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Superleague TV audience figures through the roof.


Davo5

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38 minutes ago, JohnM said:

In my pre-retirement occupation, in the dark days before social media, I found my potential customers through direct mail, exhibitions, CUYB, industry knowledge, trailing round industrial estates. The tough bit was convincing them to spend £kkkkkk directly or with resellers, avoiding over-promising on the benefits. You lot don't know you're born!! 😃 😃 😃 😃 

Sure its still not easy but we seem to have qualified staff on board, so its reasonable to expect them to be up to speed.  Bear in mind Steve Jobs attitude, though. He did, after all,  run a quite sucessful company for a while.

 

(99+) Callum Jones | LinkedIn

(99+) Callum Barr | LinkedIn

Rugby Football League - Run Communications

10 Steve Jobs Marketing Lessons and his Famous Marketing Quotes.. (postcron.com)

 

 

I think there are some very passionate and capable people at the RFL and SLE marketing department and my criticism is rarely (or rarely intended) to be directed at them. I think these people are in something of a thankless role that is hamstrung by a lack of strategic direction from the top, a lack of resource and a lack of support from the clubs. 

I think the latter is the biggest issue. I think the clubs should own their respective marketing strategies, given that they should know their respective markets and audience, and even small, incremental improvements at each of the 12 clubs makes such a considerable difference that would support the efforts of the central team. 

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45 minutes ago, JohnM said:

I think my club has to have somethimg to shout about and in my view, it has not had that for a few years.  The one in my vied that delivers the most exploitable material is  what happens on and around the field.  

 

Wigan Warriors | Fishtank Agency

 

 

I started reading the site and this is the first paragraph. 

The Wigan Warriors are a professional rugby league club and are currently Super League Champions, not only that, they are the most successful club Rugby League team in the world! We've have had the great privilege work working with them over the last 5 years.

That is an awful advert for their Web content!

"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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  • 3 weeks later...

There`s a story over on the Total Rugby League news page, " Davy celebrates rising Super League TV viewing figures ".

I can`t open it, can anyone tell me if it`s good news.

 

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1 hour ago, The Rocket said:

There`s a story over on the Total Rugby League news page, " Davy celebrates rising Super League TV viewing figures ".

I can`t open it, can anyone tell me if it`s good news.

 

More games with over 200k viewers than before, 10 clubs featured in those.

Conflicting messages on GF viewers - Davy says more than double the 200k, League Express says less than 400k. Not sure if I'm misreading or someone has their maths wrong.

Two Catalans v Hull KR games in Perpignan had the highest figures of the season (pre GF) at just under 300k. Guessing being a foreign team is less important to UK viewers than high quality, decent atmosphere and entertaining RL. Who knew...

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2 minutes ago, Moove said:

More games with over 200k viewers than before, 10 clubs featured in those.

Conflicting messages on GF viewers - Davy says more than double the 200k, League Express says less than 400k. Not sure if I'm misreading or someone has their maths wrong.

Two Catalans v Hull KR games in Perpignan had the highest figures of the season (pre GF) at just under 300k. Guessing being a foreign team is less important to UK viewers than high quality, decent atmosphere and entertaining RL. Who knew...

The numbers quoted are always political. People will quote averages while some will quote peaks.

Using the standard BARB numbers are the best way to compare like for like.

2021 GF - c303k

2020 GF - c360k

2019 GF - c450k

2018 GF - c300k

2017 GF - 365k

Women's Grand Final got 38k.

The MPG game got 133k.

There are many variables that affect the numbers - scheduling, channel selection, what other sports are on at the same time etc.

But it would appear there is plenty of good news around the figures.

 

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1 minute ago, Dave T said:

The numbers quoted are always political. People will quote averages while some will quote peaks.

Using the standard BARB numbers are the best way to compare like for like.

2021 GF - c303k

2020 GF - c360k

2019 GF - c450k

2018 GF - c300k

2017 GF - 365k

Women's Grand Final got 38k.

The MPG game got 133k.

There are many variables that affect the numbers - scheduling, channel selection, what other sports are on at the same time etc.

But it would appear there is plenty of good news around the figures.

 

133k for the championship GF (I can’t bring myself to call it the million pound game, it’s too twee) is superb. 

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11 minutes ago, Eddie said:

133k for the championship GF (I can’t bring myself to call it the million pound game, it’s too twee) is superb. 

It also wasn't on Main Event - that was solely on Arena (or Sky Sports 8 in effect!) .

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8 minutes ago, Dave T said:

It also wasn't on Main Event - that was solely on Arena (or Sky Sports 8 in effect!) .

