Quote ="Wires71"And why do you think this is? Do you think the RFU sit on their bums and not nurture the media, corporates and club RU fan base? The RFU wee wee all over the RFL in terms of marketing, and this is from an organisation which used to be amateur. We have a lot to learn from RU.'"
I disagree in terms of merketing individual events, which is what I was referring to.
I agree that the RFU have done things in the past which has got them into this position, whereas historically the RFL have made a lot of mistakes, not least failing to capitalise on some very good INternational crowds in the early 90's IMO.
With regards to events and one off events nowadays, the RFL generally do a very good job of what is a tough sell, in part due to the lethargy of many RL fans to big events, especially when compared to Union fans, who generally like to attend 'events', IMO it is a reason something like the Barbarians works in Union but would never work in League.
Forgetting the history of what has happened (which is very relevant, but not the point I was making) and I reckon if you arranged two similar events, one Union and one League and did exactly the same basic marketing, the Union event would attract a load more fans.
RL fans like to moan about the RFL but often don;t put their money where their mouth is.
A perfect example of this was the Northern Union game at the HJ a few years back. Fans did nothing but moan that it wasn;t very well advertised, yet I would defy any RL fan to claim they did not know it was on. The game was publicised on Sky Sports (200-350k viewers during playoffs), was included in the RFL Events guide which is sent each year, was advertised in club programmes, the SL website, emails, RL press etc. Because people don;t see posters and billboards they think no promotion has gone on. The game attracted just over 6k IIRC. Union can attract 50k to Wembley for a Barbarians v Australia game, and I'm prepared to bet that they didn't do much more.
League is onto a loser with much of the media, look at the mass hype that the British Lions tour has had, despite the viewing figures on sky being massively lower than regular Premiership football, much lower than most England T20 games, and even lower than the Darts finals at the beginning of the year. The fact that some papers had 9 and 10 pages dedicated to the Lions in the build up and the post match reviews is farcical.
I know that Union have generally been much better at courting the media, however nobody can argue that they haven't been giving a big helping hand.
The RFL, although not perfect, are pretty well run nowadays, and work very hard for little visible returns at times.
Apologies for the ramble, but that is what I was getting at with my original post.
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