Rugby League's image problem

[Martyn Sadler]

Rather than being in the press box at Headingley on Saturday, I was in the corporate area and found myself sitting next to a guy in the professional services industry who told me something quite interesting.

A couple of years ago his company had been persuaded to do some sponsorship with Leeds Rhinos.

Part of the deal was that he would get a certain number of hospitality tickets at various times during the season.

His intention was to use those tickets for his company's clients to give them freebies to Headingley for Rhinos games.

But then he discovered that none of his clients took up his offer.

Instead he had to use all the tickets for himself and his family.

In doing so he had become a big Rhinos fan but he had been taken aback by the complete lack of interest from his clients in what he was offering them. He said essentially that they didn't want to be associated with Rugby League because of its poor image.

I suspect that his clients would have flocked for tickets for virtually any other sport.

So what's the problem with Rugby League?

[Tommygilf]

The biased anti RL view:

Poor, dirty rough people, playing a game I don't care about between towns that I have negative opinions of, that none of my friends or family like either.

Uncool, unattractive, and not relevant to me.

The RL fan view:

Snobs who can't look beyond their own noses and can stay well away in their Range Rovers, can jog on to the Ivy where they will sip champagne and tut at the great unwashed they despise. Good riddance, probably union fans.

The reality:

Probably somewhere in between, depending on the person.

[Tommygilf]

In short, we are not popular enough amongst the circles that matter, be that the cultural influencers, the wealthy, or those who make the others so. 

From that literally all our other problems from participation to finances flow.

[St Reatham]

Rugby league isn’t deemed to be “trendy” or “fashionable” unfortunately.

[RigbyLuger]

Remember after Wembley, when the England coach talked about playing in front of proper RL fans. That doesn't help. We don't welcome "outsiders"

[Tommygilf]

2 minutes ago, RigbyLuger said:

Remember after Wembley, when the England coach talked about playing in front of proper RL fans. That doesn't help. We don't welcome "outsiders"

That is the other main issue.

Its like the freemasons at times with how nativist our outlook can be. 

It only has to negatively affect someone once for them to be put off for life.

[gingerjon]

6 minutes ago, RigbyLuger said:

Remember after Wembley, when the England coach talked about playing in front of proper RL fans. That doesn't help. We don't welcome "outsiders"

Bingo

[whatmichaelsays]

6 minutes ago, RigbyLuger said:

Remember after Wembley, when the England coach talked about playing in front of proper RL fans. That doesn't help. We don't welcome "outsiders"

Indeed. Something about people needing to be "rugby league men" springs to mind. 

We do hospitality at the Rhinos a lot but mostly from a staff engagement rather than a client entertainment thing - those sorts of things tend to be events like the Test cricket, certain football fixtures or the races. I don't think that it's necessarily about thinking it would be hard to get clients to come to the Rhinos, but more that those other events feel a bit more premium and exclusive. 

That's not a commentary on the facilities at the Rhinos - they are up there with many Premier League clubs - but more the event itself. RL doesn't, and has never really tried, to make itself look like a premium product. 

[Wakefield Ram]

Well RL is predominantly a sport of teams from northern towns where large men run into groups of equally large men five times who wrestle them into the ground, stick their head in the opponents face before one of the smaller men kicks it down field. 

Add in the game isn't played at private schools and the sport's governing body has absolutely no strategy to expand the game, it's not really a surprise.

London? Don't want a side there because their away fans don't come in numbers and don't buy enough pies.

Catalans? Don't want them really so let's make them pay clubs for travelling beyond the M62.

Most successful businesses look to expand. RL actively looks to contract. 

Edited November 10 by Wakefield Ram

[Rugbyleaguesupporter]

Image is why we dont get many mentions on Sky- a large proportion of people paying for a premium service associate Sky with cricket, golf, F1 rather than rugby league. 

The one exception is Grand Final, which is seen as an event. 

A re brand of our image is desperately needed 

More pressing is quality of Ashes games wasnt great- few line breaks and long stoppages. There is truth that series was a bit dull 

Edited November 10 by Rugbyleaguesupporter

[Archie Gordon]

42 minutes ago, Martyn Sadler said:

Rather than being in the press box at Headingley on Saturday, I was in the corporate area and found myself sitting next to a guy in the professional services industry who told me something quite interesting.

