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.

As of the 2015 annual report the RFl had over £10m in cash in the bank excluding reserves and excluding creditors which amounted to another £10M.
2016 and it would seem the RFl handed out £7M in loans and the cash in hand dropped £7M with creditors owing £17M, the massive increase in costs seems to have come from 'administration' which jumped £920,000 from £10.55M to £11.47M.
Profit on ordinary activities dropped from £200k to £6k in one year.
Sorry but the RFL is mismanaged and wastes money as well as paying massively over the recommended pay rises by the independent auditors for its directors and CEO. This extra-ordinary pay rise was voted for by the panel made up of those directors and CEO of the RFL!!

To suggest that they can't afford a bit of money to invest in the game is not only ludicrous but also that it would take them time to get it back is failing to understand how the RFl generates its money from the sport and it isn't simply just through a few events!

I'm not suggesting the RFL can't "invest in the game", not am I arguing that it doesn't have problems. But that doesn't absolve the clubs, who are private entities in their own right, from not marketing themselves properly.

The onus is on the clubs to grow crowds and ticket revenue, to sell merchandise, to sell corporate packages, to find new commercial partners, to expand their catchment areas, to find new audiences that advertisers want to reach and to increase their revenue.

I can't think of any other group of businesses where people expect somebody else to do their PR, sales and marketing for them, and yet rugby league clubs seemingly get a free pass from supporters.

McDonalds?
Every branch of this chain in the uk is a franchise with the corporate entity not only paying for, but rolling out a strategic marketing plan across all mediums



I can see a similarity with RL but we don't like to use the word franchising

Marketing costs are ultimately built into the franchise fee. The franchisees are paying for the brand, and McDonalds is reaping a direct proportion of the revenue generated from that marketing. The RFL, by comparison, isn't creaming a percentage of every club's ticket sale profits.

Like you say, if we want to get into a position where the clubs become "franchises" in the strictest sense of the word, it might be comparable. But I can't see many chairmen going for that.

Do you ever see football fans kicking up a stink at the Football League because their club isn't selling tickets, or do Sale Sharks fans blame the RFU for their empty seats? Why is it that RL fans direct their anger at the governing body, and away from the clubs? After all, it's not the RFLs fault that Salford can't sell tickets, or that Huddersfield have to sell tickets well below market value.

But the RFL profits are derived entirely from the work done by the clubs, in that if the clubs didn't provide the entertainment, there would be no RFL. As the governing body, there is a duty to promote the game they govern, using the money they have obtained from governing the game.

How a lack of proper marketing can be justified in the week that Nigel Wood trousers half a million quid from the game is beyond me.

I haven't disagreed with your philosophy regarding the cost of marketing, I've disagreed with your comment about no decent company adopting a centrally funded strategic marketing rollout



I have a slight marketing background but by no means an expert, but I would say that with a business model such as RL, I would have a strategic plan in place that involves the support of the members but controlled by a single entity, clubs just don't have the resource to employ a marketing professional, I doubt Coventry all golds could even afford me and I wouldn't be the best person for the role, however the RFL currently gets a big pot of cash from Sky/sport England and other income streams, some of that is paid out to clubs and some retained, IMO a % of that figure should be spent on marketing as in effect the SL Clubs (and other clubs) are actually paying it in to the RFL, then a fully costed marketing strategic plan be rolled out and supported by its members, much the same as say the "Respect" campaign that was centrally funded and rolled out to "All" clubs including amateur ones. I don't think that's a difficult thing to ask for or to gain any support. It just isn't going to happen if you ask 12 SL teams to do their own thing and then everyone else do nothing because they really don't have the cash/resources. It's has to part of the "BIG" plan, the overall plan to take the game forward, it has to be in the control and cost of the governing body.

The question is at what level the clubs are "providing the entertainment" at. The RFL could exist as an amateur sport, but I think we all agree that is not where we want to be.

The clubs (should) understand their own markets better than anyone. They (should) understand the markets that they want to grow into better than anyone and they (should) know how to engage those audiences. They are, at the end of the day, individual businesses with their own shareholders, their own investors and their own P&L. They should be capable of marketing themselves properly.

And when they realise their return on that investment (if they do it properly), we can have a better entertainment product, better sponsorships, better facilities and better youth development pathways.

Until then, the sport will continue this slow and painful decline.

I can understand the challenges for some of the smaller clubs, but lets remember that they're operating on a different scale. If the issues or poor marketing were confined to the lower reaches of the sport, then I think there's a fair argument for some wider central support.

But they're not confined to the lower echelons of the game. They're glaring at the very top. We have clubs that can't sell tickets without massively underselling them (remember Ken Davy's "biggest announcement in Huddersfield's history", which was a discounted season ticket?), we have clubs that haven't grown crowds in years, clubs that can't get eCRM right, have crap ecommerce systems and don't know how social media algorithms and content marketing work.

These aren't small part-time clubs run by volunteers. There are multi-million pound businesses with dedicated marketing and commercial teams.

Personally, I don't think that centralisation is the way to go for the reasons in my post above - the clubs are seperate entities, they have their own P&L, and should know their markets better than anyone else. What I would say is that yes, the RFL has a duty to market the concept of the 'competition', and in some areas it's actually not as bad at this as many people claim it is - although this year has been poor.

I personally do think that the RFL should be setting some stronger targets and KPIs for the clubs, and making elements of central funding performance contingent, but I don't see the clubs accepting that, and it would be hard to do without licencing.

But what this constant shifting of blame to the RFL does is perpetuate the problem. It makes people think that Barry and Eddie Hearn could solve the problem, when I think even they know that they couldn't sort this show out because it would need the complete and equal commitment from all 12 clubs - and they have never promoted a sport where they have to contend with that sort of power dynamic.

I've worked in marketing for a while and I've seen clients with many of these problems. If I thought that the RFL were really the reason why Salford can't sell tickets, why Wigan don't have an online store that works on a mobile device, or why Huddersfield can't grow crowds despite selling season tickets at half the price of their competitors, then I'd call the RFL out. But they aren't at fault for that.