www.espn.co.uk/rugbyunion/sport/story/93037.html. This won't help our game either

www.espn.co.uk/rugbyunion/sport/story/93037.html. This won't help our game either

You should, Gaz is dead right.

What are they advertising on ESPN Aviva games Rolex's and Bentley's? Blokes for example can only buy the latest Gillette 6 blade razor once. So what they are saying is one third 'a rugby union tv audience' will potentially buy twice the value of a Superleague tv audience? Despite the Superleague audience having enough disposable income to afford pay tv? How can they calculate disposable income? You could have someone for example in a higher value property/postcode area/job mortgaged to the hilt with debts and another person in a lower value property/area with more disposable income? I can understand the theory if the viewing figures were more equal but they are poles apart. What about all the Rugby Union people that also watch Superleague on TV, do they not count them?

There may well be an element of it, old class prejudices die hard and all that. Although I'm more inclined to believe these decisions are made from collated data and probably by a computer using a specific algorithm.

I forgot to mention that in regards to televised sport advertising, the ideal or target audience is men, aged between 18-30/34, in the A, B & C1 bands. I remember reading an article in the [iRugby Leaguer & League Express[/i about a piece of research that was completed on the social breakdown of the televised sport audience, per sport. Rugby union scored relatively well, having a decent percentage of male viewers in the ideal bracket; rugby league on the other hand, didn't. What rugby league did score highly on was the amount of women that watch the game on telly.

The outcomes are open to interpretation, of course. Perhaps the R.L. audience is more family based, with the paternal parent older and children younger than the ideal age bracket yet residing inside the ideal class bands; perhaps it is predominantly working class based within the ideal age bracket. You may also want to scrutinise the research conditions - I don't know anything about the samples and methods involved.

The golden goose as far as sports advertising is concerned is golf. Outside the majors, golf gets around the same audience figures as speedway on Sky Sports - around 40-70k. Yet check the adverts when golf is on. The higher value brands (e.g. Rolex) are on show. I'd imagine the mean audience age would actually be significantly higher than the advertisers ideal, which is contradictory, but golf is intertwined with the world of business: high-powered networking and corporate deals.

By the way, I forgot to attach the source for those audience figures — they are available from [url=http://www.barb.co.ukBARB[/url.

And ps....

It's a market! There is no higher being determining how much an advertiser will pay for what audience - they pay what they think its worth...

which comes back to the TV money. the sport will get what it is worth to whichever TV company gets the deal - there's a few too many people thinking that we're "worth more" without realising that the market is what is determining the price.

Yes I personally feel that 3x the viewing figures is worth more that half the broadcasting deal Superleague currently has when compared to RU. As I mentioned before how many of these demongraphically fitting 'higher social class' rugby union followers also watch Superleague? I think you also have to consider the value of Superleague being the only live contact sport over the summer months. Surely this is unique and lends itself to advertisors of certain seasonal products? Perhaps the Aviva has been overvalued and this disparity will be reflected in next broadcasting deal for Rugby Union. Could it be that ESPN payed well over the odds as part of their strategy for taking some of Sky's existing market? Could Sky have overvalued their own bid to force up the price ESPN had to pay?

Just on another topic did anyone else hear Salford get a mention twice on BBC's Football Focus last week? They were saying they are moving the show from London to Salford from next season. I was quite surprised the presenter actually pronounced Salford right but I think Dan Walker has worked previously in the North. 'Solford and not Salford'