Quote ="meast"they didn't realise super league was rugby league, the football analogy wouldn't work as most people are aware that both manchester and leeds play football in different leagues, it's still football,he couldn't understand why one was called super league and the other rugby league.'"
I don't think that's an issue with the branding of the sport though, just stupidity of the individual.
I'm working in Scotland now, and whilst not many people up here actively follow League, they are all aware of it. When I said I was from Hull and followed rugby the usual response was something along the lines of "it's all rugby league down there isn't it? Or, there's two teams in Hull isn't there, which one do you follow?" I've also had people say how they enjoy watching it on a Friday night, and in fact one guy is a big Warrington fan because he has friends in the area and went to a couple of games when he visited years ago. He now watches rugby league religiously.
People know and in many cases enjoy watching the sport already. Rebranding won't turn the game into a big success over night. We just have to accept that outside of the heartlands football is god, and it's going to take a lot of work to grow outside of the M62 corridor. This has to be done by getting it played in more schools and developing grassroots clubs. Things grow from there. You can't just dump a brand new club in the first town that springs to mind because even if the people of that area like Rugby League they have no connection to club and aren't really going to be bothered about it. It takes years if not decades to build an identity.
Changing the name may well set us back even more.
