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Selling The Drama


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11 hours ago, Tommygilf said:

It's not that bad considering it basically started as a competitive entity 25 years ago

I don't think we can bend over backwards to justify one comps lack of awareness whilst going out of our way to criticise ours. 

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10 hours ago, Tommygilf said:

The RU club game didn't though, which is what this comparison is being made for.

RU has massive historic advantages over RL. It has a relatively unique position in the UK which has supported its growth through a friendly media, political landscape and business contacts. They are a far bigger sport. 

Yet their club game (which is bigger than ours) still can't manage to become a mainstream comp - but people complain that SL isn't a mainstream comp. 

Only football has a mainstream club comp in this country. 

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56 minutes ago, Dave T said:

RU has massive historic advantages over RL. It has a relatively unique position in the UK which has supported its growth through a friendly media, political landscape and business contacts. They are a far bigger sport. 

Yet their club game (which is bigger than ours) still can't manage to become a mainstream comp - but people complain that SL isn't a mainstream comp. 

Only football has a mainstream club comp in this country. 

Just think of the narrative that club RU must have had in the mid 90s.

Nothing else explains their success.

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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10 minutes ago, Johnoco said:

The key difference is that club RU has grown and is on an upward trajectory, whatever you might argue. RL just isn’t growing as it might, IMO through choice.

I have just looked at the club RU average attendances- and to be honest they are much better than I thought, far better actually. There’s nothing to be dismissive about here, it is an illustration that a club  competition can be grown.

And that's cool, but the reason I brought RU into this specific discussion is because you regularly make the point that SL is not discussed in the mainstream. I made the point that a far bigger comp than SL doesn't either. 

We could grow our crowds by 80%, attract huge corporate backing, get huge support from a broadcaster, attract huge central funding and increase our revenues by 100% (the position the RU Prem is in) and SL still wouldn't be discussed in the mainstream like you specify. I know this because RU Prem has all this and it hasn't broken into the mainstream. 

My point is that people chatting about SL in the pub is a poor measure. It doesn't mean anything. 

The more relevant things to be critical of SL over is around things like commercial income, crowds player development etc. 

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8 minutes ago, Johnoco said:

And how is SL faring in all those areas? Doesn’t seem to be setting the world alight. 
 

Besides which, I don’t think you get what I mean. I don’t mean that until every man and his wife is discussing RL in the supermarket, it’s irrelevant. I mean that RL is consistently showing no signs of growth, even in its main areas. Our top clubs can’t grow attendances consistently, our big games never (occasionally some do) sell out and the nationwide footprint of the game is as small as ever.

And so, to get back to the original point of the poster, RL needs to do something to change this. It needs to stop milking the same people every year for its events and cast the net wider. But it won’t. 
 

Daft question I know 

How do you suggest they do it ? 😂

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2 hours ago, Dave T said:

I don't think we can bend over backwards to justify one comps lack of awareness whilst going out of our way to criticise ours. 

You're missing the point. One has grown, the other, basically, is stagnant. 

Now you can say XYZ for why Union has inbuilt advantages etc but the hard facts is that its top league has grown and we haven't. 

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19 minutes ago, Johnoco said:

And how is SL faring in all those areas? Doesn’t seem to be setting the world alight. 
 

Besides which, I don’t think you get what I mean. I don’t mean that until every man and his wife is discussing RL in the supermarket, it’s irrelevant. I mean that RL is consistently showing no signs of growth, even in its main areas. Our top clubs can’t grow attendances consistently, our big games never (occasionally some do) sell out and the nationwide footprint of the game is as small as ever.

And so, to get back to the original point of the poster, RL needs to do something to change this. It needs to stop milking the same people every year for its events and cast the net wider. But it won’t. 
 

It is easy to create a positive list if you are that way inclined. 

You keep making soundbites as though growing crowds is an easy thing to do. 

I also think perception is a huge factor. My club has gone from being a basket case at Wilderspool sometimes playing in front of 3k, to being one playing in a top ground, signing quality players playing in front of big crowds. Your club has gone the other way in the last 10 years, so it is perhaps not surprising that the feeling around RL in Bradford may be less positive. 

Similarly, people linked to York are pretty positive compared to say, Widnes fans. 

