Sports Marketing

[redjonn]

The whole concept of the game is backward passing... how can we ignore forward passing beats me.  Why not completely redesign the whole game... a bit like the Americans did.

to add.... can you imagine the consistency arguments, well that was an inch forward and was ok why not 2 inches... then on we go to 2 feet...

OK ref's may miss a forward pass, but they don't decide oh well I'll ignore that one even though it went forward as the context of the game is such...

[Guest]

20 minutes ago, redjonn said:

The whole concept of the game is backward passing... how can we ignore forward passing beats me.  Why not completely redesign the whole game... a bit like the Americans did.

to add.... can you imagine the consistency arguments, well that was an inch forward and was ok why not 2 inches... then on we go to 2 feet...

OK ref's may miss a forward pass, but they don't decide oh well I'll ignore that one even though it went forward as the context of the game is such...

I don’t think he’s suggesting ignoring blatant forward passes. More stuff like the assumption that if a player drops a ball, it’s automatically a knock on or video refs endlessly searching for reasons to not allow the score. 
 

And the distance element is important. Does anyone really give a monkeys if it is 1 or 2 millimetre forward.? Technically yes, that’s forward but impractical if we want to see any sort of continuity in the game. I think his point is that it doesn’t lend itself to an exciting spectacle, even if it satisfies a handful of purists. 

[redjonn]

18 minutes ago, Johnoco said:

I don’t think he’s suggesting ignoring blatant forward passes. More stuff like the assumption that if a player drops a ball, it’s automatically a knock on or video refs endlessly searching for reasons to not allow the score. 
 

And the distance element is important. Does anyone really give a monkeys if it is 1 or 2 millimetre forward.? Technically yes, that’s forward but impractical if we want to see any sort of continuity in the game. I think his point is that it doesn’t lend itself to an exciting spectacle, even if it satisfies a handful of purists. 

Maybe

but that may be the starting point... then a few years on it becomes more than a minimum few millimetres/inches...

I do not think ref's blow for a forward pass that is a few millimetres today, as they themselves could not tell with such accuracy... currently it has to be eye sight forward for a ref to blow... which ain't a few milli's

[unapologetic pedant]

1 hour ago, gingerjon said:

Relaxed attitude to forward passes but a return to draconian policing of the play the ball?

No, I`ve said many times I`m perfectly happy with the "genuine attempt" guideline. It`s the flagrant ghastly rollballs that make a mockery of the ruck that I want to eradicate.

1 hour ago, gingerjon said:

TBH, I'm fine with calling forward passes forward. If they're marginal they're still forward. Knock ons used to be let go a little bit more but, again, I've no issue at all with them being called.

I also want forward passes and knock-ons called if an official is certain the ball went forward. But if there`s doubt, it should be play on. That encourages players to be creative with the ball. Which produces a more varied product. Which stands a better chance of being successfully marketed.

 

1 hour ago, gingerjon said:

And, to keep it back to the OP, I really don't think a handful of calls about either issue per game is a particularly big deal for whether anyone gets and stays interested in RL.

I believe this type of refereeing has had a profound effect on the culture of the game and the way it`s played.

When a player attempts an offload in their own half, the ball goes loose but clearly hasn`t gone forward, and the ref still calls a knock-on, the reaction from TV commentary teams isn`t that the ref has made an error, rather that the player is a fool whose attempt to be creative was deserving of punishment. - Good players just take the tackle, don`t push the pass, complete their sets, understand game management, etc.

No amount of marketing will retain someone`s interest if, when they are persuaded to go to a game, it comes across as not much more than blokes relentlessly smashing into each other in narrow confines.

[gingerjon]

3 minutes ago, unapologetic pedant said:

it comes across as not much more than blokes relentlessly smashing into each other in narrow confines.

We'll agree to disagree about the rest because I can't see either of us shifting our position. But I do want to say that even in its most boring form, I can't recall every watching a game of rugby league and thinking this is what I'm seeing.

