Eh?

Not sure what you’re on about there really.
Stop blaming others for the demise of the game? First of all the game isn’t at a point of demise. Despite having dropped recently it’s still healthier than at other points in its history.
If you mean the drop in attendances at the cup final then pointing out other factors such as social change is relevant. Of course it is. Especially as the FA Cup is feeling similar strains. That’s nowhere near the “nation stopping” moment it used to be. Clubs have had to force fans to the games with including it on their season ticket and sometimes financial or ticketing priority punishments if they don’t turn up. But you’ll notice I also blamed the sport for not moving with the times. It’s a double edged sword in RL, we have to adapt and change our game much more than most other sports but we don’t seem to have the will to force that change.

As for the comment of SL “obviously” can’t function without the lower tiers, well that’s laughable. SL has been held back by the lower tiers for 20+ years. Be careful of what you wish for. If SL were to really cast the lower tiers adrift they’d be either dead or entirely part time in 10 years.
You the sport requires a cash injection and it’s not forthcoming to the lower tiers, well it’s not exactly forthcoming to the top tier either is it. The only cash injection we have is the tv deal. The SL tv deal. If lower tier clubs are so keen on cash injections from tv deals then maybe they should make themselves more attractive to broadcasters. It’s a shame some of them along with some of their fans were so negative towards teams in their league with a tv deal.

Just a thought but what about taking the "magic" weekend to wembley the the final game on the sunday being the cup final itself. As super league teams are knocked out they are paired up for the magic fixtures until the two finalists are left, obviously if a championship team get to the final this throws a spanner in the works but its highly unlikely.

When do the two finalists play their league game they’ve missed out on?

The international weekend in june, players from those two clubs would be excempt from international duty, with a may final this wouldnt be a problem. Either that or scrap the so called "magic" weekend, its about time the RFL realised that peoples pockets are only so deep and something has to give.

On top of forking out for season tickets they expect people to pay for wembley, magic, grand final followed next season by 3 tests v the aussies including another trip to London, do they not read the news or dies austerity not enter thier vocabulary.

Personally ive never been to magic and never will ,id rather spend that money taking the wife on a city break to europe than spend hours in a cramped seat watching teams ive no interest in

What international weekend? Devalue internationals? You could strip the England team of half it’s players if they’re playing then.

Expect people to pay? They’re putting an event on. No-one is saying you personally have to go to every single RL event in a year. Which basically boils down to you don’t like Magic Weekend. Which is fine, but obviously plenty of people do enjoy going. Again, just because you don’t like it doesn’t mean everyone can’t like it.

I think the most you can get away with re the Cup Final is a double header. Anymore than that and you’ll still have empty seats for the final itself.

As Axe2Grind has alluded to and others have said for a while, we need the sport to change the way it operates. It’s far too fragmented for such a small sport. Yes Man City and Liverpool can operate in a fragmented market to sell their own tickets for football events, we aren’t strong enough. We can’t continue with this - Club A only sells tickets for an event Club A is directly involved in and the RFL picks up the rest. It has to be a whole sport approach.
No amateur games on any event weekend. Amateur and pro clubs incentivised to sell tickets and travel with discounts for travel and accommodation negotiated by the RFL. Amateur and Pro clubs should also be putting mini events on of their own. Why aren’t they putting the game on in their function rooms, put a bit of food on get a couple of players there and make a bit of money themselves etc etc

Perhaps an improvement on your idea would be to hold Magic at Spurs or Arsenal on the Sunday (5 games) the day after the CC Final at Wembley with the intention of getting most of those going to the Magic Game to also take in the CC Final as well.

The issue you would have is getting one of the Soccer clubs to let you play 5 games on their surface at the start of their season.

We could always promote and advertise the final in the run up to the game


I know this is very innovative and possibly too much for a sport like ours to take on but, we could try ?

You could advertise it as much as you like, that is not the issue. The majority of people in the UK who would go to the final will know exactly where and when it is on. The problem for them, in my opinion, is costs for travelling to London with a partner or family on top of doing Magic/Summer Bash/Catalan/Toulouse/Wankpack trips, something they didn't have to do in the 1990's when the Wembley final was the big event for them as fans and regardless of who was playing they would be there with their mates on organised trips or as a large group. Those sorts of trips are getting few and far between now, blokes tends to put family first and some of them have even started using hair product.

