EDDIE HEARN COMMENTS :)

[gingerjon]

12 minutes ago, Gerrumonside ref said:

I think Bruno and Moss, you are talking about an older demographic (much older in Moss’ case).

I don’t think either have much of a social media profile in the modern age for differing reasons.

Tyson Fury, Anthony Joshua and Amir Khan are all much more high profile in the demographic that is younger and that we would be trying to attract.

Amir Khan is certainly very high profile today.

(The Moss comment was just to say that he was more famous than active racing drivers for decades after he'd retired. I doubt a lot of people would really know him now.)

[Oxford]

The cool towns & cities argument is an empty thread unless you discount how seedy, run down and apart from London; lacking in investment every urban area is in the UK.

I have lived in Brum, Leicester and Northampton and no there's absolutely nothing cooler about them than Hull except in the minds of people who are prejudiced and full of snobbery about one dump rather than another or the people who take those prejudices and snob values on board like they're written in stone.

It's grim up north isn't true it just suits some to say so!

The argument about naming players does have some traction but mostly because the same people who've spread the above have seen to it TGG has, more or less disappeared from the UK media and conciousness.

Most things fashionable or otherwise that have ceased to be part of the media enviroment in the way RL has have ceased to exist altogether.

Edited April 4, 2023 by Oxford

[Gerrumonside ref]

5 minutes ago, gingerjon said:

Amir Khan is certainly very high profile today.

(The Moss comment was just to say that he was more famous than active racing drivers for decades after he'd retired. I doubt a lot of people would really know him now.)

You’d have to concede that part of the reason Amir Khan is so high profile today is because he is high profile anyway ergo it is a story of interest.

I agree about Moss and I don’t think Frank Bruno is active enough in social media (which is fair enough) to have retained the profile he had 20, 30 or 40 years.

Sadly we are all getting old!

[gingerjon]

1 minute ago, Gerrumonside ref said:

You’d have to concede that part of the reason Amir Khan is so high profile today is because he is high profile anyway ergo it is a story of interest.

I agree about Moss and I don’t think Frank Bruno is active enough in social media (which is fair enough) to have retained the profile he had 20, 30 or 40 years.

Sadly we are all getting old!

I don't think I've ever said Amir Khan isn't high profile - we just disagree as to the level of credit that Eddie Hearn deserves and whether he's part of a bigger wave of names than boxing previously enjoyed.

He's definitely big news today because he's a big enough name.

The campaign to have, "Know what I mean, 'Arry" made our national motto starts here.

[Gerrumonside ref]

6 minutes ago, gingerjon said:

I don't think I've ever said Amir Khan isn't high profile - we just disagree as to the level of credit that Eddie Hearn deserves and whether he's part of a bigger wave of names than boxing previously enjoyed.

He's definitely big news today because he's a big enough name.

The campaign to have, "Know what I mean, 'Arry" made our national motto starts here.

If we don’t agree by now we never will.

Ultimately I don’t think of either of us wanted to cede Eddie Hearn full control of rugby league for perhaps differing reasons.

Mine ultimately is that RL wouldn’t be his primary focus even if I thought he was capable and equipped to do it with guiding hands.

 

Edited April 4, 2023 by Gerrumonside ref

[Damien]

12 minutes ago, Gerrumonside ref said:

You’d have to concede that part of the reason Amir Khan is so high profile today is because he is high profile anyway ergo it is a story of interest.

I agree about Moss and I don’t think Frank Bruno is active enough in social media (which is fair enough) to have retained the profile he had 20, 30 or 40 years.

Sadly we are all getting old!

I think you'd struggle to find anyone under the age of 30 who would even know who Bruno was.

[Liverpool Rover]

25 minutes ago, gingerjon said:

I still reckon that if you asked most people to name a boxer, Bruno would win. In much the same way as 'Stirling Moss' was the answer to most famous racing driver for decades after he retired.

And I'm not disputing that Joshua is a big deal just that - to repeat myself - boxing is notably smaller and less in the mainstream, with fewer characters the public know, than it was back in the day. (I think Fury is a smaller deal than Joshua by a significant measure but his support is somewhat noisier - and I did say that Khan is known but I'd put a lot of that down to having a remarkably visible amateur career beforehand and a lot of reality TV later).

Bruno, Lewis, Benn, Eubank and Hamed are still probably bigger names with the general than the majority of current British boxers. It's probably the same with snooker as well. When I was a kid the biggest household sporting names seemed to be those from individual sports, even the top WWF stars of the day were famous names over here, everyone had heard of Hulk Hogan, Ultimate Warrior, Andre The Giant etc.