[unapologetic pedant]

1 hour ago, redjonn said:

The whole concept of the game is backward passing... how can we ignore forward passing beats me.  Why not completely redesign the whole game... a bit like the Americans did.

Level is legal.

A short pass is one of the options to unlock a defence. How can a pass which travels such a short distance be made to look obviously backwards?

I see perfectly-timed short passes called forward which you could look at a million times in slow motion and be unable to determine whether it went slightly forward or slightly backward. These are called purely on suspicion. And if players know that might happen, they won`t take the risk. Particularly in their own half or early in the tackle count. Hence, they stick to "complete your sets" and our product is diminished.

[DC77]

9 hours ago, unapologetic pedant said:

The rules and how they are applied can be controlled. At the moment they`re applied to suit those who obsess about forward passes and knock-ons. With dire effects on the game as a spectacle.

Effective marketing can lure people to infrequent events like internationals. But to maintain regular attendance at club games of any sport, I have to believe that a consistently attractive product is essential. 

If I`d taken a Union fan to a League game 30+ years ago, I would have confidently expected the product to deliver more than enough to make the exercise worthwhile. Particularly in comparison with how Union was then played in the UK.

Now I wouldn`t be so sure. Some of our games consist of around 80 % dummy-half runs and one-out hit-ups. Anything that deviates from the "complete your sets" formula risks a call from ref or touch judge. Can we credibly contrast that with supposedly turgid RU?

Someone watching League who is used to Union will notice that currently where a Union ref will play advantage, the League ref will blow his whistle. So that Union refs facilitate off-the-cuff broken-field action, whereas League refs call a halt and restore the rigid pattern. 

If when a Union player mishandled the ball and the opposition regathered, the ref didn`t play advantage but instead stopped the game and jogged off to the middle of the field to choreograph a 20-phase pick-and-go session - we`d no doubt poke fun at boring RU. Yet something similar is now routine in League.

Our administrators devote too much time to off-field matters like structures and marketing. I`d rather they thought more about the on-field product deficiencies they`ve allowed to set in.

Ultimately it’s the on field product that sells a sport. 

You can market/advertise all you want, but people won’t just buy/watch if they don’t like what they see. You can put lipstick on a pig, but it’s still a pig.. which applies to anything. 

I concur with your general view on RL in England (not so much the NRL with its higher standard, sharper/slick attacking play). It looks very rigid. The main culprit I feel is the way the PTB is policed in England, as it takes forever, with the defending team given licence to slow it down by slowly getting off the man one by one, allowing the defence to reset, get organised, making it harder for the next attacking player...and so on. Mark Evans (worked with Melbourne Storm) on the Tony Collins podcast talked about how this spoiling tactic was discouraged in Australia, it clearly isn’t in England. There’s a suffocating feel to the game in England with the attacking players held back and restricted in what they can do (the amount of times I’ve felt like shouting “Get Off” as the big hallions slowly peel off the fella on the ground). Restrict, suffocate, stifle, three of the terms I’d use to describe this. It would explain why most of the RL try scoring records are from decades ago, resembling those in Athletics still held by East Germans. 

The players are also bigger/stronger (although not gone anywhere near the damaging extent RU has with players now “80% neck”) which further makes it harder for the attacking players. RU has taken on a plethora of RL defence coaches to really strangle the life out of attacking play even further, so obviously the standard of defensive coaching in RL is high, which ain’t good for attacking play in either code. The wrestle also makes it a less open game. A Hanley or an Offiah ain’t doing in today’s game what they did previously.

People in Wigan don’t need marketing or advertising to know Wigan are playing. Yet they get 7k for a playoff game vs Leeds. They are voting with their feet. If people entrenched in a RL environment aren’t taking in a game, it’s a bit much to expect a casual viewer from outside this environment to do so.

6 hours ago, gingerjon said:

I basically disagree with all of this but especially the part where rugby union is a beacon of letting things go.

