Quote ="Thoth"The RFL and IL have already done this, but it was obviously ignored by most people here.'"
I am talking long term brand building here - If Sam is with us for at least three years we can use his profile to attract new fans through innovative marketing.
Quote ="Thoth"This is not true pre-super league there was plenty of coverage, the most famous sporting club outside of football and arguably cricket was Wigan themselves and the most famous player of either code was Martin Offiah and at that time GB International RL was seeing it's greatest ever attendances and at Wembley and RL had regular terrestial TV coverage. RU as a sport became professional and that is when things began to change along with the involvement of Sky.'"
Whilst I agree that International attendances were better I don't ever remember getting substantial press coverage - this has always been one of my pet hates. Possibly the inclusion of more "High profile" converts from union had an impact on attendances - all the more reason to try different ways of increasing the profile of our modern players.
Quote ="Thoth"RFL have already declared ST as their face of RL so they clearly have something in mind one of the problems with this is ST is hardly universally liked within RL in the same terms Pietersen, Wilkinson, Beckham.'"
I don't see this as a problem - the only people that have a particular dislike for Sam are some existing spectators. I would think that new fans would be more attracted to expansive, exciting rugby rather than put off by niggling on-field antics.
