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Sky Sports halving offer-What are the ramifications for Championship and Championship 1 clubs?


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5 hours ago, Cerulean said:

But our very regional game did once have a significant national profile. Teams, towns, players, even commentators, were known nationally. The sport was highly respected for many of its qualities, including the way it conducted itself, and including its very obvious pride in its regional nature. The Challenge Cup final was one of the major sporting occasions of the nation. Rugby League was often spoken of as being the nation’s third professional sport. Rugby League was once taken very seriously,  as a nationally known sport with a regional basis. This is not a view through nostalgic spectacles: there was a time when a Hunslet shirt on the Norfolk Broads, or a Featherstone badge on the beach at St Ives, would have instigated a conversation.

Yes, the past is a different country, but it’s worth exploring why the sport’s status has diminished so much. And it may be that brushing aside its proud history and regional nature is partly responsible for some of the damage. Perhaps embracing what the game is, and has been, can have a place in its aspirations.

In no way do I want to brush aside history.

The reality is the world now is fast moving and so 'small', web and gadget based, so many more offerings on TV, Netflix, Amazon, etc. And the sporting landscape is so much more varied and many sports trying to grab headlines, unlike in the 70s and 80s. RU, Big Bash, Cycling, Netball, Darts, etc. And now Women's sport in general is growing at a pace. We need to keep up. 

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On 03/01/2021 at 14:54, The Rocket said:

Agree with most of the rest of what you were arguing but having read `The Adults Sports Participation Figures ` I would like to give the RFL a little more credit on their strategy of funding the lower Leagues.

Given the precipitous decline in other team sports participation rates over the last 5 years: Basketball and soccer down 19 % ; union and hockey down 25 % and League only down 14 %. Figures over the last year showed a 7 % increase for League while Union and soccer still registered large declines. These figures show the League was indeed having some success, at least relatively, if that had indeed been their strategy.

It does also tie in with the top down versus bottom up strategy debate that has raged on these pages before.

I`m a great one for giving people the benefit of the doubt and not always think the worst of people or immediately assuming they are incompetent. It would appear that on receiving what now appears to have been a very generous last broadcast deal from Sky that your administrators made a conscious decision to go for the `bottom up` growth strategy for the game and that included no money for TWP. Given the dramatic decline in sports participation rates among all sports one would have to say they were starting to see some return on their investment.

Now if they had of been better off on spending a much larger percentage of that money on other projects, maybe investing in a Newcastle, London trying to create another big club to add to your big 5, who knows. But I would just like to say that they, unless I am sadly mistaken, did have a plan and were having some success. Credit where credit is due.

Where do you get your figures?

In 2017 Sport England had football at over 1.84 million weekly participants, up 1.6% from 10 years ago.

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/2017/02/15/popular-sport-england/football/

RL stood at 44,900, down 39% from 10 years ago.

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/2017/02/15/popular-sport-england/rugby-league/

Various sources may give differing figures, but what is consistent is the paucity of RL players is well documented. Not too long back there was an article posted on here from a RL coach in Hull saying he struggles to get 13 players.

The increasingly publicised issue over concussion won’t help matters either. 

RL needs to be making changes to address the decline and the deterrent over concussion.

 

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1 hour ago, Magic XIII said:

In no way do I want to brush aside history.

The reality is the world now is fast moving and so 'small', web and gadget based, so many more offerings on TV, Netflix, Amazon, etc. And the sporting landscape is so much more varied and many sports trying to grab headlines, unlike in the 70s and 80s. RU, Big Bash, Cycling, Netball, Darts, etc. And now Women's sport in general is growing at a pace. We need to keep up. 

Sincere apologies if it seems as though I was attributing blame to your point of view. I did not intend to do so. The post of yours I quoted and the above post constitute a valuable contribution to the discussion of the difficulties the sport faces.

I simply wanted to offer a perspective, and perhaps a suggestion that there could be some merit in using the game's history and regional nature as attractive selling points.

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7 hours ago, GUBRATS said:

At that time it was on FTA TV on Saturday afternoon well over a dozen times a year , providing entertainment just before the football pools results , an event whatched by probably 50% of the population 

 

The way the game was played was also very different, ie. more open.

I often bring up RU on here, not just because of the many similarities between the two codes with the more attritional, defensive style of play they have both headed, but also to highlight that RU (even with its FTA footage) hasn’t produced a star name in 15 years. There used to be half a dozen household RU names in England at any time, now there’s none, so this suggestion that RL isn’t as big or hasn’t produced a star name as it isn’t on Grandstand anymore simply doesn’t wash. 