They've always had a more relaxed attitude to forward passes and knock ons. It's why their "greatest try of all time" would never have been allowed in league. But whole sections of the match - three or four minutes at a time - can be taken up by setting and resetting a scrum. Penalties are given for opaque reasons , the kicking of which then chew up time. And whilst there is probably too much safety first attacking build up in league, that really doesn't compare too badly with the same forwards running the ball into the same impact space again and again because there is no limit to the number of times they can do it. Until they get a penalty. Which eats up clock.

Which is my way of saying that whilst there are things I'd do to tinker around the edges with the rules of league and their enforcement, they're not going to be the things that bring people back to the game again and again. The product is a brilliant product. We've enough evidence of that to know it to be true.

Yeah RU ain’t a sport to be looking to for improvements in your own. Transformers colliding for 80 minutes, its become nigh on unwatchable. And that “greatest try of all time”, played when there was actual space on the field as the players looked like humans, nothing remotely close to that try could be scored today. The first runner would get clobbered before a sequence could take off. RU is in enormous trouble with court cases galore from players suffering brain damage in the pro era, while players from the amateur era their health has been largely unaffected. And given this decline in RU both in its watchability and it profile, it’s baffling how it has been used on here as something to emulate. RU has built in advantages with the Six Nations, so casual viewers like me have watched it over the years, but no sport has inflicted damage on itself more than RU. Ask Joe Bloggs to name a solitary RU player, if it’s not “J.Wilkinson” the response will be crickets. RU has taken suffocating attacking play to another level altogether, hence games are a drudgery, and no household name in England has emerged in over a decade and a half.

[redjonn]

10 minutes ago, unapologetic pedant said:

Level is legal.

A short pass is one of the options to unlock a defence. How can a pass which travels such a short distance be made to look obviously backwards?

I see perfectly-timed short passes called forward which you could look at a million times in slow motion and be unable to determine whether it went slightly forward or slightly backward. These are called purely on suspicion. And if players know that might happen, they won`t take the risk. Particularly in their own half or early in the tackle count. Hence, they stick to "complete your sets" and our product is diminished.

maybe but I'm not sure your observations tally with what happens in the main, of course their are isolated incidents that we all mention.

I've seen many short well forward passes being called by ref's - that would suggest it doesn't stop players doing it. Although normally its because the player receiving the pass has timed his run badly and the player making the pass not stopping.

I don't see ref constantly penalising short passes only those that go clearly forward.

One could take the opposite position and say that level should be rules out so as to make the ruling clear. I wouldn't be in agreement but another way to look at issues that require eye sight judgement and making it easier to ref and hence improving consistency. here I'm just putting a contrary point my main argument is above.

 

[redjonn]

6 minutes ago, DC77 said:

Ultimately it’s the on field product that sells a sport. 

You can market/advertise all you want, but people won’t just buy/watch if they don’t like what they see. You can put lipstick on a pig, but it’s still a pig.. which applies to anything. 

I concur with your general view on RL in England (not so much the NRL with its higher standard, sharper/slick attacking play). It looks very rigid. The main culprit I feel is the way the PTB is policed in England, as it takes forever, with the defending team given licence to slow it down by slowly getting off the man one by one, allowing the defence to reset, get organised, making it harder for the next attacking player...and so on. Mark Evans (worked with Melbourne Storm) on the Tony Collins podcast talked about how this spoiling tactic was discouraged in Australia, it clearly isn’t in England. There’s a suffocating feel to the game in England with the attacking players held back and restricted in what they can do (the amount of times I’ve felt like shouting “Get Off” as the big hallions slowly peel off the fella on the ground). Restrict, suffocate, stifle, three of the terms I’d use to describe this. It would explain why most of the RL try scoring records are from decades ago, resembling those in Athletics still held by East Germans. 

etc etc

yep have to agree the PTB for me is the biggest culprit with the multi tackle of 3 or 4 tacklers each slowly getting off...

