I may well be wrong about this but....
I thought the BBC Sport page had Rugby League as one of its main Sports links on its page next to Football, Cricket, Rugby Union etc?

Am I dreaming?
Now its Football, Formula1? (really) Cricket, RU, Tennis, Golf, Athletics, Cycling and Sochi 2014
Did Rugby League take a bullet for Sochi?
League is now in the mass of "more sport" with Badminton, Snooker and Bowls.

[urlhttp://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/[/url

The answers you seek are in [url=http://www.totalrl.com/forums/index.php/topic/245981-complain-to-the-bbc-about-this/here[/url.

IIRC you are right, and it was a main sport..............

The headers are most likely based on the popularity of each sport on the BBC website and whilst the people on this forum, plus many, many, others, see RL as a fantastic sport, it's popularity is not as great as some would think.
Also, the off season has been as low key as I can ever remember with even the SL official website struggling for a story.
The topics that most fans want to know about are just not being mentioned and at some point, we may find out who the new SL sponsor is, what the league structure will be (beyond next season), whether Bradford will complete the season etc, etc.
If the SL website has nothing to say, how can we expect anyone else to ?

Sorry I missed the other thread.
I am not going to be a doom monger but the game is....... not going as good as it could.

I thought this had been cleared up already, bbcsport.co.uk - rugby league appears in the banner (and has done so when I checked just then) but .com (the international page) doesn't?

Cycling is that popular? Seriously??

From an international perspective, I'd say yes. But then I don't see what's so popular about Cricket and Union, but whatever. I don't expect Aussies, French, Kiwis, Papuans etc. to go to the BBC website when they look for RL news, let's be honest it is crap and slow, so therefore we miss out on 'international' readers for RL.

BBC don't give a poop about RL. Accept it.

In fairness, there are probably more members of the public looking at cycling news (on the back of Wiggins and Froome, etc and the Tour de France coming to England), than there are, trying to find out who's gone bust in RL or, whether the sport has a new sponsor. So yes, cycling is that popular.

International BBC readers comes down to two things:
1. How important our domestic competitions are to other countries - ie the Premier League will interest people all around the world, Wimbledon will draw in international tennis fans etc.
2. How many British expats there are around the world reading the BBC website.

Tour de France gets more viewers IN FRANCE alone than all RL competitions do around the world all year......it's true because the IRB paid for it to be so




Cricket eh? Not popular you say eh?





yes they do.....they paid for 6 games at the RLWC and almost got their monies worth

Absolutely spot on - and there is some evidence that this fact has been accepted at the top of the game with current (professional) expansion taking place through the Championships.

Don't know about paid for it but your clearly using the IRB calculator!

French audience Tour de France = 61mill
Australian audience NRL/SOO/RLWC2013 = 120million

Hmmmmmm

Sorry to disappoint you but, the Aussie viewing figures aren't the b-all and end all in world sport and cycling isn't just watched in France.
Having said that, I'm sure that RL features heavily on the BBC equivalent in Aus, Although RL is only 5th on the ABC website

Minority sport, given the coverage a minority sport deserves. Whats the problem?

Regards

King James

bored children with to much time on there hands.

Warm Regards,

Grown ups.

Rather than mock my post in a playground kind of way, prove me wrong. Around 90,000 people play rugby league in the UK. Compare that to tennis (400k) and cricket (1.7million) and whilst participation rates in cycling are hard to come by, 200,000 people took part in sky rides across the uk last year.

So yes, rugby league is a minority sport, played in the main, by lower socia-economic groups.

Regards

King James

Yep, bar the English expats abroad and some other Commonwealth people having a read of English cricket news, I can't see it being that popular. I don't believe many Mexicans or Russians would know what Cricket is, let alone read about it.

are we counting POTENTIAL audiences now? Quick, someone tell the IRB and their 4 billion......

Cricinfo.com is, I believe, the busiest sports website on the planet.......The BBC is one of, if not, the largest news organisation on the planet.
I find it funny that certain insecure RL fans expect global coverage because 8k people in Bristol attended a game

A lot of people play Tennis recreationally, rather than joining a club or league. It's the same as saying someone who goes down to the pool for a swim counts towards participation for swimming in the UK. You may now realise cycling is classed as the no.1 sport in England, again mostly due to recreational activities. 1.7m Cricket players? Try 148, 300.

Probably down to India's huge population, but Cricinfo is fourth btw Yahoo is number one. I don't expect global coverage you numpty, but fair is fair. I don't agree with the claims that cricket is a huge global sport, just because India has a huge population. Where are the teams outside of the Commonwealth? All I see is mostly teams full of expats, yet if that was RL you'd be mocking them.

Cricket is a more popular sport than RL both domestically in the UK and Australia, as well as globally. No amount of pigeon holing and pivoting is going to change that. Fair is Fair? How about supply and demand?
as for ex-pats.......check out the 2 countries that supplied over 55% of ALL the players at the recent RLWC