Plus one of the teams’ sets of fans wouldn’t have been watching. Even if everyone in Featherstone was watching there were 100,000 from elsewhere in the UK watching too.

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33 minutes ago, Eddie said:

133k for the championship GF (I can’t bring myself to call it the million pound game, it’s too twee) is superb. 

Was it on this thread that someone put up the figures for the Championship semi finals which were also pretty impressive?

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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7 minutes ago, gingerjon said:

Was it on this thread that someone put up the figures for the Championship semi finals which were also pretty impressive?

Toulouse v Batley got c55k and Fev v Fax got around 80k. They were on Mix, which doesn't have the best figures ever.

The week earlier on Mix the games got 65k and 95k.

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2 minutes ago, Man of Kent said:

So the Grand Final ratings were down by a third on pre-Covid level? Erm...

You wouldn't use 450k as any kind of real comparison, it is clearly an outlier. It does however give an indication of the potential.

From memory, these numbers are very solid - I think they could often be below the 300k.

This year's Grand Final had Scotland football in competition with its 525k viewers. In 2019 the competition was a Denmark game that got 133k. 

This is what I mean about scheduling, it is probably fair to say that RL picks up a decent amount of casual viewers from other team sports - when there is little else on, SL appears to be a good secondary sport for decent amounts of people. Unfortunately that isn't the strongest sell - certainly not as a marquee sport for broadcasters, but it is more of a solid position to be in. People like and watch RL, but I think we have fewer fanatics (and therefore subscrobers).

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1 hour ago, Moove said:

More games with over 200k viewers than before, 10 clubs featured in those.

Conflicting messages on GF viewers - Davy says more than double the 200k, League Express says less than 400k. Not sure if I'm misreading or someone has their maths wrong.

Two Catalans v Hull KR games in Perpignan had the highest figures of the season (pre GF) at just under 300k. Guessing being a foreign team is less important to UK viewers than high quality, decent atmosphere and entertaining RL. Who knew...

Thanks for that mate, appreciate you responding. I have a genuine interest in this sort of thing. Some real good solid figures in there spread across a range of clubs by the sound of it.

Particularly promising the interest shown in the French teams games, I assuming those 300k were all British viewers, if the game was televised on the other side of the channel that could have added another x number of thousands of viewers as well, so promising all round especially with Toulouse coming in. Cheers.

 

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A press release from a sport can be taken with the proverbial pinch of salt. The NFL used to come out with “a billion people watching”...the actual recorded viewing figure was a tenth that, with over 95% based in North America. 

World Rugby did similar with the “Rugby World Cup”....”the third most watched sports event after the World Cup and the Olympics” they declared....figures debunked by the NZ Herald, with 33 million viewers for the final of which 97% were from the rugby union strongholds;

https://www.nzherald.co.nz/sport/rugby-world-cup-logic-debunks-outrageous-numbers-game/3V6SE4D5N3BS232OBM6XO5OIJI/

 

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8 hours ago, Dave T said:

You wouldn't use 450k as any kind of real comparison, it is clearly an outlier. It does however give an indication of the potential.

From memory, these numbers are very solid - I think they could often be below the 300k.

This year's Grand Final had Scotland football in competition with its 525k viewers. In 2019 the competition was a Denmark game that got 133k. 

This is what I mean about scheduling, it is probably fair to say that RL picks up a decent amount of casual viewers from other team sports - when there is little else on, SL appears to be a good secondary sport for decent amounts of people. Unfortunately that isn't the strongest sell - certainly not as a marquee sport for broadcasters, but it is more of a solid position to be in. People like and watch RL, but I think we have fewer fanatics (and therefore subscrobers).

I think that could be the new SL tagline

"Watch us when there's nowt else on"

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28 minutes ago, Scubby said:

I think that could be the new SL tagline

"Watch us when there's nowt else on"

I did think similar as I typed my post. It is a bit of a strength and a major weakness too. 

A strength in that we have proven that when we get the right platform, plenty people will watch it. We get far more watching on TV than we have involved in the game in any other way.  To compare - football in the UK has millions of people participating, plus millions more supporting teams. 

They generally get around a million and a half for a decent game on Sky or BT. 

Our footprint is miniscule, but we have a decent 200k or so - we do bat above our average. But imagine how it could be if we increased the size of our footprint, at the moment it is too easy for us to be knocked off main event as there are so many other casual events for viewers to watch. 

In short, attracting the floating viewers is fine, but they will also float elsewhere if we don't really engage with them effectively. 