The top RL stars such as Schofield, Hanley & Offiah may have had a lot of name recognition within the RL heartlands amongst people who had no interest in the sport but outside of the heartlands if you weren't into RL you probably would have never heard of them. RL had always had a following outside of it's heartlands but not in anywhere enough numbers to make the top players star household names. Back in the 80s more people in the UK would probably have been more aware of William "the refrigerator" Perry and Dan Marino than the big name RL players. 

The lack of national attention and interest from the national media has meant that the majority of the public has never got to hear about our players.

[EastLondonMike]

The landscape was also very different 30 years ago.  Entertainment options were much more limited than today, where you really have to fight for any attention you get. No Netflix, Amazon Prime, SKY was in its infancy, no Internet, and therefore very little access to any sports from overseas unless it was featured on the 4 terrestrial TV channels.

Gaming was something kids did, but only after waiting 30minutes for a game to load!

Sport also made up a decent percentage of programming for those 4 channels, and ones that weren't sport specific often included sports personalities as guests. TV programming has also changed drastically since those days.

Again, IMO, International sport is what generates that additional interest and helps create this greater individual awareness. We severely lack that consistency in Internationals. 

Get the International games sorted and structured correctly, build stories around those games and its major players (consistently), and win a series or comp for once. And the world is a different place. You then have a good platform to build upon. Theres no short cuts to be had. 

 

[gingerjon]

19 minutes ago, Damien said:

I think you'd struggle to find anyone under the age of 30 who would even know who Bruno was.

Given the demographics of the country, that doesn't necessarily end his chances of being the most known living boxer.

[Damien]

Just now, gingerjon said:

Given the demographics of the country, that doesn't necessarily end his chances of being the most known living boxer.

I was being generous with 30 and I would be amazed though if he is more well known that AJ today. Either way its a huge chunk of the population who would have zero awareness of Bruno while at the same time an awful lot of older people who know of Bruno would also know of AJ, this forum is evidence of that.

[Damien]

I do think a lot of people are showing their age and looking at things through rose tinted glasses. I don't think RL players were ever as big as personalities as some are trying to portray and they've always been on the margins. Yes in general sports like Snooker and Darts have certainly lost their well known big names but I don't think RL ever had those personalities that really transcended the sport anyway.

[Oxford]

17 minutes ago, gingerjon said:

Given the demographics of the country, that doesn't necessarily end his chances of being the most known living boxer.

Given that there was a time he appeared in and on anything and everything that wouldn't be too surprising.

In fact given RL's derisable media presence I think I'll put Frank Bruno in as exhibit B.

[gingerjon]

45 minutes ago, Damien said:

I do think a lot of people are showing their age and looking at things through rose tinted glasses. I don't think RL players were ever as big as personalities as some are trying to portray and they've always been on the margins. Yes in general sports like Snooker and Darts have certainly lost their well known big names but I don't think RL ever had those personalities that really transcended the sport anyway.

I'd say Martin Offiah did. The name helped.

[Oxford]

3 hours ago, EastLondonMike said:

  Entertainment options were much more limited than today, where you really have to fight for any attention you get.

In one way that should suit RL because they've had to fight for the coverage for years. If they'd had any fight in them during this period that would have been perfect. Instead we've seen a sport almost grateful for what it recieves and even fans of this game saying that it gets what it deserves.

 

Edited April 4, 2023 by Oxford

[The Masked Poster]

3 hours ago, Damien said:

I do think a lot of people are showing their age and looking at things through rose tinted glasses. I don't think RL players were ever as big as personalities as some are trying to portray and they've always been on the margins. Yes in general sports like Snooker and Darts have certainly lost their well known big names but I don't think RL ever had those personalities that really transcended the sport anyway.

Nobody is arguing that they were hugely famous but definitely more so than today. To use Martin Offiah as an example, he was in Emmerdale Farm (I think with Gary Connolly). This was while he was still playing for Wigan, he was pretty bloody famous actually. 

Apparently a couple of fringe players have been in Love Island? That is about as good as it gets today. 

[GUBRATS]

8 hours ago, The Masked Poster said:

Interesting to note that pretty much nobody is arguing for Hearn to be involved in RL, only that his point was actually correct. 

Correct but irrelevant 

[GUBRATS]

5 hours ago, Gav Wilson said:

I agree with you on probably 95% of all things GJ, but I'm not having this one.