[Dave T]

Whilst RL fans may be frustrated with things like nit-picking on knock-ons etc. we shouldn't go overboard and again, every single sport will have their own versions of these 'issues'. And for very many people, they wont be an issue in the slightest.

But spending loads of time focusing on stuff like that won't increase crowds or viewers. 

[unapologetic pedant]

11 minutes ago, gingerjon said:

We'll agree to disagree about the rest because I can't see either of us shifting our position. But I do want to say that even in its most boring form, I can't recall every watching a game of rugby league and thinking this is what I'm seeing.

Both of us will have seen hundreds of games. How does RL currently appear to someone seeing their first game? Especially when the pitch many RL fans still inveterately make is that the game is a simpler, more open, more exciting form of "Rugby" than RU.

Your earlier point is right that the time taken up by dull passages in League, would be taken up by similarly dull features in Union, or by the ball being out of play.

But that doesn`t help us make a better first impression on someone who has had their interest piqued by marketing and promotion, which is inevitably superficial.

[unapologetic pedant]

3 minutes ago, Dave T said:

Whilst RL fans may be frustrated with things like nit-picking on knock-ons etc. we shouldn't go overboard and again, every single sport will have their own versions of these 'issues'. And for very many people, they wont be an issue in the slightest.

But spending loads of time focusing on stuff like that won't increase crowds or viewers. 

It isn`t frustration with "these issues" in isolation. My contention is that they significantly affect the way the game is played and the product that we offer.

RL knock-on madness reminds me of the type of Continental Soccer refereeing where every time two players came into contact the ref would blow the whistle and call something either way. The consequence was football occasionally breaking out amid a 90 minute falling over/diving/play-acting contest. Virtually unwatchable.

UEFA or FIFA must have addressed this somehow, because in recent times their officials are far more likely to wave play on, far less likely to be looking for reasons to stop the game.

Our administrators could do something similar.  - instruct RL officials to play on as a default setting. But their only response to perceived flaws in our product is to keep speeding the game up.

[Guest]

46 minutes ago, DC77 said:

Ultimately it’s the on field product that sells a sport. 

You can market/advertise all you want, but people won’t just buy/watch if they don’t like what they see. You can put lipstick on a pig, but it’s still a pig.. which applies to anything. 

I concur with your general view on RL in England (not so much the NRL with its higher standard, sharper/slick attacking play). It looks very rigid. The main culprit I feel is the way the PTB is policed in England, as it takes forever, with the defending team given licence to slow it down by slowly getting off the man one by one, allowing the defence to reset, get organised, making it harder for the next attacking player...and so on. Mark Evans (worked with Melbourne Storm) on the Tony Collins podcast talked about how this spoiling tactic was discouraged in Australia, it clearly isn’t in England. There’s a suffocating feel to the game in England with the attacking players held back and restricted in what they can do (the amount of times I’ve felt like shouting “Get Off” as the big hallions slowly peel off the fella on the ground). Restrict, suffocate, stifle, three of the terms I’d use to describe this. It would explain why most of the RL try scoring records are from decades ago, resembling those in Athletics still held by East Germans. 

The players are also bigger/stronger (although not gone anywhere near the damaging extent RU has with players now “80% neck”) which further makes it harder for the attacking players. RU has taken on a plethora of RL defence coaches to really strangle the life out of attacking play even further, so obviously the standard of defensive coaching in RL is high, which ain’t good for attacking play in either code. The wrestle also makes it a less open game. A Hanley or an Offiah ain’t doing in today’s game what they did previously.

People in Wigan don’t need marketing or advertising to know Wigan are playing. Yet they get 7k for a playoff game vs Leeds. They are voting with their feet. If people entrenched in a RL environment aren’t taking in a game, it’s a bit much to expect a casual viewer from outside this environment to do so.

