Andrew Abdo on the NRL’s relationship with SL

[Coggo]

5 hours ago, Archie Gordon said:

I think London turns out for well-promoted major sporting events. And I'd be assuming that the NRL promotes this. If it was Broncos-Roosters (say), there'd be some recognisable names to push it too. It's essentially the same reason London gets decent Test attendances.

Secondly, as we are reminded every so often, there are tens of thousands of RL fans in London. There's a set of fans who are fairly passive in their interest but are easily activated for prestigious one-offs. This includes a fair number of RU-first fans for whom the NRL is held in high regard.

[JohnM]

It's hard to see how we'd get from where we are now to where the NRL is now. It certainly is difficult to work out what input NRL would have. Nothing to buy, nothing to sell, can't see any SOO games doing whal today's NFL game at Spurs has done.  That game's just had a mention on the BBC TV  World News. 

Nothing wrong with wishing-washing that the RFL/SL would somehow benefit from assuming the brand identity of NRL and driving that in the south to a new generation of potential fans. A bit like NFL, the fact that it's "foreign" might go better wiv da yoof than it's "small town north"

Best bet is still "Re-Imagining Rugby League" but with some Australian  input.

[Dunbar]

3 hours ago, crashmon said:

Why on earth would the NRL want to assiociate themselves to a small regional league, if they want to make money and promote there brand.

Why would UK Rugby League associate itself with an Australian regional league.

[JohnM]

2 minutes ago, Dunbar said:

Why would UK Rugby League associate itself with an Australian regional league.

Possibly because it's got more money than us, a higher national profile, better TV rights deals, more enterprising, and better quality players?

[Dave T]

2 hours ago, M j M said:

If they're going to play a game over here it should be a State of Origin game or nothing. I think that would be a massive event if they played it at Wembley on a weekend.

I agree. I find the claim odd that you could choose a team called Brisbane to support but not choose a state called Queensland to support. They are the same thing really. And I would suggest many of us RL fans have done just that and favour an Origin side over the other.

I'd go out of my way and spend considerable.amounts of money for an Origin game, not for a regular club game.

[Pie tries]

14 hours ago, Archie Gordon said:

I think London turns out for well-promoted major sporting events. And I'd be assuming that the NRL promotes this. If it was Broncos-Roosters (say), there'd be some recognisable names to push it too. It's essentially the same reason London gets decent Test attendances.

Secondly, as we are reminded every so often, there are tens of thousands of RL fans in London. There's a set of fans who are fairly passive in their interest but are easily activated for prestigious one-offs. This includes a fair number of RU-first fans for whom the NRL is held in high regard.

Agree London turns out for big events. RL games had some good attendances.

Plus most of Aus is in London…

[17 stone giant]

I wouldn't be interested in watching two NRL teams in London, because it's not a competition I have any interest in or affinity with. But I would watch matches between NRL and SL clubs, providing that they proved to be regularly competitive and not completely one sided.

The difference between the NRL and NFL playing in London, is that we already have our own top level rugby league competition, whereas that's clearly not the case when it comes to American football.

So while I'm very interested in watching two NFL teams play in London (e.g. today), I don't have the same interest towards the NRL.

[Sports Prophet]

11 hours ago, Dave T said:

It ultimately depends what the objective is. If it's commercial partners, we'll, they'll probably be surprised by how insignificant a game in London would be (remember we have seen the Kangaroos and Kiwis in London a fair bit, with some mixed results). 

If they want a crowd in a ground you can make a case for going to where existing RL fans are, or where Aussie expats and travellers are in London, or target sport event crowds in London. Again, the benchmark is Kangaroos v Kiwis in London with c13k in.

If you're looking at pushing your watch NRL product and subscriptions, then you'd probably go for the warmer segments rather than investing millions to try and create a brand new one.

As much as people like to hate on the North of England, strong RL events there can attract good crowds.

The objective is exactly the consideration here. 

Similar to a few on here, I don’t think the NRL has the profile of the NFL amongst the south of England population to fill Wembley or Tott’ with a regular season club match, no matter how well the match is marketed. It is still club RL which is (reasonably) suitably catered for in the UK. Heck, I would be surprised if Auckland Blues v QLD Reds (or any other Super Rugby fixture you would propose) could fill 2/3s of Twickenham and that is a sport more affectionately followed in the south.