Anthony Joshua and Tyson Fury are sporting superstars. Amir Khan does lots of reality TV. Bruno hasn't been relevant for at least a decade or more.

The fact he stated it , tells you it is correct within certain parameter's , but we play a team sport , boxing is a single person sport , totally different 

[The Masked Poster]

3 minutes ago, GUBRATS said:

Correct but irrelevant 

How is it irrelevant? It's completely relevant to a sport wanting to improve its situation. Whoever states it. 

[GUBRATS]

5 hours ago, gingerjon said:

I still reckon that if you asked most people to name a boxer, Bruno would win. In much the same way as 'Stirling Moss' was the answer to most famous racing driver for decades after he retired.

And I'm not disputing that Joshua is a big deal just that - to repeat myself - boxing is notably smaller and less in the mainstream, with fewer characters the public know, than it was back in the day. (I think Fury is a smaller deal than Joshua by a significant measure but his support is somewhat noisier - and I did say that Khan is known but I'd put a lot of that down to having a remarkably visible amateur career beforehand and a lot of reality TV later).

Famous for eating marshmallows

[GUBRATS]

7 minutes ago, The Masked Poster said:

How is it irrelevant? It's completely relevant to a sport wanting to improve its situation. Whoever states it. 

It's irrelevant because you are comparing a single person sport to a team sport , and as I put earlier , because there are numerous ( too many for me to actually know or care ) ' world titles ' it creates a wider potential to get mainstream media to be interested , how many world titles are there now ?

[Gav Wilson]

34 minutes ago, GUBRATS said:

The fact he stated it , tells you it is correct within certain parameter's , but we play a team sport , boxing is a single person sport , totally different 

Hearn wasn't comparing RL to Boxing. And anyway I'm not sure that holds up considering the amount of stars/household names that come out of football, or indeed even RL in Australia. 

[Damien]

1 hour ago, The Masked Poster said:

Nobody is arguing that they were hugely famous but definitely more so than today. To use Martin Offiah as an example, he was in Emmerdale Farm (I think with Gary Connolly). This was while he was still playing for Wigan, he was pretty bloody famous actually. 

Apparently a couple of fringe players have been in Love Island? That is about as good as it gets today. 

His Emmerdale appearance, which was down to a RL loving producer, wasn't while he was at Wigan and he was in the tale end of his career. I certainly don't dispute that Offiah was indeed the biggest name we've had but it was a one off and all down to a fairy unique set of circumstances which are unlikely to be repeated today. It wasn't like other RL players had this profile, Hanley was far and away the closest.

I still recall at the time that RL was far from mainstream and never got a fair crack on things like QoS compared to other sports. It certainly never got the huge TV viewing figures that sports like Football or Snooker got and never got TV shows like Big Break and Bullseye to parade its players on.

[The Masked Poster]

1 hour ago, Damien said:

His Emmerdale appearance, which was down to a RL loving producer, wasn't while he was at Wigan and he was in the tale end of his career. I certainly don't dispute that Offiah was indeed the biggest name we've had but it was a one off and all down to a fairy unique set of circumstances which are unlikely to be repeated today. It wasn't like other RL players had this profile, Hanley was far and away the closest.

I still recall at the time that RL was far from mainstream and never got a fair crack on things like QoS compared to other sports. It certainly never got the huge TV viewing figures that sports like Football or Snooker got and never got TV shows like Big Break and Bullseye to parade its players on.

Correct about that 

And it's old age mixing up my memory, I was pretty sure he was still at Wigan...I thought it was around 1995 that episode? I remember watching it at the time. 

[The Masked Poster]

3 hours ago, GUBRATS said:

It's irrelevant because you are comparing a single person sport to a team sport , and as I put earlier , because there are numerous ( too many for me to actually know or care ) ' world titles ' it creates a wider potential to get mainstream media to be interested , how many world titles are there now ?

I'm not comparing anything with anything though. I'm merely pointing out that the profile of RL and it's players has probably never been lower. 

[Pie tries]

On 31/03/2023 at 20:56, ATLANTISMAN said:

Total ####### thank god he is not involved we would have had topless cheerleaders and Barry Mac having a pre match on field punch up with Paul Sculthorpe.

Nothing more than an east end spiv (Frank Warren is eating him alive focused on one sport Boxing and thats it)

Future to grow the game is Internationals and everything else would  fall into place.

The people that understand what is needed are 100% league

 

Paul

 

 

 

 

Spot on. End of discussion.

We dodged a bullet, IMG far far more the correct professional route to go..