By putting Magic on at the same time in the same City it would create a reason for many more people to visit and as both are RFL events they can offer combo tickets and packages like never before.

When a fan of a club has 2 or 3 decent trips they can do to watch their own club, including one in France in the sun, they are going to put the CC to the bottom of the pile if their club does not make the final.

Advertising the final in London, Barnsley, Aberdeen or Serbia will not bring in any new fans. In the same way I do not go to watch the World Squash Championships when they visit Hull most years. I see the adverts and then carry on thinking about Kelly Brooks bangers. I have no interest in trying new sporting events.

Sorry but, it's the promotion and advertising of the event that would enable it to sell out.
As mentioned in a different post, IF women's football and strictly come dancing can become universally popular, then, I'm damn sure that a RL cup final can be too.
First of all it needs a decent spot in the calendar and it then needs some clever promotion work, especially in London and of course through the RL pyramid - those that sell most tickets getting preference / discount on future events etc or money being put back into the community game.

As I say, there are events far, far less appealing then a Challenge Cup final that are better attended, it's all about getting the promotion right.

Since when did women's football get crowds that would fill Wembley?

And what has a tv show got to do with a final of a cup competition in a minority sport?

You're kidding yourself if you think anyone in London other than a couple of thousand people give a toss about rugby league. Trust me, I spend an awful lot of time there and speak to cabbies, people in pubs, even Broncos fans who can't get a mate to come. Nobody cares.

You think a bit of advertising on the tube will make people pay to go to Wembley to watch a sport they don't care about or want to understand? They can watch top flight football, international rugby union, see amazing west end shows, eat in world class resteraunts and you think they will suddenly decide to waste a day going to watch Rugby League because the RFL have put some posters up or took some adverts on Heart Radio?

As for people having a competition to sell tickets this is already happening. Every club is FORCED to buy so many tickets and many don't sell them all. Amateur clubs try and sell tickets for reward and cannot sell them.

Think about that. RUGBY LEAGUE clubs cannot sell their tickets to their own RUGBY LEAGUE supporting fans and members.

The game has a small number of fans spread across the North of England. The only way you will get Wembley full is to either give people value for money by making their trip to London a combination of events that are saving them cash elsewhere in the year or paying them to go.

Not my opinion, cold hard facts, people have stopped going due to financial reasons. If this was not the case you wouldn't be needing to advertise. You didn't need to advertise in 1985, it would have sold itself.

What will happen if the 2020 Challenge Cup involves Toronto and Catalans?

No one will turn up.

It can be moved to Loftus road.

Quote ="MonkeyLover"Since when did women's football get crowds that would fill Wembley? And what has a tv show got to do with a final of a cup competition in a minority sport? You're kidding yourself if you think anyone in London other than a couple of thousand people give a toss about rugby league. Trust me, I spend an awful lot of time there and speak to cabbies, people in pubs, even Broncos fans who can't get a mate to come. Nobody cares. You think a bit of advertising on the tube will make people pay to go to Wembley to watch a sport they don't care about or want to understand? They can watch top flight football, international rugby union, see amazing west end shows, eat in world class resteraunts and you think they will suddenly decide to waste a day going to watch Rugby League because the RFL have put some posters up or took some adverts on Heart Radio? As for people having a competition to sell tickets this is already happening. Every club is FORCED to buy so many tickets and many don't sell them all. Amateur clubs try and sell tickets for reward and cannot sell them. Think about that. RUGBY LEAGUE clubs cannot sell their tickets to their own RUGBY LEAGUE supporting fans and members. The game has a small number of fans spread across the North of England. The only way you will get Wembley full is to either give people value for money by making their trip to London a combination of events that are saving them cash elsewhere in the year or paying them to go. Not my opinion, cold hard facts, people have stopped going due to financial reasons. If this was not the case you wouldn't be needing to advertise. You didn't need to advertise in 1985, it would have sold itself.'" Wembley was sold out for a recent women's game https://www.theticketingbusiness.com/20 ... s-wembley/ I agree that most Londoners dont know what RL is, never mind when the Cup Final is taking place. Some clever promotion and get a few celebs on board and there you have an untapped market of 5000000 people. Absolutely agree with the value for money thing and we leave that to the brains at the RFL to come up with something. Could Wembley tickets be tied in with GF tickets or magic etc ? Anyone who has registered with "ourleague" should be having reminders dropping into their inbox every couple of weeks for all of the major RL events but, nothing ever happens. If you buy anything else just once on line, you receive mailshots for life but, if you buy tickets for RL events regularly, you hear nothing. Everything is on a build it and they will come, rather than being promoted properly, in fact, not promoted at all. As for not advertising, really ?? As I said, we get bombarded with offers of stuff from all over from tickets to gigs, sporting events (but not RL), etc, etc The one who bangs the drum loudest will get most response and it's extremely naïve to think that just because the cup has been played for 100 years that "everyone" knows when it's on. Do we engage with London tour companies, hotels, ticketing agents ??

