37 of 42 back IMG’s proposal

[Hull Kingston Bronco]

58 minutes ago, Harry Stottle said:

If the RFL/SL was actually paying for what they have delivered at the moment I would say they would have been quite dissatisfied, all that seems to have happened is their intention to tweak a near 30 year old document :-

"Framing the Future"

This is entirely a figment of your imagination. Because they've not given you a weekly personal update, you think no work is being done. Why would you assume that? 

[Hull Kingston Bronco]

6 minutes ago, Oxford said:

But it may Mr Hetherington's et al.

 

 I refer you all to this on LoveRL

https://www.loverugbyleague.com/post/remembering-super-league-promo-videos-which-is-your-favourite/#comment-97571

I enjoyed the look at past marketing in this sense and Johnny V despite him being a Saint's fan (I mean Really!) and wearing an SRD away kit and kissing the false Saint's badge stuck over the old Salford one. If they'd have had players names on at the time it would probably have said Risman on the back.

However a simple measure of IMG as category A or Z will be their efforts in this direction and how many media places it appears on.

That would shut up any and all criticism because their intent and seriousness would be clear to everyone.

Yeah, spend 50 grand and stick a random video out, that'll solve it. I mean, it always has before hasn't it? It's certainly how I'd measure their effectiveness, absolutely. Maybe we could all give it marks out of ten?

 

[Oxford]

There are far too many fans of RL who miss the importance of marketing at the best of times and we're not going through the best of times right now.

Widening the fan base which is an aging one on the whole is an absolute necessity and the only way to achieve that is to target younger age groups.

Sadly, there'll always be someone and sometimes a few someones to pour scorn and the internet has proven that this is the easiest thing in the world and the least useful, positive or productive.

I expect a sports marketing group to be all over this like a rash and what better time to start than a promo for the season.

[Hull Kingston Bronco]

29 minutes ago, Oxford said:

There are far too many fans of RL who miss the importance of marketing at the best of times and we're not going through the best of times right now.

Widening the fan base which is an aging one on the whole is an absolute necessity and the only way to achieve that is to target younger age groups.

Sadly, there'll always be someone and sometimes a few someones to pour scorn and the internet has proven that this is the easiest thing in the world and the least useful, positive or productive.

I expect a sports marketing group to be all over this like a rash and what better time to start than a promo for the season.

Yeah, don’t listen to “someone” who’s actually done marketing for a living for 25 years. 

“Hurry up with that video Brian, we’ve fired IMG because they weren’t doing anything, but this’ll blow their socks off” 

Nowt wrong with a powerful video, all comms helps, but it’s existence won’t solve much really and it’s absence won’t mean much. We’ve far bigger fish to fry, believe me. 

[Big Picture]

2 hours ago, Oxford said:

Now is the time.......

" .....modern-day sports marketing, IMG is now a global leader in sports, events, media and fashion, operating in more than 30 countries."

for those so disposed to discuss how IMG helped other sports and what it looked like when they did.

My own pet annoyance is the focus on restructure which I don't see as entirely relevant to how the world sees our game. All the people I know without a clue, this is a lot of persons because of where I've lived around England, would never have said "Well the first thing RL needs is to sort out it's categories and have clear means of achieving the top ones."

I'll refer people back to the quote above " .....modern-day sports marketing, IMG is now a global leader in sports, events, " etc etc .....

Two questions: Where's the Chuffin' marketing and are they too Chuffin' busy at present?

They're too busy trying to find what the game has for them to market.  They need that before they can do any of the marketing.  And in a small, poor regional sport it isn't easy for them to find.

 

[ELBOWSEYE]

1 hour ago, ShropshireBull said:

People talking about growing commercial revenue in regards to womens game . Is there any commercial revenue in women´s club game? Not even football makes it work (the teams are subsidised by the men´s game , which in turn is now increasingly owned by dictatorships for sportswashing, not as a business that needs to generate revenue). And if they were money, why would you copy the male model, why can´t that be franchises to spread the game? 

The diversity and inclusion is marketing language but let´s be honest, no casual audience cares about women´s football outside of internationals and that is true of every sport (bar men´s association football).

What can clubs do to generate rev, that should surely be the focus. 

Interesting comments on women's sports and you can include all other varieties (wheelchair, pdrl, Ldrl) and you can make a case for those versions bringing little or no revenue to the game, but by encouraging all aspects of society to get involved with RL in all of the various versions and that itself increases the sports profile in their own areas which gives people a link to the pro clubs and encourage more people to be fans. If you concentrate on our core base which is on the older age bracket you wither and die. As a sport we should push to expand our boundaries, maybe more medium to large companies would be likely to sponsor inclusive sports that hit bigger demographics. 

[Oxford]

2 hours ago, Big Picture said:

They're too busy trying to find what the game has for them to market.  They need that before they can do any of the marketing.  And in a small, poor regional sport it isn't easy for them to find.

