rather than London doesn't make them any less spectacular. The fact that Bevan French scores full-length, mazy run tries in Wigan rather than New York doesn't stop them going viral. The fact that Konrad Hurrell plays in Leeds instead of Toronto doesn't make his personality less marketable. 

We can complain about geography all we like, but there's not a lot that can realistically be done about that until another millionaire comes along wanting to stick a pin in a map. What the game can do is become a much more effective media brand, making sure that it's capitalising on the very best of the hours and hours of content that it is producing and ensuring that it's producing as many of those spectacular moments as possible. 

Every single club should be capable of doing that.

It doesn't change those things but it does change how they are perceived and who they reach. 

Though I do agree that it isn't an excuse for not doing those things because it is a question of scale. It effects how marketable they are, not whether they are marketable 

[DoubleD]

43 minutes ago, whatmichaelsays said:

Which I why I think that the game is wrong to see expansion as a geography problem. If Bournemouth or Burnley can become global brands, the problem is not that they're based in a deprived northern mill town or a south coast retirement home. Expansion is, and frankly always has been, an issue of audience. 

RL really needs to start looking beyond how many season tickets it can sell to the same people year after year and consider how it can expand it's broader appeal to new audiences, irrespective of how close they are to a Super League ground. It needs to think much more like a media property. Yes, turnstyle clicks might put cash in the till today but, as I suspect the next TV deal will demonstrate, not thinking about those audience that don't attend games is much more expensive in the long term. 

The sport has a platform and the ability to produce huge amounts of high quality content and distribute it around the world. It needs to find a way to do that and monetise it. 

But Bournemouth and Burnley piggy back on the success of the PL and the major sporting clubs in the league. They aren’t global brands themselves. It also helps that football is played all around the country and not along a geographical narrow corridor. They have clubs in major cities and population centres - London, Birmingham, Manchester, Liverpool, Newcastle. 

Your other point of making more of what we have is entirely valid but you cannot dismiss the geographical challenge we have. Many in the country will not have an interest in a regional northern sport. 

[whatmichaelsays]

7 minutes ago, DoubleD said:

But Bournemouth and Burnley piggy back on the success of the PL and the major sporting clubs in the league. They aren’t global brands themselves. It also helps that football is played all around the country and not along a geographical narrow corridor. They have clubs in major cities and population centres - London, Birmingham, Manchester, Liverpool, Newcastle. 

Your other point of making more of what we have is entirely valid but you cannot dismiss the geographical challenge we have. Many in the country will not have an interest in a regional northern sport. 

I'm not dismissing it. I'm saying that it's not an excuse for not doing things. 

The point I was responding to was @Tommygilf's point that the geography doesn't seem to be a barrier to fans in Asia or America showing an interest in the Premier League and I think that point can apply to rugby league. Tommy Makinson or Tom Johnstone bending themselves around a corner flag doesn't look any less spectacular, or doesn't become less viral, just because it happened in a small northern town. 

The emphasis shouldn't be about pointing at maps and saying "let's play there". The emphasis should be about asking "how can we make sure that we're producing a s**t-load of brilliant content and making sure people see it?" If you look at any successful sports league, that's what they're good at and I don't think we should dismiss that notion by saying "yeah, but we're not the Premier League".

If you do that, you fill the grounds, you put bums on sofas and you build a new, more diverse audience that starts to enjoy and demand rugby league content. 

[redjonn]

33 minutes ago, whatmichaelsays said:

I completely agree that it is neither one nor the other - it's about both. I too would like to see a more ambitous approach to internationals - one played in London, one played in Manchester and the a third at another large venue, be that Elland Road, Newcastle or wherever. 

But the game does have to work with what it has and first and foremost, I think the thing it has more than anything else is a wealth of content that is criminally under-utilised. 

Scotchy's point about it being difficult to get to games is right, but we also have to think about putting bums on sofas, getting eyeballs on screens and creating a demand for RL content in areas that are not, and likely never will be, within easy reach of a stadium on Friday nights. 

I tend to agree with your posts in this thread.  To do it requires investment in the type of people and organisation to improve and achieve those objectives - at least to give it a try.

SL took the right approach organisationally in Elstone and his team - well I thought the idea was to build a good marketing team/organisation. A problem being the amount of monies allocated. 

Neither the RL administrators/leaders or the fanbase are prepared to see the sort of monies to support the salaries to get the top class talent to even think about how to achieve your ambitions.

Lots of comments focus on the individuals but its the organisational approach for which the CEO has to be accountable for.   Its not helped if whomever it is isn't given the authority nor the investment to put in place the organisation changes. Whilst he (in this case) may have the title he  hasn't been given the power or tools.

[DoubleD]

28 minutes ago, whatmichaelsays said:

I'm not dismissing it. I'm saying that it's not an excuse for not doing things. 

The point I was responding to was @Tommygilf's point that the geography doesn't seem to be a barrier to fans in Asia or America showing an interest in the Premier League and I think that point can apply to rugby league. Tommy Makinson or Tom Johnstone bending themselves around a corner flag doesn't look any less spectacular, or doesn't become less viral, just because it happened in a small northern town. 

