I’M ALWAYS careful, when I talk about Rugby League, to separate what happens on the field from what happens off it.
On the field, I would challenge anyone to find a sport with more outright appeal than Rugby League, even if much of the world doesn’t recognise it.
Off the field, I would challenge anyone to find a sport that is marketed so poorly.
The result is that we can’t sell out Wembley any more, while other sports have no difficulty doing so, whether it’s American Football or even All Elite Wrestling (AEW), which crossed the Atlantic on Sunday to stage its first ever Wembley event and sold out the stadium.
Then we had the University of Notre Dame, known colloquially as ‘The Fighting Irish’, hosting a College Football game at the Aviva Stadium in Dublin on Saturday and selling 49,000 tickets for an event that, frankly, means very little in Ireland.
Having said that, Notre Dame, which is based in the city of South Bend, Indiana, which is roughly the same size as Wakefield, brought thousands of their own supporters with them as they faced the Navy in Dublin.
Of course the Irish government welcomed them with open arms and on Saturday they closed the roads in the centre of Dublin as the marching bands of the two teams led a parade from the city centre to the stadium, which illustrates a wonderful way to draw attention to the game.
The fact is that when you invest in marketing, your sport thrives.
And if you don’t, then I’m afraid it very often doesn’t.
Back in 2014, the then RFL chief executive Nigel Wood announced that he had agreed a five-year broadcasting deal with Sky Sports that would be worth £40 million per season.
Last week, the RFL’s commercial arm announced a new three-year TV deal that will actually be worth £21.5 million per year.
So the value of the elite level of our sport has now almost halved, it seems, while other sports have powered forward in terms of adding value.
It’s a sad catalogue of failure.
I know that Sky have promised to cover all six Super League matches each weekend, either to broadcast themselves or to sell on to other broadcasters.
I understand that there will be the possibility of 17 matches being shown free to air, perhaps on Channel 4 or another broadcaster, as opposed to the ten matches per season that Channel 4 have been able to broadcast over the last two years.
During that time, Channel 4 has effectively been given those games for nothing, with Super League officials hoping that the exposure on free to air will drive more viewers towards watching the game live.
Unfortunately the coverage by Channel 4, good though it undoubtedly is, is too sporadic to develop a strong following and it may be that if it can take 17 games next year, the greater regularity of matches will enable it to develop a weekly audience.
Sadly, the clubs have decided to retain 27 fixtures next year, with the loop fixtures that most fans hate, instead of recognising that fewer games could generate much bigger crowds, as well as far fewer injury worries for their players.
But they just want to carry on as before, ignoring the recommendations made to them in this regard by IMG.
How I would love to bang some heads together.
That fact is that when Nigel Wood agreed that £40 million per annum deal nine years ago, at least 25 per cent of that figure should have been invested in marketing the sport to make it bigger.
Sadly, as with all TV deals negotiated in Rugby League, it almost all went to the clubs, who then spent a lot of it contracting overseas players, with a relatively small amount set aside to run the game but none, as far as I’m aware, set aside for marketing.
New records in Oz
On the other hand, I’m glad to say that Rugby League appears to be doing a lot better on the other side of the world.
After 26 rounds of this year’s NRL competition, the total season NRL crowd aggregate has already been broken.
The previous record (including finals) was 3,490,778 in 2010. Already this year the NRL has seen 3,524,098 people coming through the gates, with a full round of regular-season fixtures remaining as well as the play-offs.
There is a very good chance that total attendances will exceed 4 million by the time the Grand Final is played on 1st September.
One element of the improved crowds in the NRL is the slow improvement of the stadia in which the game is played.
This season saw the introduction of the new Allianz Stadium in Sydney, which is the home of the Sydney Roosters.
They held nine regular season NRL games at the venue in its first year for an average attendance of 23,841, compared to 15,682 in 2018 at the old stadium.
Despite the Roosters struggling during 2023, that’s an increase of 52%, even though they finished 2018 with the Minor Premiership.
I think that one of the reasons crowds have improved so much in the NRL is because they have embraced women playing the game, with the ten-team NRLW throwing up some wonderful matches and drawing more women into watching both the NRL and NRLW.
It gives us plenty of food for thought.