Quote ="MonkeyLover"Since when did women's football get crowds that would fill Wembley? And what has a tv show got to do with a final of a cup competition in a minority sport? You're kidding yourself if you think anyone in London other than a couple of thousand people give a toss about rugby league. Trust me, I spend an awful lot of time there and speak to cabbies, people in pubs, even Broncos fans who can't get a mate to come. Nobody cares. You think a bit of advertising on the tube will make people pay to go to Wembley to watch a sport they don't care about or want to understand? They can watch top flight football, international rugby union, see amazing west end shows, eat in world class resteraunts and you think they will suddenly decide to waste a day going to watch Rugby League because the RFL have put some posters up or took some adverts on Heart Radio? As for people having a competition to sell tickets this is already happening. Every club is FORCED to buy so many tickets and many don't sell them all. Amateur clubs try and sell tickets for reward and cannot sell them. Think about that. RUGBY LEAGUE clubs cannot sell their tickets to their own RUGBY LEAGUE supporting fans and members. The game has a small number of fans spread across the North of England. The only way you will get Wembley full is to either give people value for money by making their trip to London a combination of events that are saving them cash elsewhere in the year or paying them to go. Not my opinion, cold hard facts, people have stopped going due to financial reasons. If this was not the case you wouldn't be needing to advertise. You didn't need to advertise in 1985, it would have sold itself.'" Wembley was sold out for a recent women's game https://www.theticketingbusiness.com/20 ... s-wembley/ I agree that most Londoners dont know what RL is, never mind when the Cup Final is taking place. Some clever promotion and get a few celebs on board and there you have an untapped market of 5000000 people. Absolutely agree with the value for money thing and we leave that to the brains at the RFL to come up with something. Could Wembley tickets be tied in with GF tickets or magic etc ? Anyone who has registered with "ourleague" should be having reminders dropping into their inbox every couple of weeks for all of the major RL events but, nothing ever happens. If you buy anything else just once on line, you receive mailshots for life but, if you buy tickets for RL events regularly, you hear nothing. Everything is on a build it and they will come, rather than being promoted properly, in fact, not promoted at all. As for not advertising, really ?? As I said, we get bombarded with offers of stuff from all over from tickets to gigs, sporting events (but not RL), etc, etc The one who bangs the drum loudest will get most response and it's extremely naïve to think that just because the cup has been played for 100 years that "everyone" knows when it's on. Do we engage with London tour companies, hotels, ticketing agents ??

The Challenge Cup isn't a problem that can be solved by advertising.

There's fundamentally flawed thinking in RL circles that "the product is great, we just need to shout about it". The reality is that, when you look at the CC Final in the context of the host of other sporting and leisure events that people can spend their money on, the product is not that great - at least not to the people who don't already buy it. I stand by what I said further up the thread - the CC Final (and in many cases, the game itself), looks tired, dated and unfashionable. You can't advertise your way out of that problem.

The game cannot solve this issue without acknowledging that the product on offer needs to change to meet the expectations of a much wider audience. The RFL and clubs have got used to this 'comfort' zone of tapping the same well over and over again. They've become petrified of challenging, changing and daring to do something different for fear of upsetting a core base that is nowhere near big enough to sustain the sport's growth.

I know people scoff at the comparisons with other sports but, particuarly if the game is going to attract new generations of supporters, it IS competing with those other sports. The next generation of supporters ARE spending far more than the RFL is asking for a ticket to get into London events run by the four big US sports. They're paying to get into womens football matches, joining waiting lists for Premier League games, entering ticket ballots for England cricket tests, filling T20 games - the list goes on. They're doing that not because they're necessarily sports fans, but because those events are offering something that they want.