The emphasis shouldn't be about pointing at maps and saying "let's play there". The emphasis should be about asking "how can we make sure that we're producing a s**t-load of brilliant content and making sure people see it?" If you look at any successful sports league, that's what they're good at and I don't think we should dismiss that notion by saying "yeah, but we're not the Premier League".

If you do that, you fill the grounds, you put bums on sofas and you build a new, more diverse audience that starts to enjoy and demand rugby league content. 

And I’m not disagreeing with that. 

However, geography isn’t an issue to PL, because football is a widely known and played sport, AND it has good geographical coverage. RL has neither. Therefore it can break into people’s consciousness from the content aspects you rightly highlight (something we now control in relation to Challenge Cup under the new deal, which is very good news if utilised effectively) BUT people will struggle to gain affinity for small mining towns they have never heard of. People recognise Manchester, they don’t Leigh. They can associate themselves with Toronto in ways they couldn’t with Castleford. 

[whatmichaelsays]

13 minutes ago, DoubleD said:

And I’m not disagreeing with that. 

However, geography isn’t an issue to PL, because football is a widely known and played sport, AND it has good geographical coverage. RL has neither. Therefore it can break into people’s consciousness from the content aspects you rightly highlight (something we now control in relation to Challenge Cup under the new deal, which is very good news if utilised effectively) BUT people will struggle to gain affinity for small mining towns they have never heard of. People recognise Manchester, they don’t Leigh. They can associate themselves with Toronto in ways they couldn’t with Castleford. 

So we address that issue by disassociating from the "towns" and instead, pushing the clubs and the players as "brands". 

In that regard, it's the game's own mindset, rather than geography, that is most limiting. 

 

[Rupert Prince]

6 hours ago, Sir Kevin Sinfield said:

I will start, Papa Johns sponsor Super League for £0 but free pizza. It was negotiated by Robert.

Cazoo were recently announced as the World Cup sponsor. The exact figure wasn’t reported but it was stated to be a seven figure deal and the largest in Rugby League World Cup history. It was not negotiated by Robert.

Your name is Heatherington and I claim my £5.

[ATLANTISMAN]

I think you will find that as things settle down again over the next few months some good brands will come on board for Rugby League:)

 

P 

[Tommygilf]

2 hours ago, Scotchy1 said:

There are a lot of 'intangibles' in this area. Companies aren't just looking at the tangible things but things like image and outlook.

But there are bricks and mortar problems, for the vast majority of the country RL isn't relevant. We have no international game to speak of and the club game is, for most people, small and miles away.

In football, there is nowhere really in the country you couldn't be a pro football fan. In RL its the opposite. 

Quite, which is why Range Rover for example assocciate themselves with who they do as they align with their image and vision.

The accessibility is a hugely significant problem too, and is reflected in the sponsors we get.

[DoubleD]

20 minutes ago, whatmichaelsays said:

So we address that issue by disassociating from the "towns" and instead, pushing the clubs and the players as "brands". 

In that regard, it's the game's own mindset, rather than geography, that is most limiting. 

 

I believe that’s what the SL exec have been trying to push, with the re-brands etc. However a lot of the diehards don’t like this. So what can be viewed as a strength of the game could actually be a weakness 

[Tommygilf]

1 hour ago, whatmichaelsays said:

Which I why I think that the game is wrong to see expansion as a geography problem. If Bournemouth or Burnley can become global brands, the problem is not that they're based in a deprived northern mill town or a south coast retirement home. Expansion is, and frankly always has been, an issue of audience. 

RL really needs to start looking beyond how many season tickets it can sell to the same people year after year and consider how it can expand it's broader appeal to new audiences, irrespective of how close they are to a Super League ground. It needs to think much more like a media property. Yes, turnstyle clicks might put cash in the till today but, as I suspect the next TV deal will demonstrate, not thinking about those audience that don't attend games is much more expensive in the long term. 

The sport has a platform and the ability to produce huge amounts of high quality content and distribute it around the world. It needs to find a way to do that and monetise it. 

I agree with you to a large extent, clubs in this day and age are not restricted to those within an hours travel to support them and should be pushing that massively. Our social media stuff is often a bit naff and that can't be changed overnight as any social media platform needs time to grow.

However, there does also come a point where geography is relevant to the audience. Not only does football have 3 big teams covering the vast number of people in north and West London, but it has Man United covering arguably as many fans from the home counties too. That's before you get to the smaller clubs local people follow to varying extents. My point is that even their non-London (and therefore media focussed) clubs have significant followings outside their home towns in and around the capital. Between Manchester and London (both in the greater sense) they also dominate the areas of the country that draw in the most finance and interest in an ever growing virtuous circle that increases their interest everywhere else. The likes of Burnley, Bournemouth, Crystal Palace etc benefit massively from the interest and growth the top teams generate by assocciation. That number of "top clubs" has grown too, from 2 to 4 to 6 and arguably with a resurgent Everton, ambitious Wolves and consistent Leicester that could easily expand further in the next couple of years.

