Firstly give him chance I believe the lads rather busy at the moment - it may shock you but the world doesn't revolve around RL.

Also he and William are on record as liking the sport as youngsters whilst I believe Prince Philip as a bit of a Fev fan.

[urlhttps://www.therhinos.co.uk/video/sinfield-delighted-to-welcome-prince-harry-to-headingley/[/url
[urlhttps://www.therhinos.co.uk/2017/09/05/hrh-prince-harry-meets-england-rugby-league-team/[/url
....but like all zealots, it won't be enough for you will it?

When was the last time we saw a Super League advert that actually contained some Rugby League footage though? Serious question . . .

The Superleague Show teaser for the season preview show....[urlhttps://twitter.com/superleagueshow?lang=en[/url...but that's the bad BBC who can do no right by some accounts.

That’s the problem. To your typical rugby league fan the world does revolve around RL. Cracking post though!

Regards

King James

Pleast tell me that's true! It would make my weekend.

This didn't happen when Richard Lewis was in charge and for all his faults this wouldn't have happened under Maurice Lindsey

Load of shiite your sport has been shrinking consistently in the local and national consciousness since superleague came into being

I for one don't know how Lyrica would be of any use in solving the game wide marketing problem.

Wouldn't surprised me if we tried it, we love to try something completely random and untested to solve all our problems.

Absolute diabolical

Super League is arguably the most competitive and random it has been (Leeds bottom 4 then Champions a year later, Cas in the Grand Final while Wire in the bottom 4 etc) but this has been the weakest year for marketing I can remember.

They can and do do some stuff right, but let's not pretend they are perfect and don't get stuff wrong at times whether it be RL or another sport.

I was thinking more about Sky but yeah fair enough. Wish they would just show some clips of action from the previous season instead of this celebrity endorsement cr@p.

The fact we have some of the very best athletes in the world playing out sport and yet we dont know how to market that idea is a real shame. Going off on a tangent, but Its a shame superstars isnt on anymore. RL players would dominate imo.

Quote ="Mr. Zucchini Head"The fact we have some of the very best athletes in the world playing out sport and yet we dont know how to market that idea is a real shame. Going off on a tangent, but Its a shame superstars isnt on anymore. RL players would dominate imo.'" Hmmm, I'm not so sure, pro athletes have improved everywhere since the 70s/early 80s and though Keith Fielding was a great athlete and did really well but Malcolm McDonald was a 10.9 man I think it'd be tight given the disciplines which aren't just all about raw power/endurance. Based loosely on the modern Pentathlon these were the events I remember with an option to miss one though they also had the pro athlete being excluded if it were their actual sport (which I thought was wrong tbh). 100m dash/steeple chase Swimming Canoeing Shooting Cycling (latterly basketball and soccer dribbling/shooting) Weight lifting Gym test - dips and squats Think they even had cricket one year. Here's a nice little vid of some of the competitors years after https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TE4ZYo7tvCI

Quote ="Mr. Zucchini Head"The fact we have some of the very best athletes in the world playing out sport and yet we dont know how to market that idea is a real shame. Going off on a tangent, but Its a shame superstars isnt on anymore. RL players would dominate imo.'" Hmmm, I'm not so sure, pro athletes have improved everywhere since the 70s/early 80s and though Keith Fielding was a great athlete and did really well but Malcolm McDonald was a 10.9 man I think it'd be tight given the disciplines which aren't just all about raw power/endurance. Based loosely on the modern Pentathlon these were the events I remember with an option to miss one though they also had the pro athlete being excluded if it were their actual sport (which I thought was wrong tbh). 100m dash/steeple chase Swimming Canoeing Shooting Cycling (latterly basketball and soccer dribbling/shooting) Weight lifting Gym test - dips and squats Think they even had cricket one year. Here's a nice little vid of some of the competitors years after https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TE4ZYo7tvCI

Quote ="knockersbumpMKII"Hmmm, I'm not so sure, pro athletes have improved everywhere since the 70s/early 80s and though Keith Fielding was a great athlete and did really well but Malcolm McDonald was a 10.9 man I think it'd be tight given the disciplines which aren't just all about raw power/endurance. Based loosely on the modern Pentathlon these were the events I remember with an option to miss one though they also had the pro athlete being excluded if it were their actual sport (which I thought was wrong tbh). 100m dash/steeple chase Swimming Canoeing Shooting Cycling (latterly basketball and soccer dribbling/shooting) Weight lifting Gym test - dips and squats Think they even had cricket one year. Here's a nice little vid of some of the competitors years after https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TE4ZYo7tvCI'" There arent many better allrounders than RL players though. Show me another game that requires the stamina, skill, speed, strength and toughness. Someone like a Jamie Shaul, Tom Johnstone, Kallum Watkins etc would take some real beating.

Quote ="knockersbumpMKII"Hmmm, I'm not so sure, pro athletes have improved everywhere since the 70s/early 80s and though Keith Fielding was a great athlete and did really well but Malcolm McDonald was a 10.9 man I think it'd be tight given the disciplines which aren't just all about raw power/endurance. Based loosely on the modern Pentathlon these were the events I remember with an option to miss one though they also had the pro athlete being excluded if it were their actual sport (which I thought was wrong tbh). 100m dash/steeple chase Swimming Canoeing Shooting Cycling (latterly basketball and soccer dribbling/shooting) Weight lifting Gym test - dips and squats Think they even had cricket one year. Here's a nice little vid of some of the competitors years after https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TE4ZYo7tvCI'" There arent many better allrounders than RL players though. Show me another game that requires the stamina, skill, speed, strength and toughness. Someone like a Jamie Shaul, Tom Johnstone, Kallum Watkins etc would take some real beating.