I don't believe you can restore the CC to former glories, but that doesn't mean you can't lift it to new glories. But it requires fundamental change in the whole event experience.

Absolutely correct, the biggest thing I notice from engaging with RL people compared to Football, Rugby Union, Cricket etc is the fact they appear to think the sport they are involved with is 'the greatest game of all' when it really isn't.

It is a decent watch and can at times be very exciting but the numbers speak for themselves. We have had a few premier league footballers tweet about it during TV games because a few thousand people don't mind watching it on a Friday night if there is no football on. Lets not pretend having celebs involved in promoting it will bring in new fans. It won't. In the same way I do not buy a bra just because I saw Kim Kardashian wearing it. I have no interest and no requirement for one in my life, despite what some nasty people say.

The way to 'grow the game' is from within. Junior participation is on the fall massively but if money and energy was channeled down into that area then you keep numbers up. Kids cannot attend games without an adult, so like it or not if junior player wants to go to a game his old man is going to take him and pay to get in. The same way I am not the biggest fan of Spiderman but I am going to Avengers Live this Sunday because my son wants to go. I am going to watch Championship football next week because my daughter has got into it in a big way and she wants to go to a live game.

Trying to get a web designer from Shoreditch to suddenly go to a game because Ricky Gervais got paid £200,000 to say RL is the best game ever would be like putting your money in a toilet.

I'm with you up to this bit. Growing the game from within is one way to do it, but I'm not sure it's the best way. By focusing on within, the game is naturally limiting its reach and appeal to the same well it's currently tapping.

Web designers in Shoreditch aren't not attending RL games because they're web designers in Shoreditch. They're not buying RL for a myriad of reasons but the bigger two (in my view) are that, firstly, the game doesn't offer the experience that they want and that secondly, for large parts of the year, RL is quite difficult to "buy". We hold one big event in the capital every year, occasionally hold a second, the only place the RL is reguarly played in is more than an hour away from many parts of Central London, the game mostly exists behind a TV pay-wall and merchandising is, in general, crap.

London is a competitive leisure market. There are hundreds of events going on every weekend. Some of those are very expensive, some of them are free. The Challenge Cup and RL as a whole is competing with those events. You can dismiss people going to those events as "not interested" or "not typical RL fans", but relying on "typical RL fans" is why the CC Final is where it is today. The "typical RL fan" isn't really a thing any more in the same way that "typical working class people" aren't a thing any more.

The solution to this starts by the game actually understanding where the next generation of fans are coming from and the audiences that the game wants to attract. When you do that, you can start to understand what they want and how you can both meet and exceed those expectations in the experience we provide - not just on the field, but off it as well. That's the difference between advertising and marketing.

Some fans are going to come "from within", but that only gets you so far. The game can't keep relying on generations of dads to keep dragging their reluctant kids along.

That's a great idea, and if the 1895 cup final featured Bradford, Widnes, or Leigh for example, there might be 20,000+ in attendance.

Sydney is a rl city..... Yet the AFL sydney swans draw more than any NRL side in town. NRL crowds are pittyful in terms of the supposed massive game it is, but what they do very well in aussie is sell events.... ORIGIN and the GF are must see events and that's what the RFL need to do with the CCF....... make it a must see event.

What a ridiculous assertion. Did you know that there are only two (2) AFL clubs in Sydney, but nine (9) rugby league clubs in Sydney? So the allegation that the AFL Sydney Swans draw more than any NRL club, even if true, still proves nothing. The total attendance at nine NRL home games far exceeds the total attendance at the two AFL home games. That is the relevant comparison. You surely knew that, even though you live in New Zealand.

1. I did know that
2. I also knew that as a proud shire boy, you'd bite








3. Greater Western Sydney drew bigger crowds in 2019 than Cronulla-Sutherland Sharks


4. The AFL drew 7.5 million fan to games last season compared to 3.175 million to the NRL, but being a chippy shire boy, you already knew that

I don't disagree with anything you say, it's all very very thoughtful stuff.