In RL we need to transform what for the purposes of this discussion are "interchangable clubs" into contenders for the title of the "big clubs", which is a whole other discussion, but I do think we also need to be aware how audiences recognise relevance to them. It doesn't matter whether Tommy Makinson performs his spectacular efforts in St Helens or Liverpool to a person in London, but if no one in London or Liverpool cares because RL isn't relevant to them it doesn't matter how spectacular he or anyone else is. That's not to say everyone in London should be a Broncos fan, but the Broncos fans there are in London and the SE, the Rhinos, Saints, Warriors fans there will be there too;  so there is mutual interest in developing that for example.

Ultimately there does still need to be that accessibility, be it physical or digital, to make the sport relevant to viewers/customers/fans etc.

[Tommygilf]

29 minutes ago, whatmichaelsays said:

So we address that issue by disassociating from the "towns" and instead, pushing the clubs and the players as "brands". 

In that regard, it's the game's own mindset, rather than geography, that is most limiting. 

 

Elstone is clearly pushing that with every media outlet he has pushed, most notably the TV show they had on Sky midweek. That's good but does seem to be papering over some issues somewhat. As you say the game's mindset here is a weak point.

[Tommygilf]

1 hour ago, redjonn said:

I tend to agree with your posts in this thread.  To do it requires investment in the type of people and organisation to improve and achieve those objectives - at least to give it a try.

SL took the right approach organisationally in Elstone and his team - well I thought the idea was to build a good marketing team/organisation. A problem being the amount of monies allocated. 

Neither the RL administrators/leaders or the fanbase are prepared to see the sort of monies to support the salaries to get the top class talent to even think about how to achieve your ambitions.

Lots of comments focus on the individuals but its the organisational approach for which the CEO has to be accountable for.   Its not helped if whomever it is isn't given the authority nor the investment to put in place the organisation changes. Whilst he (in this case) may have the title he  hasn't been given the power or tools.

I think that's why he wants some PE money

[whatmichaelsays]

13 minutes ago, DoubleD said:

I believe that’s what the SL exec have been trying to push, with the re-brands etc. However a lot of the diehards don’t like this. So what can be viewed as a strength of the game could actually be a weakness 

I'd agree to an extent, and I'd actually like to see the sport spend a little less time paying attention to what the "die hards" say. 

Yes, listen to your customers, but if there aren't enough of those customers to keep you sustainable, you have to start listening to other groups as well.

The world has moved on. People don't live and die in the towns they were born in any more, so what relevance is "localism" in this day and age? 

[DoubleD]

9 minutes ago, whatmichaelsays said:

I'd agree to an extent, and I'd actually like to see the sport spend a little less time paying attention to what the "die hards" say. 

Yes, listen to your customers, but if there aren't enough of those customers to keep you sustainable, you have to start listening to other groups as well.

The world has moved on. People don't live and die in the towns they were born in any more, so what relevance is "localism" in this day and age? 

Which is at odds from the admission of Leigh and the 'away fans' argument. This is the main issue, there is no long term strategy.

[sweaty craiq]

Strategy and RL fans on here. You have to be bold and committed to grow, but if you don’t you will die.

as any business will tell you though you rarely grow by leaving  your stakeholders behind

There is a clear strategy in those few words 

[Scotchy1]

1 hour ago, whatmichaelsays said:

So we address that issue by disassociating from the "towns" and instead, pushing the clubs and the players as "brands". 

In that regard, it's the game's own mindset, rather than geography, that is most limiting. 

 

That would work imo in stretching the reach from say saints to the wider Merseyside area or Wigan to wider Greater Manchester. 

Its useful in taking your reach from 5-10miles to 20-30m but the problem RL will face is that its already bumping up against itself at 5-10m, and even when we move to 20-30m most of the country is still excluded. 

[Dave T]

27 minutes ago, whatmichaelsays said:

I'd agree to an extent, and I'd actually like to see the sport spend a little less time paying attention to what the "die hards" say. 

Yes, listen to your customers, but if there aren't enough of those customers to keep you sustainable, you have to start listening to other groups as well.

The world has moved on. People don't live and die in the towns they were born in any more, so what relevance is "localism" in this day and age? 

This was a point I made on one of these threads earlier. Opinions are great and interesting, we all have many, but ultimately behaviours are far more important. How many people announce on here that if x happens they will never go to a game again? Yet they are still here posting and watching the game. 

For all people may have an opinion on licensing, or expansion, or branding, ultimately their opinions mean little if they don't change behaviour. Being a fan of P&R over any other system is great, but if you are a lifelong fan who will attend under any system then your opinion ain't relevant in the decision making process. 

And this is exactly where the strong leadership comes in, someone with a vision that he can get the key stakeholders to buy into and then deliver it. 

If we did an opinion survey back in 1995 we'd have had plenty of RL fans telling us they will never watch RL again, yet the changes made have driven crowds and standards up. 

An appeaser in charge will not drive us forward, and I worry that we have two in Rimmer and Elstone, even though I think both of them have shown some positive glimpses.