I don’t think the NRL are that naive to think there is long lasting corporate revenue from London to be derived from playing an NRL club game there. 

The only objective I would think worthy of a club venture to the UK would be to test the existing RL market for this ever discussed, NRL takeover of SL. Leaving aside people’s opinion on the NRL’s skill set to exponentially grow the sport in UK/Euro as a governor, better than the RFL, a sold out OT or CoM for a NRL club game may demonstrate the potential improvement for club RL in the UK if the NRL were to consider taking over and it could probably make a small profit at the same time.

I think the biggest difficulty with a NRL club game proposal would be getting the NRL clubs on board.

Similar to a couple of others, I believe the only “one off” game the NRL would generate enough interest to sell out Twickers, Wembley or Tott’, would be SOO.

An outside the box suggestion (which I expect everyone on here to hate ) is to run a series promoting the Kangaroos as the “all conquering winners of 10 of the last 11 World Cups” challenging RU’s home nations and France at 13 a-side RU, followed by a best of European RU v Kangaroos in a game of RL and culminating with a test match against the English RL team to show how good English RL really is. Now that is something alternative I think would sell out major stadia in every capital city.

[JohnM]

46 minutes ago, Sports Prophet said:

The objective is exactly the consideration here. Similar to ....

An outside the box suggestion (which I expect everyone on here to hate ) is to run a series promoting the Kangaroos as the “all conquering winners of 10 of the last 11 World Cups” challenging RU’s home nations and France at 13 a-side RU, followed by a best of European RU v Kangaroos in a game of RL and culminating with a test match against the English RL team to show how good English RL really is. Now that is something alternative I think would sell out major stadia in every capital city.

Why not, indeed? It needs something like this to break through the iron curtain of national media indifference to our sport and especially to overcome the UK sporting  audience's ignorance of how big the game is in Australia.

[Dave T]

6 hours ago, Sports Prophet said:

The objective is exactly the consideration here. 

Similar to a few on here, I don’t think the NRL has the profile of the NFL amongst the south of England population to fill Wembley or Tott’ with a regular season club match, no matter how well the match is marketed. It is still club RL which is (reasonably) suitably catered for in the UK. Heck, I would be surprised if Auckland Blues v QLD Reds (or any other Super Rugby fixture you would propose) could fill 2/3s of Twickenham and that is a sport more affectionately followed in the south.

I don’t think the NRL are that naive to think there is long lasting corporate revenue from London to be derived from playing an NRL club game there. 

The only objective I would think worthy of a club venture to the UK would be to test the existing RL market for this ever discussed, NRL takeover of SL. Leaving aside people’s opinion on the NRL’s skill set to exponentially grow the sport in UK/Euro as a governor, better than the RFL, a sold out OT or CoM for a NRL club game may demonstrate the potential improvement for club RL in the UK if the NRL were to consider taking over and it could probably make a small profit at the same time.

I think the biggest difficulty with a NRL club game proposal would be getting the NRL clubs on board.

Similar to a couple of others, I believe the only “one off” game the NRL would generate enough interest to sell out Twickers, Wembley or Tott’, would be SOO.

An outside the box suggestion (which I expect everyone on here to hate ) is to run a series promoting the Kangaroos as the “all conquering winners of 10 of the last 11 World Cups” challenging RU’s home nations and France at 13 a-side RU, followed by a best of European RU v Kangaroos in a game of RL and culminating with a test match against the English RL team to show how good English RL really is. Now that is something alternative I think would sell out major stadia in every capital city.

I was about to like this post, and then I got to your last paragraph

There really should be a 'hate' button.

[Dunbar]

So, I see we have arrived at the NRL promoting Rugby Union in the Northern Hemisphere part of our strategising. 

[Archie Gordon]

6 hours ago, Sports Prophet said:

The objective is exactly the consideration here. 

Similar to a few on here, I don’t think the NRL has the profile of the NFL amongst the south of England population to fill Wembley or Tott’ with a regular season club match, no matter how well the match is marketed. It is still club RL which is (reasonably) suitably catered for in the UK. 

...