 

I always thought that was the way we were viewed on the outside BP.

If a fan like you doesn't believe, not only is IMG a useless idea, but we may as well give up the ghost now.

 

 

[Oxford]

And maybe that's the root of all our problems and issues maybe our fanbase no longer believes in our sport.

I wonder who sees it as smaller then the fans or people who've never seen the game?

 

Edited January 24, 2023 by Oxford

[RigbyLuger]

Resources are always "limited" for ground improvements and ancillaries, but never 4th rate Aussies.

[ELBOWSEYE]

23 minutes ago, ShropshireBull said:

Fine but then why tie it to the current male model. Why not just do it differently? Womens league instead of Shef and Doncaster needing seperate teams, why can´t we have a south yorkshire team by pooling resources and count towards both. 

For me, it comes back to internationals but their is no focus on building models to grab that revenue from a casual audience and all other female sports are subsidised in team games, so I don´t mind people trying to use it to engage. However, asking clubs to spend limited resources and IMG saying they are here to grow revenues whilst demanding people spend money on areas that have shown no way of developing rev (bar internationals) seems incredibly misguided.

IMG´s international strategy was beg australia for games which screamed denial and being naive. Challenge Cup has still meant virtually no clubs outside SL are going to play SL teams to grow interest or give them something to market whilst giving those outside SL little incentive to buy a CC ticket. 

Challenge cup, when has a team outside the top league got to a final, its just that Magic diluted the event schedule. As for the first point on women's game i can't see a problem with teams not in SL having joint teams but all SL teams should invest in all aspects of the community 

 

[Tommygilf]

1 hour ago, ELBOWSEYE said:

Interesting comments on women's sports and you can include all other varieties (wheelchair, pdrl, Ldrl) and you can make a case for those versions bringing little or no revenue to the game, but by encouraging all aspects of society to get involved with RL in all of the various versions and that itself increases the sports profile in their own areas which gives people a link to the pro clubs and encourage more people to be fans. If you concentrate on our core base which is on the older age bracket you wither and die. As a sport we should push to expand our boundaries, maybe more medium to large companies would be likely to sponsor inclusive sports that hit bigger demographics. 

Spot on.

[GUBRATS]

2 hours ago, ShropshireBull said:

People talking about growing commercial revenue in regards to womens game . Is there any commercial revenue in women´s club game? Not even football makes it work (the teams are subsidised by the men´s game , which in turn is now increasingly owned by dictatorships for sportswashing, not as a business that needs to generate revenue). And if they were money, why would you copy the male model, why can´t that be franchises to spread the game? 

The diversity and inclusion is marketing language but let´s be honest, no casual audience cares about women´s football outside of internationals and that is true of every sport (bar men´s association football).

What can clubs do to generate rev, that should surely be the focus. 

Which is exactly the point I was making earlier , all we are doing with the women's game is following other sports and other countries who all have loads of money to invest in it , we don't , we also don't yet have the participation levels at juniors , we are trying to sprint before we've learnt to crawl 

Instead we have essentially a blank canvas with the women's game , it can be whatever we decide we want it to be , but instead we'll have a few clubs trying to be more inclusive than anybody else , and all they'll do is recreate the same problems we have with the men's game 

To use an often used quote on here , " keep doing the same thing and expect different results " 

I don't particularly like the women's game , I personally don't think it suits them physically , there aren't a huge amount of men it suits physically , so why not create a game using the core skills of RL that does suit them 

[GUBRATS]

1 hour ago, ELBOWSEYE said:

Interesting comments on women's sports and you can include all other varieties (wheelchair, pdrl, Ldrl) and you can make a case for those versions bringing little or no revenue to the game, but by encouraging all aspects of society to get involved with RL in all of the various versions and that itself increases the sports profile in their own areas which gives people a link to the pro clubs and encourage more people to be fans. If you concentrate on our core base which is on the older age bracket you wither and die. As a sport we should push to expand our boundaries, maybe more medium to large companies would be likely to sponsor inclusive sports that hit bigger demographics. 

There is a place for all , but it doesn't have to be part of the proffessional game , it can be for the good of the participants , it doesn't have to be force fed into a spectator sport 

Wheelchair, pdrl and ldrl have rules to suit that participation , we should be looking at the women's game in a similar way , make it easier to participate in , less physical , more skill based , we have the opportunity to do this now 

[GUBRATS]

1 hour ago, ShropshireBull said:

Fine but then why tie it to the current male model. Why not just do it differently? Womens league instead of Shef and Doncaster needing seperate teams, why can´t we have a south yorkshire team by pooling resources and count towards both. 

For me, it comes back to internationals but their is no focus on building models to grab that revenue from a casual audience and all other female sports are subsidised in team games, so I don´t mind people trying to use it to engage. However, asking clubs to spend limited resources and IMG saying they are here to grow revenues whilst demanding people spend money on areas that have shown no way of developing rev (bar internationals) seems incredibly misguided.

