It's not like the league is going to be branded Batchelors Peas Super League. The league is still First Utility Super League.

This also gets Rugby League on 30 million cans.

The Premier League can afford to not have a sponsor from next year due to the massive TV deal, Rugby League needs to grab sponsors when we can.

The RFL could now hire Peter Mandelson, and bully every one to believe that they aren't mushy peas.....it's guacamole.

Do you think for one minute that someone will see the can of mushy peas and say, "hey whats this, Super League, well if it's as good as my marrowfats I'd better switch on or go to a game".

It makes Rugby League a laughing stock. Again.

Foxy bingo, mend a hose, dog grooming business for Wakefield, mushy peas, low rent utility company...it's woeful and going backwards at a rate of knots and it'll take some overhauling to get the game back on track. We'll do well to keep emirates interested in keeping this sort of company.

And there we have the nail on the head.

Can you imagine someone from a non RL watching area, turning on SS1 on a Friday night, and hearing some of the cringe-inducing sponsorship deals the clubs have arranged, when Eddie says "welcome to the Super League at the ???????????? ????????????????? ?????? arena". They'll need a change of underwear.

I must admit, when we named our ground Halliwell Jones, I cringed a little, but at least it's linked to a worldwide brand (BMW). Some of the names of the ground's sponsorship deals, are like the match ball sponsors for games in the 80's e.g. Paul's Fish and Chips, Tony's Tyres, Smith's Newsagents, Dan's Hardwear store. We (as a game) had all that Sky money from the mid 90's, yet most of the clubs, and the RFL, have the business marketing skills of Edd The Duck, and are still operating in the Dark Ages.

Its a comedy sponsorship of the highest order.

I say it every year but big fat Nigel wood has got to go.............

He his dragging the sport through the gutter...

I shudder to think what would happen if the BBC could be d running this story......

they recently managed to make the 43 million pound debt of Saracens RU club sound like a good news story.......

the worry with crap like this Peas story is how long we can hold on to people like Roger Draper..??

He'll be focused on Warrington at the minute, but there has got to come a point when he sits in a room with Nigel Bungle Wood and think what the feck am I doing in this backwater hillbilly sport....

Say what you like about marwan but at least he tries to drag the game forward on the business front and has landed mitsubishi as a sponsor. Now I realise clubs need money and maybe (unlikely) the dog groomers are spending more than mitsubishi and emirates for us but it creates the right image. The rfl needs to look at it's image and if they got a global brand paying a pittance for a couple of years it would pay dividends in the long run...as it is we're the Jeremy kyle of sports.

What the hell are you lot on about?

Why in gods name would you expect blue chip companies to sponsor RL? What would they get from it? The reason we get the likes of Foxy Bingo sponsoring us is because that's our demographic. We are a sport with 15? English full time teams. All of whom are based in relatively poor areas of the north with relatively poor fans.
We aren't going to get Hilton Hotels, Moet or Land Rover sponsoring us.
You could take the exact same people the RFU use to get sponsors, give them the same funding and we still wouldn't get blue chip sponsors.

If we want to get such sponsors we have to change our image. But you can only change your image by ACTUALLY changing the sport to entice a more affluent market. Something which is very difficult to do when we have no money.

Sadly the sport bankrupted itself 20-30 years ago in its relentless pursuit of higher and higher player wages at the expense of investment in the clubs themselves. To the point where only a handful (3 or 4) clubs have any assets to speak of and again only a handful can make a profit to reinvest.

I'd love us to be live on BBC or ITV but they aren't going to pay anything like Sky does. So we have to take the money (still paying now for the sins/excesses of the past).

Again, to expect us to have comparable sponsors to football or F1 is ludicrous. They're monumentally bigger sports.

Given that context I don't understand the upset toward a very minor partnership deal like the peas one. It gets SL advertised on 30 million cans. A kind of consistent, mass advertising we are sorely lacking.

Bloody spot on this lefty. If it were me in the rfl I would have to think twice about this deal yeah it's much needed funds blah blah but ffs guys this is the best organisation you can attract to our game then jog on. Pie eaters will be in favour for odvios reasons lol

Fly Emirates. That's all I'm saying.