To be fair, I don't think anyone has said that the NRL has anything like the same profile as the NFL, or that a 60k+ crowd would be the outcome for a game in London.

[JohnM]

25 minutes ago, Dunbar said:

So, I see we have arrived at the NRL promoting Rugby Union in the Northern Hemisphere part of our strategising. 

No we haven't. It was an "outside the box" suggestion. Maybe discuss the pros and cons before ritually condemning it. 

[Dunbar]

7 minutes ago, JohnM said:

No we haven't. It was an "outside the box" suggestion. Maybe discuss the pros and cons before ritually condemning it. 

It wasn't worth discussing.

[marklaspalmas]

I'm not sure how I feel about this. Currently, as a viewer and follower, I'm a big NRL fan and I'm quite negative & critical of SL.

I've spent 20 minutes reading this thread, and it's an interesting and informative thread which gives food for thought.

Thanks.

[Sports Prophet]

1 hour ago, Dunbar said:

So, I see we have arrived at the NRL promoting Rugby Union in the Northern Hemisphere part of our strategising. 

Denouncing it was really my thought, but as expected, not a lot of supporters for that idea  

The theory being, the NRL make a good buck to tour, they hopefully give a great account of themselves and demonstrate how great RL athletes are and finishes off with England RL performing to a high standard against that great RL team, giving RL an overall boost.

Pie in the sky stuff, but I would find that irresistible to watch.

Edited October 7 by Sports Prophet

[Dave T]

It made me quite sad seeing the Kangaroos squad that has just been announced. I know nostalgia will be at play here, but despite watching more regular NRL than when I was a kid, the names on that list just seem so unfamiliar and lacking. 

I'm conscious that some of that will be a reflection of my watching habits and stuff, but in the 1980s when I started watching RL, the Kangaroos played 87 games (including tour games). Players made their name in the green and gold.

We also had the big names guesting for British clubs which helped them.become stars over here.

I know it's just one of those things. The world moves on, not unlike the lack of RU talent in RL nowadays, but I think its something that has made the game much poorer.

Edited October 7 by Dave T

[Sports Prophet]

@Dave T I was pretty unenthusiastic reading that team. Similar to you, I felt like there were very little moments where I thought “yeah, can’t wait to see him in the Kangaroos jumper.”

 

[redjonn]

Unless my mind is playing tricks I thought the NFL did a lot of work over years with an awareness and promotion of its sport, before it had a game over here.  The channel 4 (I think) highlights and live game packages feeding the sport to the UK. One of the reasons for the NFL London game being a success, plus it attracted followers from across Europe where they had done the promotion work of the sport as well to a London game.

That is they didn't just plonk a game in London and promote that game, they spent years creating the appetite.

Edited October 7 by redjonn

[Toby Chopra]

54 minutes ago, redjonn said:

Unless my mind is playing tricks I thought the NFL did a lot of work over years with an awareness and promotion of its sport, before it had a game over here.  The channel 4 (I think) highlights and live game packages feeding the sport to the UK. One of the reasons for the NFL London game being a success, plus it attracted followers from across Europe where they had done the promotion work of the sport as well to a London game.

That is they didn't just plonk a game in London and promote that game, they spent years creating the appetite.

This is indeed the case, and although I think the NRL games in the UK could be very useful to both them and us eventually, on reflection I think the NRL would also have to choose to do similar hard yards first. The NFL had an office in London running watch parties, off season player visits, and a media operation for nearly a decade before the first London game. But it's paying dividends now.

So it's not risk or cost free for the NRL, but I remain really surprised at their lack of initiative in trying to crack the European broadcasting market via the UK. Just giving the games to Sky doesn't do it.

Yes, Australian sport is parochial, but so is American sport and they all realised that at some point you have to expand your market, and it's a lot easier in the era of modern digital media and streaming etc. The overseas NFL games are about cementing that fandom, rather than being massive money-making events in themselves.      

The fact that professional rugby - and particularly professional rugby league - already exists in Europe make the situation different, but that offers pluses as well as minuses in my view for an NRL push into Europe.

 

    

Edited October 7 by Toby Chopra

[Dunbar]

Here is the Google Trends view of 'NRL' in the UK

Select sub region (city) and 'include low search volume regions'.