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1 hour ago, DC77 said:

The way the game was played was also very different, ie. more open.

I often bring up RU on here, not just because of the many similarities between the two codes with the more attritional, defensive style of play they have both headed, but also to highlight that RU (even with its FTA footage) hasn’t produced a star name in 15 years. There used to be half a dozen household RU names in England at any time, now there’s none, so this suggestion that RL isn’t as big or hasn’t produced a star name as it isn’t on Grandstand anymore simply doesn’t wash. 

It was ' national profile ' that was being asked , being on FTA TV on Saturday afternoon when we had a choice of just 3 channels was massive compared to now , I'm not defending anything , just pointing out a fact , make of that fact what you will 

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8 hours ago, Cerulean said:

But our very regional game did once have a significant national profile. Teams, towns, players, even commentators, were known nationally. The sport was highly respected for many of its qualities, including the way it conducted itself, and including its very obvious pride in its regional nature. The Challenge Cup final was one of the major sporting occasions of the nation. Rugby League was often spoken of as being the nation’s third professional sport. Rugby League was once taken very seriously,  as a nationally known sport with a regional basis. This is not a view through nostalgic spectacles: there was a time when a Hunslet shirt on the Norfolk Broads, or a Featherstone badge on the beach at St Ives, would have instigated a conversation.

Yes, the past is a different country, but it’s worth exploring why the sport’s status has diminished so much. And it may be that brushing aside its proud history and regional nature is partly responsible for some of the damage. Perhaps embracing what the game is, and has been, can have a place in its aspirations.

It does make you wonder though, why the decline in profile? When I look at old photos of British Rugby League and the massive crowds at some of the games, I suppose given that England`s population would have been half of what is now, it would have been very hard for the media to ignore such events or the sport associated with it.

Is it as simple as the game isn`t as attractive as it used to be as mentioned in the last post. Someone else mentioned elsewhere that League for too long has relied on support being passed on inter-generationally and not attracting new supporters. Why is this so ? With the big events and profile that you mention above League theoretically should have had gathered solid support all over your country. Is this where the failure to give those supporters a club of their own has lead them to drift away. Staying as a sport associated with a specific geographic area has been to its detriment long term. I`m a great believer that any sport can be exciting if you have an emotional attachment with one of the participants, I`ve seen u10 soccer games that have been absolutely thrilling because I have a child involved, certainly not because of the quality of that actual game itself. But because I had an emotional investment in one team and the result.

Sports interestingly do have their ebbs and flows, I remember reading once how cycling used to draw huge crowds to the domain in Sydney on weekends back at the beginning of last century, boxing the same at various venues every weekend, these are both very much minor sports now. Definite lesson for Rugby League there. I do think it is worth having a look at what is different between the past and now to try and perhaps tease out the probably many factors that have lead to the decline of League in your nation.

1 hour ago, DC77 said:

Where do you get your figures?

There`s a thread put up the last few days called `Adult Sports Participation Rates` or some such, it measures participation rates from 2015 to present for people over 16 who participate in a sport at least twice a month.

The figure you quoted about a 39% decline in League participation makes for grim reading, however haven`t I read elsewhere that the Telegraph is not a very League friendly newspaper, could they be a little biased, perhaps want to talk League down. Either way the figures were probably pretty grim anyway.

 

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11 hours ago, DC77 said:

The way the game was played was also very different, ie. more open.

I often bring up RU on here, not just because of the many similarities between the two codes with the more attritional, defensive style of play they have both headed, but also to highlight that RU (even with its FTA footage) hasn’t produced a star name in 15 years. There used to be half a dozen household RU names in England at any time, now there’s none, so this suggestion that RL isn’t as big or hasn’t produced a star name as it isn’t on Grandstand anymore simply doesn’t wash. 

Well, don't. There's plenty of other forums out there where you can express your depravities.

"When in deadly danger, when beset by doubt; run in little circles, wave your arms and shout"

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I can only see maybe 3/4 clubs in league 1 teams surviving when the new tv deal comes in, they rest will join the top amateur leagues. Just being realistic, without the 75k a year to prop them up they can't financially survive. 

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On 06/01/2021 at 09:07, ckn said:

Well, don't. There's plenty of other forums out there where you can express your depravities.

Lol. To be fair I only do it when it’s relevant to RL (not to compare them as I don’t have any interest in stating X is better than X as that’s all subjective, but to highlight a point about RL). The example you responded to is one instance, another would be the high profile concussion issue RU is facing that is obviously going to apply to RL. Point taken though.

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