IMG´s international strategy was beg australia for games which screamed denial and being naive. Challenge Cup has still meant virtually no clubs outside SL are going to play SL teams to grow interest or give them something to market whilst giving those outside SL little incentive to buy a CC ticket. 

Spot on , as I've put , it should be within the community game , with representative teams ( your South Yorks ) being the way elite players can progress through to International selection , play it as 9s , then a community club might find it easier to run 2 teams at 2 different age groups instead of lumping kids in with adults , skill based 

[RigbyLuger]

I'm not going to speak for women, but I assume that those who play quite like how physical it is, and wouldn't play it if it wasn't. Certainly wouldn't wanted to be treated as if they can't hack it. (And there's touch for those who don't want to.)

[GUBRATS]

12 minutes ago, RigbyLuger said:

I'm not going to speak for women, but I assume that those who play quite like how physical it is, and wouldn't play it if it wasn't. Certainly wouldn't wanted to be treated as if they can't hack it. (And there's touch for those who don't want to.)

Which is why I suggested 9s , it still has physicality , but not at the same intensity of the full 13 a side game , it also encourages more of the players to develop skills rather than rely purely on size and strength 

[Davo5]

14 minutes ago, GUBRATS said:

Which is why I suggested 9s , it still has physicality , but not at the same intensity of the full 13 a side game , it also encourages more of the players to develop skills rather than rely purely on size and strength 

Playing only 9s and restricting it to the community level will have zero benefits to the development of the womens game in this country.

[ELBOWSEYE]

52 minutes ago, GUBRATS said:

There is a place for all , but it doesn't have to be part of the proffessional game , it can be for the good of the participants , it doesn't have to be force fed into a spectator sport 

Wheelchair, pdrl and ldrl have rules to suit that participation , we should be looking at the women's game in a similar way , make it easier to participate in , less physical , more skill based , we have the opportunity to do this now 

No but it should be the professional clubs to help nurture and develop the various varieties including junior and amateur, this for participants not fan's. The professional clubs fans come from this

 

[Tommygilf]

"Help help I'm being force fed womens rugby league"

Said nobody. Ever.

[Tommygilf]

3 minutes ago, ShropshireBull said:

Who needs to get to a final? The attraction is that smaller teams or outside SL were part of the story of that season´s comp. Now only 5 non SL teams get the chance to have a go so it just feels like SL lite with more loop fixtures.

Widnes vs Wire, Bulls vs Leeds, Fev vs anyone in the cup can feel special and make for tv games that dont look woeful as well as reconnecting people with the comp. 

On women´s teams , like academies, I´d rather see clubs pool resources (central manchester academy, south yorks) rather than spread thin and poor to tick boxes. 

I think with the womens game we will see limited numbers at the top to encourage greater competitiveness at whatever level is being played at.

[gingerjon]

16 minutes ago, Tommygilf said:

"Help help I'm being force fed womens rugby league"

Said nobody. Ever.

"Oh no. There's more people playing more games with more opportunities for spectators and sponsors."

It does sound awful.

Down with that sort of thing.

[Toby Chopra]

52 minutes ago, ShropshireBull said:

On women´s teams , like academies, I´d rather see clubs pool resources (central manchester academy, south yorks) rather than spread thin and poor to tick boxes. 

I think you're missing the efforts already made voluntarily by a number of clubs for the women's game. None of them are being forced to, it's not box ticking. But they have supplied coaches, facilties, media support and are even investigating payments, because they see how it widens the profile and avenues of engagement for their clubs, in a broader world where women's sport is expanding rapidly.

Thank goodness they are, or rugby league would become known as the sport that doesn't bother with women's participation. It's a global battle and we have to keep up. 

In the UK, the club game is the best thing we have, it's how the vast majority of people access the game, and no-one is interested in centrally drawn up regions that people have no connection too. Well run clubs like Sts and Leeds clearly can already see the role that a women's team plays in expanding engagement with their club. All that's being suggeated is that if you want a Cat A, you run a women's team. Any potential Cat A will have no problem with this at all, in fact will probably already be doing it. 

Edited January 24, 2023 by Toby Chopra

[GUBRATS]

1 hour ago, Davo5 said:

Playing only 9s and restricting it to the community level will have zero benefits to the development of the womens game in this country.

Why ? , Come on Dave , you needs an argument to back up a statement like that , why would it ? 

[Tommygilf]

39 minutes ago, gingerjon said:

"Oh no. There's more people playing more games with more opportunities for spectators and sponsors."

It does sound awful.

Down with that sort of thing.

Its terrible, next they'll get southerners to play!

[dkw]

28 minutes ago, ShropshireBull said:

Clubs are going to be forced to run a loss making entity that isn´t generated rev or pathways for players who bring in the money when the sport is broke and clubs are being told to focus on ROI. 

Are they, do you know this for a fact?