Yeah RU ain’t a sport to be looking to for improvements in your own. Transformers colliding for 80 minutes, its become nigh on unwatchable. And that “greatest try of all time”, played when there was actual space on the field as the players looked like humans, nothing remotely close to that try could be scored today. The first runner would get clobbered before a sequence could take off. RU is in enormous trouble with court cases galore from players suffering brain damage in the pro era, while players from the amateur era their health has been largely unaffected. And given this decline in RU both in its watchability and it profile, it’s baffling how it has been used on here as something to emulate. RU has built in advantages with the Six Nations, so casual viewers like me have watched it over the years, but no sport has inflicted damage on itself more than RU. Ask Joe Bloggs to name a solitary RU player, if it’s not “J.Wilkinson” the response will be crickets. RU has taken suffocating attacking play to another level altogether, hence games are a drudgery, and no household name in England has emerged in over a decade and a half.

Was looking at a rugby union forum and they had a video of South African school rugby. They were celebrating how SA rugby was going to be great going forward. These kids were 14/15 and were massive. The teachers were encouraging them to hit hard. No way they weren't taking steroids or something. One Irish union coach dismissed the concussion concerns as just being a part of the game. And these folks wonder why participation is dropping. Let's face it. For union to get better, it has to become more like League but the chiefs can't bring themselves to admit that. Only 30% of schools have League. We should make that figure higher and I can bet rugby will get a higher profile. 

[Dave T]

57 minutes ago, unapologetic pedant said:

It isn`t frustration with "these issues" in isolation. My contention is that they significantly affect the way the game is played and the product that we offer.

RL knock-on madness reminds me of the type of Continental Soccer refereeing where every time two players came into contact the ref would blow the whistle and call something either way. The consequence was football occasionally breaking out amid a 90 minute falling over/diving/play-acting contest. Virtually unwatchable.

UEFA or FIFA must have addressed this somehow, because in recent times their officials are far more likely to wave play on, far less likely to be looking for reasons to stop the game.

Our administrators could do something similar.  - instruct RL officials to play on as a default setting. But their only response to perceived flaws in our product is to keep speeding the game up.

Not really. All sorts of things get tweaked all the time, in all sports. 

They just haven't done the specific thing you want them to. That's fine for you to be annoyed by that, but that doesn't mean its an issue for the game. 

[GUBRATS]

14 hours ago, unapologetic pedant said:

The rules and how they are applied can be controlled. At the moment they`re applied to suit those who obsess about forward passes and knock-ons. With dire effects on the game as a spectacle.

Effective marketing can lure people to infrequent events like internationals. But to maintain regular attendance at club games of any sport, I have to believe that a consistently attractive product is essential. 

If I`d taken a Union fan to a League game 30+ years ago, I would have confidently expected the product to deliver more than enough to make the exercise worthwhile. Particularly in comparison with how Union was then played in the UK.

Now I wouldn`t be so sure. Some of our games consist of around 80 % dummy-half runs and one-out hit-ups. Anything that deviates from the "complete your sets" formula risks a call from ref or touch judge. Can we credibly contrast that with supposedly turgid RU?

Someone watching League who is used to Union will notice that currently where a Union ref will play advantage, the League ref will blow his whistle. So that Union refs facilitate off-the-cuff broken-field action, whereas League refs call a halt and restore the rigid pattern. 

If when a Union player mishandled the ball and the opposition regathered, the ref didn`t play advantage but instead stopped the game and jogged off to the middle of the field to choreograph a 20-phase pick-and-go session - we`d no doubt poke fun at boring RU. Yet something similar is now routine in League.

Our administrators devote too much time to off-field matters like structures and marketing. I`d rather they thought more about the on-field product deficiencies they`ve allowed to set in.

My dad who's never really bothered with RL " it's a game for those not talented enough for football , or too thick " seriously

When he now watches a game , he'll ring me up and ask when are they going to do more than one pass ? , And what's all this 2/3/4 players lying on after somebody is tackled ? , Why don't they play the ball with the foot ? , Why have they started cheating all the time ? 

