London Broncos New Investment?

[Spicer]

10 hours ago, Jughead said:

Isn’t his lad a part time rugby Union player?

Yes he is at Bedford Blues apparently.

[Number 16]

6 hours ago, Archie Gordon said:

For context, those are similar numbers to, say, Hull and Cumbria.

Whilst neither Hull nor Cumbria are as strong as they once were, they're both still well ahead of London. More so given population sizes.

[gingerjon]

27 minutes ago, Number 16 said:

More so given population sizes.

That way madness lies.

Or, at least, the nonsense of, "Featherstone Rovers are the best supported club in the world."

[Damien]

34 minutes ago, Number 16 said:

Whilst neither Hull nor Cumbria are as strong as they once were, they're both still well ahead of London. More so given population sizes.

People talk about London as if it is one huge market that London RL can appeal to. It isn't. In reality London Broncos have a catchment restricted to their immediate locality like other SL teams.

[Toby Chopra]

21 minutes ago, Damien said:

People talk about London as if it is one huge market that London RL can appeal to. It isn't. In reality London Broncos have a catchment restricted to their immediate locality like other SL teams.

I'm not sure that's accurate. People have always travelled from across London, and even the wider SE, to see Broncos games, it's just that as you get further away the nature and purpose of those fans change, and the hit rate declines.

For instance, I've seem a many a Broncos game over the years, particularly when they've been in SL as it's the easiest way for me to see top level RL. But I wouldn't class myself as a Broncos fan first and foremost.

I'd say there's very roughly 3 categories - Local fans cheering their local team, London rugby league fans who have a bond with Broncos (but not necessarily exclusively), and 'rugby league fans' from an even wider catchment.

Now to be clear, the first category - local fans - will be the vast bulk, and without them the team can't work. But I do think London can top up with fans from the other categories in a way that most other teams can't.             

[Damien]

6 minutes ago, Toby Chopra said:

I'm not sure that's accurate. People have always travelled from across London, and even the wider SE, to see Broncos games, it's just that as you get further away the nature and purpose of those fans change, and the hit rate declines.

For instance, I've seem a many a Broncos game over the years, particularly when they've been in SL as it's the easiest way for me to see top level RL. But I wouldn't class myself as a Broncos fan first and foremost.

I'd say there's very roughly 3 categories - Local fans cheering their local team, London rugby league fans who have a bond with Broncos (but not necessarily exclusively), and 'rugby league fans' from an even wider catchment.

Now to be clear, the first category - local fans - will be the vast bulk, and without them the team can't work. But I do think London can top up with fans from the other categories in a way that most other teams can't.             

Obviously some do just as people travel from Preston to watch Wigan. I thought that would go without saying really. It is the exception rather than the norm and the vast majority don't, otherwise we would see all the London fans from Charlton etc travelling across London to watch them. We don't. In most cases with every move the vast majority of fans have been lost.

The point is that London really don't have a population of 10 million to. When travel time can easily be 1-2 hours from many parts of London it's akin to saying Wigan have a catchment area of 10 million.

[gingerjon]

1 hour ago, Damien said:

In reality London Broncos have a catchment restricted to their immediate locality like other SL teams.

Yeah, that's about as wrong as it's possible to be.

[gingerjon]

34 minutes ago, Toby Chopra said:

Now to be clear, the first category - local fans - will be the vast bulk, and without them the team can't work. But I do think London can top up with fans from the other categories in a way that most other teams can't.             

I'd  be really keen to see the data that says the vast bulk of current Broncos fans are from the London Borough of Merton.

[Click]

3 minutes ago, gingerjon said:

Yeah, that's about as wrong as it's possible to be.

I would say that London has one of the the largest catchment areas in RL, as we almost have London and the SE exclusively to ourselves. How much we are able to actually penetrate that catchment area and set up clubs, scout potential young players, etc is a whole different scenario.

It was why London RL looked like we had more players coming through when the RFL had development officers based down here, rather than hoping for private individuals to do the work.

[gingerjon]

Just now, Click said:

I would say that London has one of the the largest catchment areas in RL, as we almost have London and the SE exclusively to ourselves. How much we are able to actually penetrate that catchment area and set up clubs, scout potential young players, etc is a whole different scenario.

It was why London RL looked like we had more players coming through when the RFL had development officers based down here, rather than hoping for private individuals to do the work.

All Skolars fans are in Haringey, all Broncos in Merton.