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3 minutes ago, Tommygilf said:

You're missing the point. One has grown, the other, basically, is stagnant. 

Now you can say XYZ for why Union has inbuilt advantages etc but the hard facts is that its top league has grown and we haven't. 

Compared to 1995 we have absolutely grown. 

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3 minutes ago, Tommygilf said:

You're missing the point. One has grown, the other, basically, is stagnant. 

Now you can say XYZ for why Union has inbuilt advantages etc but the hard facts is that its top league has grown and we haven't. 

But it's still a basket case 

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6 minutes ago, Dave T said:

It is easy to create a positive list if you are that way inclined. 

You keep making soundbites as though growing crowds is an easy thing to do. 

I also think perception is a huge factor. My club has gone from being a basket case at Wilderspool sometimes playing in front of 3k, to being one playing in a top ground, signing quality players playing in front of big crowds. Your club has gone the other way in the last 10 years, so it is perhaps not surprising that the feeling around RL in Bradford may be less positive. 

Similarly, people linked to York are pretty positive compared to say, Widnes fans. 

Sport is cyclical , always has been , Wire like Leigh have been very fortunate to receive massive support from their respective council's , if others are as lucky , they too might see the growth that returns them to past support levels 

But ultimately in sport for every winner there is a loser , that's what it is 

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4 minutes ago, Tommygilf said:

Most of that growth was in the first handful of years of Super League. Since then, we haven't, no matter how much you claim otherwise.

Very true , it does seem like we've ' topped out ' a bit , so why is that ? , And what do we need to push on again ?

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3 minutes ago, Tommygilf said:

That massive up to press means only 1 top flight club has gone into administration and they have at least 22 fully professional clubs in Britain and Ireland.

So we are back to where we always are 

Our owners aren't rich enough , get rid of them and bring in some richer ones 

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33 minutes ago, Tommygilf said:

You're missing the point. One has grown, the other, basically, is stagnant. 

Now you can say XYZ for why Union has inbuilt advantages etc but the hard facts is that its top league has grown and we haven't. 

You're going to really have to downplay the advantages a sport that is backed by the establishment, played in every town in the country, highly visible in the media (because the media types *play* it) and present in nearly every school, if you can't see why a halfway decent (though still massively in debt, and consistently overspending) league is going to do pretty well once it gets going.

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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8 minutes ago, Tommygilf said:

That massive up to press means only 1 top flight club has gone into administration and they have at least 22 fully professional clubs in Britain and Ireland.

So what's their narrative?

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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What Rugby Union has done well to grow their domestic game in England is:

1. Leverage big 'events' to grow the brand

In the 2018-19 season, there was an aggregate attendance of1,958,402 across 135 games in the Premiership (including the final at Twickenham which had 75,329 in attendance).

There were 5 'event' games played in year, three at Twickenham, one at London Stadium and one at St James Park.  Together these 5 games attracted 252,166 people.  To put this into context, this is around one fifth of the attendees of Super League 2019 in which we played 178 games.

2. Leverage the value and marketing opportunity of internationals

People lament in Rugby League that we have no household names... no recognizable stars of our game.  Union does but I absolutely guarantee that they are not recognizable because of their club games... Owen Farrell plays his games in front of around 9k home fans.  He is the biggest name in the sport because of what he does for the national side.

It seems to me to be so obvious that growing international League and creating more events is the way to go.  Not to ape Union but simply because it works.   

"The history of the world is the history of the triumph of the heartless over the mindless." — Sir Humphrey Appleby.

"If someone doesn't value evidence, what evidence are you going to provide to prove that they should value it? If someone doesn't value logic, what logical argument could you provide to show the importance of logic?" — Sam Harris

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45 minutes ago, Tommygilf said:

Most of that growth was in the first handful of years of Super League. Since then, we haven't, no matter how much you claim otherwise.

Depends what criteria we want to select. 

Revenues are growing, with record income at the moment from TV. 

2019 delivered a record tv figure for the GF. 2020 was just behind that. 

2019 saw the record SL crowd smashed. 

I don't disagree with your overall point about growth slowing, but I would describe it as plataeuing rather than stagnating. And I do agree that we now need a next generation strategy to drive us on from this level. But I think it will be step change rather than anything revolutionary.

I share many of your frustrations, but my landing position is less negative than yours I'd say. 

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