Given that RBS is 83% owned by the public ie. you and me and claims to support "local rugby clubs in building for their future" through its RugbyForce initiative, is it right that this only extends to rugby union clubs and does not include local rugby league clubs?

How much did they spend of our money sponsoring that garbage anyway?

Oh Goody....it's another "let's slag off the bigger, more popular and more wealthy code" thread..



[urlhttp://www.sportspromedia.com/news/rbs_confirms_renewal_of_six_nations_title_sponsorship/[/url



£11,000,000 a year



....let's all boo and hiss whilst trying to forget the dismal state of TGG in the UK

It wasn't meant as a slag anybody thread. You provided the figures yourself - is it right that a publicly owned company provides support to the tune of £11m a year to one branch of "rugby"but not to another whilst claiming to be supporting grass roots "rugby"?

RBS get exposure in some 160 countries where the 6 Nations is shown, as well as on their website which is ranked by alexa as below.
[urlhttp://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/6nations.net#[/url

Here's the report for the Superleague website...
[urlhttp://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/superleague.com#[/url

As for RBS and being a publicly funded organisation, they still have a need to use marketing and promotion to drive revenue.....the BBC claim 4.5 million as the average viewers per game in the UK alone, so 67.5 million people will watch the tournament each year........I'd call that pretty savy use of marketing budget. As for the distinction of Union from League, you're fighting a losing battle......Rugby will always be associated with the 15 man code.....there is very little you can do about that......


......let's put the 2 codes into perspective in the public eye shall we?
This year, RLWC 2013 will see the top 14 teams in RL battle it out for the pinnacle prize in the international game....at the same time, the Union sides from the SH will visit Europe for some end of year jollies......which of the 2 games will see the largest attendance?
England played Fiji, Australia, South Africa and the All Blacks last year and were watched by 325,928 paying fans.........stop anyone on the streets of say Birmingham and ask them to name an England "Rugby" player....how many will come out with a League players name?

Yes, it's probably not right that they get to claim the word "rugby" as their own, but back in the real world, nobody really cares anyway.....if asked, I am a LEAGUE fan......in the SH it is known as LEAGUE........

Seeing at its 83% owned by the taxpayer its unfair that they should sponsor a sport already awash with money.

As a company that is owned by the public and needs to generate revenues for its owners, RBS has a duty to do everything in it's power to ensure that it attracts business. Like it or not, the 6 Nations is seen by close to 70,000,000 UK TV viewers each year alone.....it is attended by another million spectators and is also broadcast to 160 countries around the world......fairness has nothing to do with it....it is 100% about knowing your target audience and being able to reach them..

[urlhttp://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/sport/rugby/rbs-extends-six-nations-sponsorship-deal-29016617.html[/url


As for Union being awash with money.......it's not the IRB's fault that they have an audience that is of interest to institutions such as RBS, HSBC, Landrover, IBM, etc...etc....that's just a fact of life.

A majority of its owners are the UK taxpayer. It was sponsoring the 6 nations before it needed the government handout. So that to me suggests it wasn't attracting the business before otherwise why did they need they hand out?

You need to know exactly where all the losses came from that required the bail out.....their every day banking as well as a major part of their corporate business was and still is pretty profitable......a very small part of the bank lost all that cash. The sponsorship is purely done to target middle englanders...daily mail readers etc.....as well as the CEO's of businesses who may want to move their business accounts to acompany associated with such a popular competition.

HSBC sponsor the Lions.......do you think that's done because:
a) the CEO is a member of "old ruggerbuggeronians"?
b) their marketing department canb quantify a tangible return on this investment?

RBS get a ROI on the 6 Nations deal...otherwise they wouldn't do it.

If sponsoring the 6 nations is a such a success for the RBS why did they did a Taxpayer handout?

You're either just fishing now or tired.


Retail and Business Banking at RBS are the areas of the business that had little influence on the massive losses which required the bail out.......they are also the areas of the Business that patently benefit from the association with the 6 Nations.
Your moral standpoint regarding what they can and can't sponsor carries no weight here....if they were named as SL sponsor tomorrow morning you'd be switching accounts by lunchtime

If the 6 nations sponsorship didn't attract enough money before, for the bank to be a a success why would it this time?

seriously? tell me you're on a wind up......



Tell you what......RBS sponsor the 6 nations and no matter how bitter or indignant you or anyone else wants to be about it, it's the way it is and will be until 2017.

I'm still struggling with your notion that the RBS sponsoring the 6 nations is a success for the bank. It that was the case how come that they still needed taxpayers money to bail them out. Surely if the sponsoring the 6 nations was a finacial success why the need for taxpayers money?

you're struggling.....you should be in my shoes mate

are you 5yrs old?