But I think we [i"adapted to the market"[/i by creating the Grand Final - iconic stadium, massive crowd and atmosphere and you don't have to travel over 200 miles and then navigate yourself through London where we've all probably been many times before (unlike years ago) all for 80 minutes. I cannot think of any pre-match entertainment that could get me going there unless perhaps Elvis isn't dead and he does his comeback show before the match, or more unlikely the Gallagher brothers do a one off Oasis gig.

As for the day out element boy did I enjoy Magic in Edingburgh and Cardiff, and even a trip to the Etihad, plus Newcastle was a great idea. The Magic weekend is three matches and a day of partying with mates or family. That package beats the cup final which as an event is probably now a distant third best to the Grand Final and Magic.

Sure we can re-brand and make changes - and your post certainly prompts us all to do this, the only problem I have is I cannot think of anything they can do with the Cup final at Wembley that would get me to go there, and for me the way the game has gone with the Grand Final and Magic Weekend is to actually shoot themselves in the foot as regards wembley, but that wound was well worth suffering as we have two bigger and better events instead.

We used to sell Wembley out because (GB.v.Aussie tests apart) it was the only big day of the year. For me ( and I have tried so hard to think of something which your asking us to do) but no matter what you do with it for me, it will remain third rate to Magic and Old Trafford. We keep it as it's one of the few RL events that gets on terrestrial TV and therefore it advertises the sport to a large national audience - something we neeed when we are usually tucked away behind the paywall!!

I think the point about "too many events" is a very fair one, but this is where RL has essentially cannibalised itself because every event, whether its the Grand Final, Magic, Summer Bash, loop fixtures or the CC Final is being aimed at and is trying to appeal to the same, diminishing pool of people.

Not one of those events is really making a concerted effort to appeal to that new generation or new demographic. The people who "just want the 80 minutes" will always be there and there's nothing wrong with that. But if you're going to get your event to stand out to those non-typical RL fans, you need to offer something different and relevant - especially in such a crowded leisure market as London.

Your a very astute gentleman and nobody can argue sensibly with your analysis, all too often the stock tedious answer to improving paying attendances is "marketing, we need more marketing". The only problem with that is if you spend £10,000 more on the marketing and sell £5,000 worth of tickets more than you would have sold it's creates a negative result, you end up £5,000 out of pocket. Clearly making the event more attractive to potential paying attendees is the solution.

That stock tedious answer "Marketing" is to me insulting to the marketing managers of the Superleague clubs, it's not as if they haven't found solutions at some points. Keighleys cougarmania followed by Bullmania worked for a significant time, but all the extra razzamatazz without the extra Rugby league content eventually became boring. Having said that my ticket to the big season opener covers the content of two Superleague games, the debut of a Canadian side (yes I know but it will look good to people on a billboard) and the debut of one of Rugby's greatest. All in a wonderful new stadium with great facilities. It will be interesting to see if it sells out, but even if it does we must remember Mr. Argyle will be standing the major revenue loss of a 9,000 home crowd??? (Have I got this right?)

It is clearly a very difficult thing to do to make an event more attractive without increasing the costs/losses of staging it and thus reducing the profits??

I think the biggest mistake people make in that scenario is that they accuse "marketing" with "advertising". The say things like "I was in <insert name of city hosting RL event> and I didn't see any posters". That's not a failure of marketing - it's a failure of advertising.

Advertising is the big that shouts about what you've got. Marketing is the bit that works out whether you're shouting about the right thing, and determines how you adapt it to make it something that people want to (and can) buy. Marketing is the thing that Apple uses to convice people that they need a new phone that they never realised they needed. Advertising is the thing they use to tell them when to start camping outside the shop.

So in many cases, the point of failure is in the marketing. Not because the game isn't telling people about RL, but because it isn't understanding who it's telling and what they actually want. Many RL events are not very marketable products for a wide spectrum of people - they just don't appeal to people outside the core base and that's why events like Magic and Bash cannibalise the CC Final.

That's what I mean when I say that RL cannot 'advertise' its way out the problems it has got itself into. It can't fix this issue by just yelling "TGG" at people and making out that the people who can't see that are the ones that are wrong. You can't force people to like RL, but you can adapt it to make it something that more people will like.

If that makes the cost of doing business more expensive, then that's the modern reality that we're in.