 

[GUBRATS]

7 hours ago, RP London said:

I'm starting to think you just went to board meetings to rile everyone up with your ideas that you should spend money on marketing and come together as a group of clubs to make more money from merchandising than you do as individual clubs.. i mean your just an antagonist that hasnt got anything constructive to add arent you... 

You've missed out the lower tier highlight show put together mostly from disciplinary footage broadcast on YouTube ?

[GUBRATS]

5 hours ago, redjonn said:

The whole concept of the game is backward passing... how can we ignore forward passing beats me.  Why not completely redesign the whole game... a bit like the Americans did.

to add.... can you imagine the consistency arguments, well that was an inch forward and was ok why not 2 inches... then on we go to 2 feet...

OK ref's may miss a forward pass, but they don't decide oh well I'll ignore that one even though it went forward as the context of the game is such...

They do at Headingley 

[GUBRATS]

4 hours ago, unapologetic pedant said:

 

No amount of marketing will retain someone`s interest if, when they are persuaded to go to a game, it comes across as not much more than blokes relentlessly smashing into each other in narrow confines.

My dad's opinion of RL 

[Dunbar]

8 hours ago, unapologetic pedant said:

it comes across as not much more than blokes relentlessly smashing into each other in narrow confines

 

8 hours ago, gingerjon said:

We'll agree to disagree about the rest because I can't see either of us shifting our position. But I do want to say that even in its most boring form, I can't recall every watching a game of rugby league and thinking this is what I'm seeing.

You may not think this is what you are seeing (and as Rugby League fans we know it isn't) but it is an often used criticism of the game that it is repetitive and more and more that criticism is becoming increasingly valid.

First, let me clarify that the tactical elements of Rugby League are many.  I see someone like Trent Robinson analyse a play and I am amazed at the intricacies and thoughts that come into play to execute attacking and defensive play.

But this isn't what the layman sees. They see multiple tackles and a kick.  Now we have no scrums (thank goodness they are returning), no competition for possession bar a one on one strip, no fast penalty taps and restarts as they have to be controlled.  And this year, every time the ball goes to ground (even if clearly backwards) the ref calls a knock on so that the players can all take an eternity to walk to the middle of the field for a slow motion restart.

The game is absolutely crying out for variety that will capture the attention of the casual viewers. 

[DC77]

4 hours ago, NW10LDN said:

Was looking at a rugby union forum and they had a video of South African school rugby. They were celebrating how SA rugby was going to be great going forward. These kids were 14/15 and were massive. The teachers were encouraging them to hit hard. No way they weren't taking steroids or something. One Irish union coach dismissed the concussion concerns as just being a part of the game. And these folks wonder why participation is dropping. Let's face it. For union to get better, it has to become more like League but the chiefs can't bring themselves to admit that. Only 30% of schools have League. We should make that figure higher and I can bet rugby will get a higher profile. 

https://www.edinburghnews.scotsman.com/sport/rugby-union/six-nations-2020-how-have-players-grown-size-past-25-years-and-who-heaviest-player-tournament-3020300

“Modern international rugby players have grown significantly since their counterparts played 25 years ago. In a study, published in the BMJ Open Sport & Exercise Medicine, it revealed that the mean body mass of international players increased from 84.8kg in 1995, to 105.4kg in 2015.”

Thats an increase of almost a quarter. The onus now is on bulk. Welsh backs from 2015 were bigger than NZ forwards from 1987. Collisions are now mini car crashes. The result is you have brain damaged blokes in their 30s queuing up for compensation. This contrasts with the like of JPR Williams and Campese, older blokes who played when the players looked human, they are healthy. It’s now an attritional borefest with concussions aplenty, and line breaks and space a rarity. 