A couple of years ago his company had been persuaded to do some sponsorship with Leeds Rhinos.

Part of the deal was that he would get a certain number of hospitality tickets at various times during the season.

His intention was to use those tickets for his company's clients to give them freebies to Headingley for Rhinos games.

But then he discovered that none of his clients took up his offer.

Instead he had to use all the tickets for himself and his family.

In doing so he had become a big Rhinos fan but he had been taken aback by the complete lack of interest from his clients in what he was offering them. He said essentially that they didn't want to be associated with Rugby League because of its poor image.

I suspect that his clients would have flocked for tickets for virtually any other sport.

So what's the problem with Rugby League?

No problem with RL - take a look at the NRL.

The problem lies with the way the game is run and presented in this country. Words (rightly) associated with UK RL: budget/cheap, Northern/insular, male.

Even pithier: Triple-headers.

[JohnM]

I worked 7 years at the Guildford-based UK arm of a US Corporation. Our MD was always at Twickers, guest of some other big Corporation or other. He went because it was a CEO networking opportunity. 

[RP London]

It would be interesting if you asked a few other sports a similar question about hospitality.. things like Ice Hockey, how does that sell its corporate boxes etc.. I would say there is a lot in the fact that probably outside RU, Football and Cricket it is a struggle for most. 

The call at the moment is that anything work related should be within work time as people are not happy to give up their free time for work related activities, so team building etc and for that read corporate entertaining. I've done a fair chunk of it in the past both entertaining and being entertained, I like all sorts of sport so will go and watch pretty much anything and dont mind doing it on my own time, probably because I will enjoy it. If you are asking people to give up family time/their own time they need to want to be there, not just want a free meal. 

RL has a poor profile thanks to the international game IMHO. The one thing that everyone can get behind is their country, so its an "easy sell" to watch on the tele, that then builds people towards looking at the club game. Mid season for me is vital for that TBH. 

Then there is the fact that we seem to be very good at shooting ourselves in the foot. This season is a prime example. Negative headlines, changes in structure every other year, infighting etc etc etc.. 

RL needs to take itself seriously. What is happening at the moment is enough to put its own fans off, its hardly going to help encourage new ones. 

[dufftown1]

We dont know what we are and what we are trying to do so people switch off.

Right now we say we are an elite sport but dont do the things an elite sport does. That makes us look like we are failing. People arent interested in that.

[Max_Power]

58 minutes ago, Martyn Sadler said:

Rather than being in the press box at Headingley on Saturday, I was in the corporate area and found myself sitting next to a guy in the professional services industry who told me something quite interesting.

A couple of years ago his company had been persuaded to do some sponsorship with Leeds Rhinos.

Part of the deal was that he would get a certain number of hospitality tickets at various times during the season.

His intention was to use those tickets for his company's clients to give them freebies to Headingley for Rhinos games.

But then he discovered that none of his clients took up his offer.

Instead he had to use all the tickets for himself and his family.

In doing so he had become a big Rhinos fan but he had been taken aback by the complete lack of interest from his clients in what he was offering them. He said essentially that they didn't want to be associated with Rugby League because of its poor image.

I suspect that his clients would have flocked for tickets for virtually any other sport.

So what's the problem with Rugby League?

• Who were the clients? 
• Do the clients fit in with our target audience?
• How do you know his client would have flocked to see say Squash or Ice Hockey or Basketball.
• What do you think causes our image to be poor?
• Have you given the feedback to the Commercial Director of Leeds Rhinos? 

[Dave T]

Broadly speaking, our games are at the weekend too.  I've always been lucky to get hospitality at major events through work, but the main interest at work is for Weds evenings etc rather than weekend family time.

I would also say, that even events like Champions league games can be tough to give away at times.

[Coggo]

1895 and all that, innit.

Once rugby split on class lines, it was always going to be difficult to attract Sir Hubert Farquhar-Psmythe to Leigh Sports Village on a Friday night.

 

 

[Tommygilf]

 

Might be a great image in x post industrial northern town with existing RL fans. Less so with others...

[RigbyLuger]

3 minutes ago, Tommygilf said:

 

Might be a great image in x post industrial northern town with existing RL fans. Less so with others...