In simple terms, the part of the bank that lost gazzillions and gazzillions of pounds is not the part of the bank that sponsors the 6 nations. The Retail and Business divisions of RBS were and are fine...the INVESTMENT BANKING division is where the money was lost.

If you have trouble still understanding the difference between a high street branch of RBS and the s in the Investment sector....[url=http://www.justinggoogleit.com/click here[/url

By the way, it isn't my notion that RBS sponsoring the 6 nations is a success.....it's a fact borne out by the statement from the bank themselves that I linked to earlier.

That should wrap up this thread

Really? I'd like to see the proof for that claim beyond one from the snout in the trough members of their advertising dept. After all they would, wouldn't they? Considering how they are losing vast sums of money still and are cutting the staff that is a bold claim. Then again for an institution that pays a large bonus for outright failure perhaps an alternative logic operates here.

How RBS are chucking away large sums of money at anything defies reason. Even if it was for something genuinely popular like Premier League football or a top rating soap would be highly questionable, that it is on the turd that is the 6N only highlights the folly.

Gutterfax, I accept all your opinions of RU and a banks need to market itself, but didn't the people it marketed itself too get them in this mess?
RBS get a ROI on 6N's - pull the other one, its a jolly boys day out for their mates in the City, end of.
The last round of the Heineken cup attracted under 160k viewers per game, Leeds v Storm was double that and struggled for a sponsor.
Networking is critical in sponsorship and you have to dock yer capto the RU influences in the right places who spend other peoples money.

How the RBS can justify spending taxpayers money on an elitist sport is a mystery to me and a majority of the country.

A 'very small part' is responsible for an organisation making a £5.2 billion annual loss?

Do you actually believe what you put down?

They (or have) sponsored F1 and Andy Murray as well.

The issue is the misleading use of the word "rugby" and the funding of grassroots sport.

Correct. It's neither fair nor right...BUT...a pointless battle to have. It would make a ton of marketing sense to drop "Rugby" completely. One of the first rules of marketing is to have clear brand identity. Like or not (and I don't) you're already starting from a weak position if, right from the off, half the audience are going to be confused by the name of your sport. In Australia its known more or less universally as the footy ( regardless of any official name ). We use various terms over here, but it's more organic than through any leadership. It would be a brave, but IMO great decision to formally stop using the word Rugby. Defeat? Not for me. Who cares about the name of a bleedin' public school anyway?

There comes a point in any major sponsorship where the goals have been reached and the job is done, at that point the correct commercial decision is to switch from one property to another. Once a certain level of recognition and synonimity has been attained there is very little value in continuing and to do so looks more like support than sponsorship.

RBS should now be looking for a different marketing vehicle and aiming at a different demographic, if they genuinely have a passion as a company to to support grass root sports then there's no better property than Rugby League.

Thats not to suggest that they should cease from supporting grass roots RU only that they would improve their reach by now pouring the same sort of effort into another major sport,

Whatever the original commercial argument was when initially presenting the idea of RBS backing RU, the same argument could now be applied to sponsoring a sport like RL. It could also be argued that RL is almost at the same level RU was at all those years ago therefore offering RBS the same success in the coming decade that RU did a decade ago.

I suppose this is the crux of it for me.
I understand all the reasons why RBS might think it's a good commercial strategy to make this investment and I recognise that it's not illegal or anything like that and they've got every right to do it. It just irks me that a largely publicly funded business claims to be supporting grassroots, community rugby clubs to the tune of several million a year but if your local rugby league club applied it, presumably, would be turned down.
I suppose really, hats off to the RFU for making the deal in the first place. If only the RFL . . . . ah no, that's a stupid thought!!

Popular you say?? 70,000,000 UK viewers over 15 "episodes" not popular eough for you?



Their retail and Business banking arms are profitable......their losses are an ongoing saga with regard to penalties and payments being made as a result of the meltdown in their INVESTMENT banking arm. I really don't see what you think is wrong here? If they were fragrantly throwing 11 million a year at potentially 2 or 3 games at Twickenham a year,you can be damn sure they would be stopped.....

....there is a very strong sense of "us and them" on these boards.......I suggest some of you look back to say 1982 and see how many houses had more than 1 TV, 1 Car, 1 VCR etc and an overseas holiday maybe every 2 or 3 years.......yes, many banks were careless, but the crisis was essentially built on bad debts.....nobody ever forced anyone to take out a loan for a second car or a weekend in Paris.

carry in with the righteous indignation all you like...........it really won't change a ing thing. 15 games of Union is worth 11 million in naming rights......and I can assure you, if RBS decided to make SL the RBS Superleague,you'd bite their arm off.

And JESUS WEPT.......let's hope nobody mentions how much the BBC pay for the rights to show it......after all,how are they funded?