 

There’s no longer any consolation saying RL is better than RU, as that ain’t hard. As a sport RU as gone backwards, hence there is no individual playing today whom Joe public could name. It’s 80 minutes of big blokes blending into one another, the odd close in try (perhaps a breakaway), but next to nothing from an individual as they cannot excell like ones did in the past. It’s become a faceless game. Who on earth could the BBC, Sky, whoever use to advertise a RU game? The answer is nobody. They wouldn’t be known.

RL has an opportunity to take advantage of the decline in RU but it would need to make changes with what’s happening on the field. 7k at Wigan, for a playoff game vs Leeds. It makes the whole advertising debate pointless as advertising is not the reason for that crowd. What’s happening on the pitch is.

[Dave T]

1 hour ago, GUBRATS said:

My dad's opinion of RL 

That's OK though. He doesn't like RL, some don't, that's cool. 

 

[Dave T]

1 hour ago, Dunbar said:

 

You may not think this is what you are seeing (and as Rugby League fans we know it isn't) but it is an often used criticism of the game that it is repetitive and more and more that criticism is becoming increasingly valid.

First, let me clarify that the tactical elements of Rugby League are many.  I see someone like Trent Robinson analyse a play and I am amazed at the intricacies and thoughts that come into play to execute attacking and defensive play.

But this isn't what the layman sees. They see multiple tackles and a kick.  Now we have no scrums (thank goodness they are returning), no competition for possession bar a one on one strip, no fast penalty taps and restarts as they have to be controlled.  And this year, every time the ball goes to ground (even if clearly backwards) the ref calls a knock on spot the players can all take an eternity to walk to the middle of the field for a slow motion restart.

The game is absolutely crying out for variety that will capture the attention of the casual viewers. 

I know I keep comparing to other sports, but all sports could be described in similarly negative terms if we wanted to. 

Pretty much all sports could be described as repetitive. 

I don't disagree with the point you make, but it won't make a major difference. 

For years, RL fans laughed at RU and the endless kicking for goals, as they packed out grounds and attracted massive TV deals and sponsors at international level. 

[Dunbar]

37 minutes ago, Dave T said:

I know I keep comparing to other sports, but all sports could be described in similarly negative terms if we wanted to. 

Pretty much all sports could be described as repetitive. 

I don't disagree with the point you make, but it won't make a major difference. 

For years, RL fans laughed at RU and the endless kicking for goals, as they packed out grounds and attracted massive TV deals and sponsors at international level. 

Yes, this is all fair and I was addressing a very specific topic.

One thing I think we have to accept is that Rugby League is not a well kept secret, enough people have seen it (on tv in particular) to make a determination on whether they want to watch it again.

What we need is a motivation for people to go to a game.  A World Cup say.

[Dave T]

15 minutes ago, Dunbar said:

Yes, this is all fair and I was addressing a very specific topic.

One thing I think we have to accept is that Rugby League is not a well kept secret, enough people have seen it (on tv in particular) to make a determination on whether they want to watch it again.

What we need is a motivation for people to go to a game.  A World Cup say.

People from outside the sport (I find) are usually pretty complimentary about the game, I think they struggle to create a real bond with it. I agree, a World Cup and internationals is a big way to do this. 

Even now it looks like the World Cup will be a huge success, and that isn't because they have tweaked the rules, it's because they have organised, packaged and marketed it well to all stakeholders so far. 

It's probably the best example that it isn't the actual sport on the grass that is most the  important lever. 

Of course as RL fans we will want tweaks and adjustments and that's right they will happen, but I dont think messing with the sport grows the game. The 80m of RL is some way down the list imho. As I say, that doesn't mean we shouldn't try and fix things we don't like with it, but that suits a different purpose. 

[Scubby]

3 hours ago, GUBRATS said:

My dad who's never really bothered with RL " it's a game for those not talented enough for football , or too thick " seriously

When he now watches a game , he'll ring me up and ask when are they going to do more than one pass ? , And what's all this 2/3/4 players lying on after somebody is tackled ? , Why don't they play the ball with the foot ? , Why have they started cheating all the time ? 

 

Closet Wigan fan