And not enough in the sport call him out for it. Praise his really good work, but also tell him to wind it in. It isn't all about him.

[Damien]

I think this thread is just telling us what we already know, not that it isn't a valid debate, it certainly is. It's long been a problem and has been throughout my lifetime.

[Damien]

I await BP's post about unfashionable northern towns. Surprised its taken him so long 

[gingerjon]

12 minutes ago, Coggo said:

1895 and all that, innit.

Once rugby split on class lines, it was always going to be difficult to attract Sir Hubert Farquhar-Psmythe to Leigh Sports Village on a Friday night.

 

 

And this is the problem.

Too many people seeing it as a battle still being fought on 1895 lines.

[FearTheVee]

1 hour ago, Tommygilf said:

The biased anti RL view:

Poor, dirty rough people, playing a game I don't care about between towns that I have negative opinions of, that none of my friends or family like either.

Uncool, unattractive, and not relevant to me.

The RL fan view:

Snobs who can't look beyond their own noses and can stay well away in their Range Rovers, can jog on to the Ivy where they will sip champagne and tut at the great unwashed they despise. Good riddance, probably union fans.

The reality:

Probably somewhere in between, depending on the person.

Even RL fans can barely be bothered attending some fixtures, so why would anyone else?

I bet corporate is full for the big games and an incredibly tough sell for the rest.

The league is full of games with half full stadiums and flat atmospheres and if you're picking and choosing how to give up your free time on Friday nights / weekends and have lots of invitations to choose between whilst balancing family life etc, there are probably "better" invitations.

We can jump to the easy conclusion that it is some sort of wealthy snobbery, but the reality is that the experience is pretty poor most of the time. And will be until the league is much more competitive, which means bigger clubs with bigger budgets.

There will be people who will just refuse on principle (I've probably refused to participate in hospitality at RU games about two hundred times) but they will be few vs those who just don't see it as being that interesting. And that is our problem to solve.

Edited November 10 by FearTheVee

[lemmy xaan]

We tend to think of RL as an excellent "product" on the pitch. Sometimes it is; sometimes it's awful as well (blow-outs, etc). IMHO, we too often assume people outside our base will see a RL game and think it's something amazing - when they often simply do not. (ie. You need to event-it.)

Our frequent "exceptional" claim is an assumption that fails when then rubber hits road. It's a myth that you can just put someone in front of a State-of-Origin level match and they'll be converted: it's not that easy - any more than I could put someone in front of a UFC match or a Formula 1 race and everyone is similarly converted. Context is everything, and people don't have any RL context, whereas many people have a RU England context. On Saturday, everyone around me was talking England-Fiji; no one knew about the 3rd Test. And a comparison would have been futile: we lost, our crowd sub 20k, etc. I think the problem is that we know what can and needs to be achieved (NRL the benchmark), but few if any UK administrators seem to really know how to achieve it. And, yes, I was triggered by the lazy Everton pitch detailing.

Thank God for what's happened at London. 

On a side note, check out Rusty Crowe on Joe Rogan, talking cricket and NRL (7 minutes in). Majestic.

 

[GeordieSaint]

1 hour ago, Martyn Sadler said:

Rather than being in the press box at Headingley on Saturday, I was in the corporate area and found myself sitting next to a guy in the professional services industry who told me something quite interesting.

A couple of years ago his company had been persuaded to do some sponsorship with Leeds Rhinos.

Part of the deal was that he would get a certain number of hospitality tickets at various times during the season.

His intention was to use those tickets for his company's clients to give them freebies to Headingley for Rhinos games.

But then he discovered that none of his clients took up his offer.

Instead he had to use all the tickets for himself and his family.

In doing so he had become a big Rhinos fan but he had been taken aback by the complete lack of interest from his clients in what he was offering them. He said essentially that they didn't want to be associated with Rugby League because of its poor image.

I suspect that his clients would have flocked for tickets for virtually any other sport.

So what's the problem with Rugby League?

In general, the sport is unprofessional. Top to bottom. It is insular. It doesn’t like outsiders - a bit like the communities it is widely played in. It has a big chip on its shoulder to real change. Until the sport takes change seriously, it will always be a niche, unprofessional sport frowned upon by ‘outsiders’. 

You could help by some strong journalism on the real issues the sport faces.