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1 hour ago, Scubby said:

I think that could be the new SL tagline

"Watch us when there's nowt else on"

I do wonder if that is the purpose the sport serves to Sky. They don't need to pay too much and they also don't need to promote it too much and it consistently gets steady viewing figures for the outlay.

It is probably in Sky's interest for Rugby League not to grow too much in terms of size and presence. They certainly don't seem to pushed sport and haven't for a long time. Any increase in the size of Rugby League would only mean it costs Sky more to retain the sport for probably not too much benefit to them.

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1 minute ago, Damien said:

I do wonder if that is the purpose the sport serves to Sky. They don't need to pay too much and they also don't need to promote it too much and it consistently gets steady viewing figures for the outlay.

It is probably in Sky's interest for Rugby League not to grow too much in terms of size and presence. They certainly don't seem to pushed sport and haven't for a long time. Any increase in the size of Rugby League would only mean it costs Sky more to retain the sport for probably not too much benefit to them.

I think there is probably a feeling that in its current guise the TV product of SL has hit a bit of a ceiling. That isn't necessarily a slur on SL, it is the same with RU's Premiership which has lower figures than us and has been relatively static despite all sorts of other growth. I think there are tens of thousands of viewers to go at, but I never see SL getting 300k averages, or 400k and so on. To an extent, it is a filler, it brings in a solid 150k to 200k regularly, and the odd big event gets more. 

I'm not too sure how it becomes more for Sky Sports, obviously better scheduling brings some in, but the peaks were no bigger than now when we had presence on SS1. 

The only fighting chance is probably a real WCC, or some real geographical growth to bring in more staunch fans from across the country, but that hasn't done much for RU. 

That does put us in a tight spot when trying to get Sky to pay more, I think it has to be around content and amount of games etc as I don't see material growth happening at club level. 

That brings us onto internationals, but I think we all agree on that one, there absolutely has to be growth there. 

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5 minutes ago, ShropshireBull said:

Bigger question is how long before Prem pull plug on sky and go pure streaming.  Effectively cutting out middle Men and skys need for filler product. 

Another reason why growing int and getting SL on fta now before we are forced to will be vital. 

There doesn't appear to be any indication of traditional sports channels being phased out. 

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1 hour ago, ShropshireBull said:

The reason sky were against the ESL was because it was planning on going to streaming services.  

I think football will look to go direct if tv deals start to stagnate. 

Not sure what has the pandemic got to do with it, but that was the reason given for allowing Prem to roll over current 4.7 billion tv deal without putting it out to tender. So streaming only won't be anytime soon. But RL can steal a march here, streaming is the future,  and the game has always been innovative,  getting in early with content for those who get most of their entertainment from streaming could be a game changer.

 

https://www.bbc.com/sport/football/57098432

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53 minutes ago, Dave T said:

I think there is probably a feeling that in its current guise the TV product of SL has hit a bit of a ceiling. That isn't necessarily a slur on SL, it is the same with RU's Premiership which has lower figures than us and has been relatively static despite all sorts of other growth. I think there are tens of thousands of viewers to go at, but I never see SL getting 300k averages, or 400k and so on. To an extent, it is a filler, it brings in a solid 150k to 200k regularly, and the odd big event gets more. 

I'm not too sure how it becomes more for Sky Sports, obviously better scheduling brings some in, but the peaks were no bigger than now when we had presence on SS1. 

The only fighting chance is probably a real WCC, or some real geographical growth to bring in more staunch fans from across the country, but that hasn't done much for RU. 

That does put us in a tight spot when trying to get Sky to pay more, I think it has to be around content and amount of games etc as I don't see material growth happening at club level. 

That brings us onto internationals, but I think we all agree on that one, there absolutely has to be growth there. 

The difference here of course, and I`m not being petty, League is a far better TV product than union. If your Super League can get its` geographical spread right, and shake off its` `northern game` image, that 200k base could be significantly increased.

I always like to see peak viewing figures from big events, as being an indicator of potential viewers, the key of course is making some of them regular viewers. The games in Perpignan was a case in point.

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1 hour ago, The Rocket said:

The difference here of course, and I`m not being petty, League is a far better TV product than union. If your Super League can get its` geographical spread right, and shake off its` `northern game` image, that 200k base could be significantly increased.

I always like to see peak viewing figures from big events, as being an indicator of potential viewers, the key of course is making some of them regular viewers. The games in Perpignan was a case in point.

Shaking off its Northern Game image is a generation thing. 

During SL we've had teams from Paris, Gateshead, South Wales, North Wales, Cumbria, London, Perpignan, Toronto and now Toulouse. 

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