Well, if you're happy with the mushy pea tie-up, you must have pretty low aspirations.
Why shouldn't the RFL (and individual clubs) bang on the doors of huge multinationals, and say "do you want to sponsor our game/side". Obviously, we're not going to broker the size of deals that football gets, but arrange something. Our shirt sponsors are Emirates Airlines, the same company that sponsors Arsenal, AC Milan, PSG and other household sporting names. Proof it can be done.

No offence to Him, but having attitudes to growth/expansion like his, is exactly why our sport goes no where/gets laughed at. You've just as well said we should be grateful that we've got the SL logo on cans of peas. DREADFUL. I wouldn't have expected Alan Sugar's worst lacky on The Apprentice to arrange a "deal" like this, let alone people who run one of the biggest televised sports in the country.

I know this isn't the best analogy, but for those of a certain vintage, it's like going into a nightclub at 11 o'clock, seeing the plainest looking girl in the place, and making her the object of your affections for the rest of the evening, when you know that the place will full of good lookers for the remaining 3 hours.

As a sport "we've gone ugly, early"

How about the Bachelors Peas Challenge Cup & for league games half time entertainment could be flatulence competitions between opposing fans which may even attract interest from the likes of a major player in the toilet paper industry.

But seriously, where is the young lady who brought us the successful RLWC ? We could do worse than get her on board with an offer she can't refuse.

You make your point well but I am not persuaded.

Darts is a working class sport and manages to get sponsorship deals with William Hill, Singha Beer, Coral and BetVictor. Gaelic football (minority localised sport) manages to attract AIB and Eircom.

It's a sheer lack of vision, ambition and ability within the exec leadership of the game in my view. The brand association with "mushy peas" is actually damaging to the credibility of RL.

We did well with that, albeit a locally arranged deal that levers an international brand. Nevertheless it's the association that matters.

This image demeans the professional athletes and ridicules them in my view.

I know we've been slightly fortunate with that nevertheless we've managed to get a big name on our shirt, and if rumours would have you, they were after the stadium naming rights as well.

What do you reckon the odds are that rog and gatcliffe before him got a call from red hall asking for a meeting with our connection to put some feelers out.

Woods got talking to koukash on a flight, conned him into taking over a club, whether were convinced of his alleged wealth or not, he's another that's got contacts galore.

He was pushing on Twitter the other week he's arranged you get ten percent off if you stay at a Hilton hotel and you're a SL season ticket holder. I don't know if it's just the Liverpool one, but that's still a possible viable opportunity

On a side note, in the Super League era we've pretty much had decent name sponsors on the front of the shirt. Even in the darkest days we had Miller Homes, who whilst not an exciting brand are a reasonably successful business.

Most of the SL stadiums are modern upto date venues which belies or bellys in this case the image created by fat northern pie and mushy pea eaters. Our venues are generally our own, or directly linked to clubs like wigan and hull whereas many of the yawnion clubs have to rent from other clubs.

We need someone at the top of rl who's aim it is to change the image from mushy peas to a modern super fit sport. If Nigel Wood doesn't smell the coffee (or bacon), then we need change. We have the athletes and the facilities and attendances (bar internationals) to be the 2nd best sport in this country and for whatever reason were languishing.

We also need a descent press officer to represent our sport properly in the press. SL coverage is atrocious in all the papers bar the Guardian and Mirror and even these papers report behind most other sports. I've often thought it would be an idea to arrange a boycott of papers whose SL reporting leaves something to be desired until they change.

It was this image that got my goat. RL players are some of the fittest athletes in world sport, and they're shown eating a typical take away meal in a particularly gormless fashion. On a PR level it sucks.

I am trying to make an anagram with the words "Bachelors Peas"
The best I have come up with is CBAP ARSEHOLES
Can anyone improve on that

I came up with-

To spare a belch

(I have an 's' left over)

I made a mistake I missed the "t" out Batchelors Peas

Trouble is that means boycotting them all, especially if you live in the South like me. The Guardian is a big let-down, being historically rooted in the North West. However, even they responded to some fan pressure by reinstating the RL link on the Website, so it's worth badgering your fav publication ( exception - Daily Telegraph ) to improve coverage.

It's not all bad news, the RFL managed to get that upmarket car brand "Dacia" to climb on board.