Translating local sport for local people from the north to the south.

[Jughead]

2 minutes ago, gingerjon said:

I'd  be really keen to see the data that says the vast bulk of current Broncos fans are from the London Borough of Merton.

Given they’ve been based for upwards of 20 years out of about 42 in the West of London (Ealing, Wimbledon, Brentford, Twickenham, Fulham, Chiswick), I don’t imagine it’s a shocking statement to suggest that many of their core support are from that area of London. 

[Click]

Just now, Jughead said:

Given they’ve been based for upwards of 20 years out of about 42 in the West of London (Ealing, Wimbledon, Brentford, Twickenham, Fulham, Chiswick), I don’t imagine it’s a shocking statement to suggest that many of their core support are from that area of London. 

You do realise how big that area of London is right?  None of those areas apart from Wimbledon would be considered "local"

My dad started following them when we were Fulham, and we have always been based in SE London rather than West. 

When you have 1 choice of "pro" rugby league in London, you can't really pick and choose.

I would hazard a guess that as a percentage, Skolars would have a higher proportion of "local" supports compared to overall, as they haven't moved all over London for 40 years, but even them I imagine have fans coming from all over London to watch

[gingerjon]

2 minutes ago, Jughead said:

Given they’ve been based for upwards of 20 years out of about 42 in the West of London (Ealing, Wimbledon, Brentford, Twickenham, Fulham, Chiswick), I don’t imagine it’s a shocking statement to suggest that many of their core support are from that area of London. 

Stretching the definition of locality to and beyond breaking point, then.

[Damien]

3 minutes ago, Jughead said:

Given they’ve been based for upwards of 20 years out of about 42 in the West of London (Ealing, Wimbledon, Brentford, Twickenham, Fulham, Chiswick), I don’t imagine it’s a shocking statement to suggest that many of their core support are from that area of London. 

If all these fans over the last 40 years were travelling across London to watch them they would be easily be averaging 10k plus. They don't. As is people in much of London are oblivious to their existence and despite tens of thousands watching them over the years they now struggle to get 1k.

[Hull Kingston Bronco]

16 minutes ago, gingerjon said:

Stretching the definition of locality to and beyond breaking point, then.

To be fair, agree you should take Wimbledon out of that but all of the others are in rough proximity and represent 30+ years of the 40 years of the club. I lived at various points in Hammersmith (Fulham), Twickenham, Ealing and Chiswick and they're all broadly the same part of town, in London "living" terms. The Broncos are really a West London side.  

Charlton was off-pitch, as is the move to Wimbledon. 

[gingerjon]

3 minutes ago, Hull Kingston Bronco said:

To be fair, agree you should take Wimbledon out of that but all of the others are in rough proximity and represent 30+ years of the 40 years of the club. I lived at various points in Hammersmith (Fulham), Twickenham, Ealing and Chiswick and they're all broadly the same part of town, in London "living" terms. The Broncos are really a West London side.  

Charlton was off-pitch, as is the move to Wimbledon. 

Still not really convinced that the vast bulk (to quote) are going to be based in even that expanded area. As you'll know, when you're in London, you sort of get used to travelling a bit across town to what you want to do because it's pretty easy to do so.

It's been a while since I've been a regular so things may have changed but my experience was always that, no matter where the club was based, the fans came from all over.

The impact of moving has always been a lot more about what it indicates - another failure basically - than any lost hordes of local fans.

[Hull Kingston Bronco]

4 minutes ago, gingerjon said:

Still not really convinced that the vast bulk (to quote) are going to be based in even that expanded area. As you'll know, when you're in London, you sort of get used to travelling a bit across town to what you want to do because it's pretty easy to do so.

It's been a while since I've been a regular so things may have changed but my experience was always that, no matter where the club was based, the fans came from all over.

The impact of moving has always been a lot more about what it indicates - another failure basically - than any lost hordes of local fans.

My assessment, from all the locations I saw the Broncos over the years and some work I did on the database (selling the Aus/NZ internationals in Tri/Four Nations comps), was always that the crowd was mainly made up of:

1. Northern exiles who were prepared to travel from wherever for a fortnightly fix of their sport

2. The hardcore of people previously engaged at a different location, who were prepared to make the longer journey after a club venue move

3. People who lived locally and were attracted in that era (or before, if we'd gone back somewhere e.g. The Stoop) and so for whom regular attendance was part of their normal locally-based leisure time 

I genuinely don't think the first 2 groups are enough to establish an economically sustainable fan base. So ideally we'd have stayed in the Twickenham/Brentford/Ealing/Chiswick patch, which is a contiguous geographic area, and continued to try and build that nascent audience there. If we'd gone to Ealing straight after Twickenham, without the break in Barnet, the club would likely have retained more fans for example.

