I don't think it's a great sponsor. Tetley's is a drink consumed mostly by old people and the British answer to the hillbilly. The sort of people who live on farms or still think worn leather jackets are in fashion
Money is money is money, but it would be preferable if we could bring on board some sponsors that would benefit the games image. There's a real risk that with such sponsorships we're failing to engage younger generations.
Granted, we're looking at sponsors that have worked closely with sports like union and soccer. But the difference I believe is that those two sports can afford to be complacent. Rugby will always have kids going into the sport because they have an institutional monopoly on the wealthy, the sport thrives on a systematic advantage, they can rest on their laurels as it were. Everybody knows rugby is a rich boys sport, but that's never stopped it growing. Football isn't worth talking about, they've got the population in a rear-naked choke hold and could be sponsored by Sainsbury's basics [iChunks in Jelly[/i cat food and it wouldn't make a blind bit of difference to the success of their sport.
Rugby League can't be considered in the same breath. Culturally, our prevalence is weak. And so how people perceive League matters a great deal. Kids these days - and I'm talking about in the heartlands, too - are growing up on football, in some households League might matter a bit, but generally, it unfortunately doesn't. The big problem is failing to keep hold of kids in the transition stage, that stage between primary school and adulthood. Rugby does it, because rugby is the sport of the establishment... we aren't, and we aren't going to become one any time soon. So what's needed is, more than anything, an attractive image. We must be, and I hate myself for using this word, 'hip'. If we're serious about expanding, that is.
The viewing figures have been rising, but gradually the hold League has in heartland areas has been receding. Most young men couldn't give a mother-what about rugby league as a sport, Super League as a competition. League is going into its shell, there are small areas with pockets of dense support and that's it. Ask most 20 year old men in Lancashire or Yorkshire to name a rugby League player, and I'll eat my large collection of hats if the majority of them don't scratch their heads and eventually name a union player.
Now I'm not just saying this for the sake of it, to berate the game, I'm saying it because sponsorship deals need taking in context, and that's the context. We're not football, we're not rugby union. I cannot spare a Fcuk tshirt for what other sports are doing.
It's not the end of the world, but it would be nice to see RFL playing the long game. People who drink Tetley's, they probably already watch rugby league. Women who play bingo, they're probably living in rugby league households too. They're a good fit, undoubtedly, if I was Tetley or some bingo company I'd want to link with League too, but from a League perspective I can't see it as a positive. Does it benefit Rugby League in anything other than a financial capacity? Not for me it doesn't.
We get these sponsorships and the response is either one of two things, we're told it's money or it's exposure, but time and time again we do NOTHING with the money or exposure. We don't build on it. We've had money sponsors before, it's never amounted to nothing, every time we go to the negotiation table we're in practically the same position as the previous. It seems that we're always in survival mode as a sport.
There's a lot of work to do to give League a modern, cool identity. If we don't start taking this seriously then the game is as good as dead. The Rugby League of the Extraordinary is a start and hopefully there's more of that to come. It's a difficult ask, because quality sponsors aren't lining up to pay us any sort of real money and don't want to be associated with our ugly image, so it becomes a chicken and egg scenario. It's hard to attract cool brands to sponsor you when your product is viewed by most as decidedly uncool and outdated. Advertising initiatives, while only a start, will hopefully impact how companies perceive us, in the process encouraging them to want to be associated with us. A balance needs to be struck in terms of what we can offer sponsors, and what they can offer us. It's a big ask, one which demands better stock than those who are currently running our game.
But make no mistake, the game has a big image problem and it is real, don't tell me it's not real and that those of us concerned with it are serial whingers or have chips on our shoulders. It's important enough to continually dissuade most good brands from wanting to sponsor us. So when I hear that Tetley's and Foxy Bingo are sponsoring elements of the sport I'm going to be - justifiably, I'd say - underwhelmed, because it's once again an unpleasant reminder of the sports biggest setback... it's image. That previous sponsorship deals were even more naff is not a valid argument for celebrating this one!
I think it's easy for most here to gloss over this glaring issue as many of you are out of touch. You're either too old or living in the few areas in the country where League has relevance. You're in a fools paradise, effectively, you fail to grasp the significance of the problem at hand because in your bubble there's no problem. The demographics of this forum probably speaks for itself. How many here are under 21? Not many, I'd say... Wouldn't surprise me if most are over 30! How many are outside the hotbeds? Again, very few.
It's not that there is anything wrong with being northern or having sponsorship which reflects this, but rather the northern identity that some of you old timers live up to, it doesn't resonate with outsiders, it doesn't even resonate with northern kids today! Kids are sat around listening to K Koke, Kendrick Lamar and Arctic Monkeys, not Oasis or Morrisey. They drink spirits not beers, if they drink beer it's going to be some p*ss-water like Desperados. They wear snapbacks or trapper hats, not flatcaps. When they go to the barbers they ask for a taper or a fade, not a short back and sides. A lot of league fans are years if not decades out of touch with modern society. Like it or not, the outdated northern image that you embody turns people away from the sport, it's unfortunate but true. People are fickle, they don't want to associate with some gravy-drinking, Emmerdale farm sorts that they see as the embodiment of uncool.
I think the best example of our failings as a sport in this regard, the insular image we project, is in our complete failure to engage and bring on board the Asian communities on either side of the pennines, we've had decades to do this and it's a real testament to the sports fundamental problem that we've been unable to. It's relevant because as with everything else I've said, the biggest problem is not so much the original problem itself, but League fans refusing to accept that the problem is a problem in the first place!
Image is everything. Perception is everything. Do Tetley's or Foxy Bingo do anything to help our image, or improve the perception others have of us? No.
I don't really have a great issue with the sponsor despite my mind-numbingly long post, my comments are more on the general state of the sport and the attitudes of elements of the League community, but I will add that neither Tetley's or Foxy Bingo, despite their prominence, fill me with happiness or approval. We could do a lot worse, we could also do a lot better. Hopefully the acceptance of such sponsorships is only temporary, with a clear plan to take the game forward and discard these ugly brands in the future.
'"