We have just seen the NRL Grand Final and all the searches for NRL in the UK were a perfect correlation to the Rugby League heartlands.

https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?q=NRL&date=now 1-d&geo=GB&hl=en-GB

[crashmon]

11 hours ago, 17 stone giant said:

I wouldn't be interested in watching two NRL teams in London, because it's not a competition I have any interest in or affinity with. But I would watch matches between NRL and SL clubs, providing that they proved to be regularly competitive and not completely one sided.

The difference between the NRL and NFL playing in London, is that we already have our own top level rugby league competition, whereas that's clearly not the case when it comes to American football.

So while I'm very interested in watching two NFL teams play in London (e.g. today), I don't have the same interest towards the NRL.

Yes, your a RL fan  coming from the RL heartlands, which the small regional oversaturated market I was referring to you in my first post.

After living in the South for 25 years, and spending countless months / years trying to get my peers down here interested in RL (both club and country)  I can tell you that 95% of people in the south have Never heard of the Huddersfield Giants (or any other RL club maybe apart from Wigan).  TBF they could not probalbly name a RU club either (maybe apart from Quins, Bath or Leicester).

People in the north think that the folks in the south are anti-league, and try and put it down in favour or the "other" rugby code.   That is not the case. To be anti-something and to put it down you have to first be aware that the sport actually exists. For most people down here Rugby means the 6 nations.  Thats it.  England playing at Twickers.  Thats what rugby is.

I would love to have a conversation with blokes in the pub about how League is better than Union, and go over the pros and cons.  But what I get instead is Rugby League, whats that?  Is it an E-sport?.  Is it played indoors,  etc etc.

I wish it was different but its not.

The only way to change this is an England test every year in London. And even that probably wont be enough.

Edited October 7 by crashmon

[Archie Gordon]

4 minutes ago, Dunbar said:

Here is the Google Trends view of 'NRL' in the UK

Select sub region (city) and 'include low search volume regions'.

We have just seen the NRL Grand Final and all the searches for NRL in the UK were a perfect correlation to the Rugby League heartlands.

https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?q=NRL&date=now 1-d&geo=GB&hl=en-GB

That's not quite how Google Trends works.

For example, 25% of Kippax (pop 9785) searching for NRL-related stuff lists higher than 3% of [some area of London, pop 100k] because they go on percent share of pop and not raw number of pop.

So, lots of very small areas in the North have a lot of folk interested in the NRL. But it doesn't tell you very much about areas of larger populations. This is a known problem with Google Trends - it shows a bias towards areas with small towns.

[Dunbar]

2 minutes ago, Archie Gordon said:

That's not quite how Google Trends works.

For example, 25% of Kippax (pop 9785) searching for NRL-related stuff lists higher than 3% of [some area of London, pop 100k] because they go on percent share of pop and not raw number of pop.

So, lots of very small areas in the North have a lot of folk interested in the NRL. But it doesn't tell you very much about areas of larger populations. This is a known problem with Google Trends - it shows a bias towards areas with small towns.

So, when I do the same search for NFL it is London and South East and then UK wide when I select show low volume areas.

I obviously don't know as much as you about Google Trends - but my instinct from these searches and the lack of people hitting the BBC website for the Grand Final is that NRL is invisible in the London and South East. 

[Archie Gordon]

6 minutes ago, Dunbar said:

So, when I do the same search for NFL it is London and South East and then UK wide when I select show low volume areas.

I obviously don't know as much as you about Google Trends - but my instinct from these searches and the lack of people hitting the BBC website for the Grand Final is that NRL is invisible in the London and South East. 

I looked at Rams-Packers 'live' on BBC Sport yesterday evening - 382 views. Anything that is 'listen only' gets tiny figures.

If you look at the # of comments for the NRL GF vs the Tottenham NFL game, I think NRL is still comfortably ahead.

Re. Google Trends. The NRL seems to score higher in the UK than the RU Premiership.

On the way they list geographies:

Note: A higher value means a higher proportion of all queries, not a higher absolute query count. So a tiny country where 80% of the queries are for 'bananas' will get twice the score of a giant country where only 40% of the queries are for 'bananas'.

Source: Google

Edited October 7 by Archie Gordon