Each move away has shed another layer, but I think the sad reality we blew our sustainable chance at The Stoop (we really could have made that work), no other growth options seemed to be available in West London, so guess we're left with rebuilding anew again. C'est la vie!

 

[gingerjon]

11 minutes ago, Hull Kingston Bronco said:

If we'd gone to Ealing straight after Twickenham, without the break in Barnet, the club would likely have retained more fans for example.

Yes, I think that's fair.

[Toby Chopra]

1 hour ago, gingerjon said:

I'd  be really keen to see the data that says the vast bulk of current Broncos fans are from the London Borough of Merton.

To clarify, I was thinking more about where the fanbase would come from  IF the club started to successfully grow its attendances back into the several thousands. I'd say it'd pull from all the possible categories, but most if the growth would be from local-ish fans. (Say within 45mins travel, not just Merton/Wimbledon) 

But that's all about future potential. As things stand, how many regular Broncos fans are there? 500? It's basically a clean slate in terms of future growth. 

[Archie Gordon]

1 hour ago, Toby Chopra said:

...

I'd say there's very roughly 3 categories - Local fans cheering their local team, London rugby league fans who have a bond with Broncos (but not necessarily exclusively), and 'rugby league fans' from an even wider catchment.

Now to be clear, the first category - local fans - will be the vast bulk, and without them the team can't work. But I do think London can top up with fans from the other categories in a way that most other teams can't.             

That *ought* to be the ratio (locals outnumbering anyone else) but the biggest group of Broncos regulars is still the non-Merton folk with a long-standing bond to the club. 

Edit: I see that you just said this yourself.

Edited February 8, 2023 by Archie Gordon

[Toby Chopra]

1 hour ago, Damien said:

Obviously some do just as people travel from Preston to watch Wigan. I thought that would go without saying really. It is the exception rather than the norm and the vast majority don't, otherwise we would see all the London fans from Charlton etc travelling across London to watch them. We don't. In most cases with every move the vast majority of fans have been lost.

The point is that London really don't have a population of 10 million to. When travel time can easily be 1-2 hours from many parts of London it's akin to saying Wigan have a catchment area of 10 million.

I still think it's different. People will travel across, and into, London for sports events they want to attend in greater numbers than someone would go from Stockport to Wigan, or Birkenhead to St Helens. People are much more accustomed to making those trips because of the vast commuting flows, the public transport options and for many a willingness of some to buy into a London identity in a way that no other city can match. 

As I say, I don't think its as easy as saying London's catchment is 10 mln (although that area is actually closer to 20 mln) Local-ish fans will still most likely be the bulk, but I think we've in the past that an attractive Broncos team can also pull from wider areas. 

[gingerjon]

14 minutes ago, Toby Chopra said:

To clarify, I was thinking more about where the fanbase would come from  IF the club started to successfully grow its attendances back into the several thousands. I'd say it'd pull from all the possible categories, but most if the growth would be from local-ish fans. (Say within 45mins travel, not just Merton/Wimbledon) 

But that's all about future potential. As things stand, how many regular Broncos fans are there? 500? It's basically a clean slate in terms of future growth. 

Understood. Still not 100% convinced (but do see your POV) but it would be nice to be in a position where we could have a debate about the backgrounds of these thousands of new folk supporting a successful Broncos side.

[Hull Kingston Bronco]

14 minutes ago, gingerjon said:

Understood. Still not 100% convinced (but do see your POV) but it would be nice to be in a position where we could have a debate about the backgrounds of these thousands of new folk supporting a successful Broncos side.

Indeed. Oh for the days when not being able to regularly break 4,000 in Brentford and Twickenham was a problem..!!

[Gerrumonside ref]

Any chance of changing their name to Wimbledon?

Would it help?

[gingerjon]

14 minutes ago, Gerrumonside ref said:

Any chance of changing their name to Wimbledon?

Would it help?

What little brand value there is - and it isn't zero, despite what some will say - comes from the London Broncos name. It was resilient enough to survive vanishing during the Quins RL years.