Biggest problem would be clubs (RL, RU or football) wanting current players to participate for fear or injury. Wouldn't want a key player doing a Kevin Keegan on a bike.

The BBC had a rubbish new game show yesterday afternoon featuring celebrities doing obstacle course type events and Martin Offiah was on it whose playing days were a long time ago, but also from RU you had a past player in Ben Cohen instead of current players.

[urlhttps://youtu.be/uqSyeyJ9t3s[/url
[urlhttps://youtu.be/bqNbLSmdA6o[/url (MY FAVOURITE BTW...)
[urlhttps://youtu.be/tXIzp0ok24I[/url 29 Years ago and still better than the Brownlee effort
[urlhttps://youtu.be/jgxGWvaPz6w[/url

I can see what the reasoning behind this years ad was, but the execution is just awful. SKY, as the broadcast partner of the game and our #1 source of income seem quite content to do the bare minimum to promote the sport and while we bemoan the lack of media coverage across the board, it is up to the Clubs and their newly appointed board running SL to start to put pressure on SKY to step up their game.
For all Adam Pearson's bluster, I can't see the game being in a different position in 10 years time to that which it is now unless the game starts to hold out broadcast partner to account. Other sports get plenty of support from their partners. SKY NZ actively spend money advertising on National Channels here and they use the lure of Super Rugby and NRL, the Black Caps(Cricket), Silver Ferns(Netball), All Blacks and Kiwis to attract new subscribers.

Netflix, Amazon et al are the future of broadcasting and in 2017 SKY NZ lost 5% of their subscribers, so are pressing hard on the sports ticket to stop the drain. It can't be that different for SKY/BT in the UK and whilst the lure of football will always catch the most attention, why not concentrate on using League to attract subscribers. As far as the clubs are concerned, why not as an experiment don't they offer to give 2 free tickets to a game to 1,000 lapsed SKY subscribers........so sky write to their leaving customer and "sorry to see you go and thanks for being a great customer....here's 2 tickets to a game as our way of saying thanks......and if you ever want to come back, you now where we are"

Not saying that all the tickets would be used, but it scores points for SKY with them seeing as being "generous" whilst we are "interacting' with our broadcast PARTNER.

As it stands, we simply take their money like gleeful kids getting their pocket money and do as we are told by schedulers, regardless of the impact it has on the image of the game......Huddersfield hosted Castleford on May 4th 2017 for a Thursday night fixture that attracted 77,000 viewers who would have seen 5,500 fans in a 25,000 seat stadium........we need more say in which games we are going to allow them to move, because if we allow them to broadcast Thursday Night games such as the one on September 21st last year, then the "image" of our sport will become further tarnished.....Salford on TV hosting St Helens in the Super 8's in front of 2,804 fans is just stupid.......we need to engage the broadcaster and work with them.

Imagine if the rfl had £500,000 kicking around to market the game and promoting the game countrywide..but they haven’t have they because the game is skint and hasn’t got two ha’pennies to rub together...

If you want to run a successful Above the Line marketing campaign across the country, then £500,000 isn't going to be nearly enough money.......but what is to stop the RFL or SL chairmen appointing someone to come up with ideas of how to "organically" market the game where the biggest expenditure is the time of some club employees and a hell of a lot of Media schmoozing.
£500,000 will get you a spot in the ad break of Corrie........once....but every club being targeted with adding 1k to their average attendances and being rewarded for doing so would add 156,000 or 11% to the SL average and get us back over the 10k mark as well as delivering an extra quarter mil to each club in ticket revenue......what is needed is a plan that EVERYBODY buys into and carries out their part....

Well apparently they did have £500k lying about, but it's about to get invested in Greggs

And absolutely massive suits.

The problem is that for the RFL to invest that £500k, it would be a long time before it sees a return on that investment. The RFL sells tickets to just a handful of events, it can only tender its media rights once every few years, and its commercial opportunities are hamstrung by the audience the sport is offering due to the way the clubs market themselves.

Now if the clubs invested £500k, that's a different story. The clubs are the ones who sell the tickets, who sell the merchandise and who sell the corporate packages. They are the ones who should be investing in the marketing of the sport, instead of expecting the RFL to do it for them.

Yes there is an onus on the RFL / SLE to promote "the season" and the brand Super League but when it comes to the actual nitty gritty - the getting bums on seats, selling shirts and reaching new audiences side of marketing - it's on the clubs. The clubs are the main point of consumption, they're the "shop window" for the sport and they're the ones with the most to gain from that investment.

I don't understand why people are more than happy to let the RFL take the bulk of the blame when it is the clubs that are under-investing, the clubs that are under-performing and the clubs that are ultimately at fault.

That £500k should be getting invested at grass routes level, even just £500 at an amateur club means a hell of a lot, so that's 1000 clubs that could be helped out, that's before you look at the rest of the money the RFL have in the bank.
I recently found out that in assets And bank BARLA has in excess of £1.5M, why do these organisations need so much money in their accounts if they are working for the good of their members, this money needs to be finding its way to grass routes or the game will die a long a painful death. Without amateur clubs there is no player pool. Without a player pool there is no game.