I get what your saying, and it is difficult to get actual figures as Sky are shrewd about them, but looking at various reputable news articles -

276,000 people tuned in to watch London Wasps against Leicester Tigers on BT (2014 news article)
An early season Wigan vs Huddersfield game on Sky Sports in February attracted an average audience of 299,300.

Yes they're cherry picked figures due to the difficulty in finding anything, but I think it's fair to say that the BT sport numbers are not "very much next to nothing". The growth rate of Union on TV is very real, and very significant, while League still stagnates.

Some of the Aviva Premiership average attendances are heavily skewed by their event games at places such as Wembley.

e.g. if you get 5K attendance at each of 9 home games, then have a Wembley mega match that gets 75k then all of a sudden your (mean) average attendance is 12k !

That's not to say they aren't doing well to get 75k for their one-off Wembley games, just that people often go along for it as an event and it doesn't translate into sustained crowd increases.

I sense that Union is ramping up quite aggressively against RL....last night I tuned into BBC R5 last night...now I missed the start...but no mention at all about the RLWC....plenty of stuff about meaningless Autumn RU internationals though...they can spin an hour talking e about nothing...its all about spin, good PR and the old boys network

Anyone who can suggest that there is no such thing as an active anti RL agenda from the RFU is, quite simply, an idiot who has no idea how the upper middle class go about their business. Wouldn't trust any of them. The type of people who'd rather watch you drown than part with a single penny. The same people who cover up sex scandals and paedophile rings within the establishment.

That escalated very quickly....!!!

but never a truer word spoken,
I hate the sport with a passion

however I'd give Nigel woods left nut to have the media coverage they have.

Off the field Union is simply a different league to League.

Fortunately its still a dreadful sport and they know only by reducing the number of players and getting rid of lineouts and 7ft beanpole plodders and short chubby blokes is their only hope of making it any good.

If a sport has to introduce bonus points in the league to encourage teams to actually score tries, it is broken.

Wonder if any RL will get a look-in with these latest plans from BBS Sport ? I know we got some of the early rounds of the CC last year, it would be great if they were able to bring some live Championship/League 1 RL games too.

""The BBC plans to broadcast 1,000 extra hours of live sport a year online as it attempts to "reinvent free-to-air sports broadcasting".
______________________

More than 30 additional sports or sporting events - including Women's Super League football, the British Basketball League and wheelchair tennis - will be streamed live via iPlayer and the BBC Sport website.

There will also be more coverage of early rounds of the FA Cup.

BBC director general Tony Hall said: "We're giving people more of what they love by working in partnership with the sports industry and making the most of digital technology.

"This shows how we're reinventing the BBC for a new generation.""

That’s it then,il give anyone odds of 100/1 you bet that the majority of them hours will go on the FA Cup, RU may get some but no way will RL get a look in.

I assume 'reinvent free to air sport' really means 'we'll pay next to nothing for minority sports then pay mimimal production costs as they are only going online/red button'.

Hence maybe all the BBC RL CC coverage will end up this way

We aren’t stagnating we’re going backwards.

Going back about five years ago or more Sky had something like:
Monday- x
Tuesday- that chat show with Stevo, 1hr
Wednesday- Boots’N’All, 1hr
Thursday- Super League Superstars, 1hr; Live Championship game, 3hrs
Friday- Live SL game, 3hrs
Saturday- Live NRL game, 2hrs; Live SL game, 3hrs
Sunday- All The Tries, 1hr

Plus England and Great Britain test series and games.

So almost all of the week you could tune into Sky at a prime evening or weekend slots and find something to do with Rugby League on with a total of around 15 hours of airtime.

Now we have:
Monday- x
Tuesday- x
Wednesday- x
Thursday- Live SL game, 3hrs
Friday- Live SL game, 3hrs
Saturday- Catalans h games, 2hrs
Sunday- All The Tries, 30mins

Plus one or two CC early round games and the Summer Bash.

With around 6.5-8.5 hours of airtime a week depending on whether Catalans are at home or not.

Did Sky put all of their eggs in the Premier League and Formula One and make cut backs or are Sky slowly washing their hands of us?

Either way, do we need to find someone other than Sky who can reach a similar audience that can grow? Because at this rate our viewing figures will only be going backwards.

I genuinely do miss Boots’N’All. It was a family tradition to sit down and watch that on a Wednesday. Even when I’d grown up and moved out of my parents I still went round and watch B’N’A with me Dad.

What do we need to do?
Go and headhunt Alan Sugar's head of Marketing from the 1980's.
To anyone under the age of 40, Mr Sugar basically peddled poop product for decades, yet (bar Branson) he's this country's most famous businessman..... ergo, they (his marketing team) must be doing something right. People are gullible.

Take music for example. Two of the most bland, insipid, dire "acts" in the world right now, are Adele and Ed Shearon. Personally, I'd rather have chronic diahorreah, toothache, galloping alopecia, penile warts and gingivitis, than have any of their records in my collection. But, as the general public have been browbeaten into being told that their music is so brilliant, people go out and buy it in their droves. The general public are TOLD what to like.People are gullible. They like to "fit in" with what others are doing.

The three point game fits into this, too. Not so much with the upcoming autumn internationals, but just you wait 'til late January, when the yawnfest that is the 6 Nations kicks off. You'll get middle aged housewives that have ZERO interest in sport, tuning in to watch with their husbands. Simply because the RFU have got their marketing dept going "all out" to get bums on sofas. Guess what? It's worked.
The same goes for tennis. Very few people in a population of 60+ million give a stuff about tennis. Come the end of June, the same middle aged housewives can't get enough of it. Does Mrs Smith of 23 Acacia Avenue, Tunbridge Wells, know who won last week's tennis event?? Does she hell. But she'll watch Wimbledon, 'cause it's rammed down her throat.

To me, we have the greatest sport on the planet. But no-one pushing it. Last night, I was bored, so I put Youtube on, and watched AGAIN, Man City v Monaco from last season. One of the most entertaining games of footie I've seen in years. Yet, there are loads of games of RL with more entertainment than that, season in, season out. The trouble is, few people know it's out there.

Raise the salary cap. In all honesty, it's not really worked. The same teams are still winning. We MIGHT attract a few decent Aussies, bar the ones who are washed up, at the end of their careers or have committed a massive misdemeanor, if we do.

Oh....and get some marketeers, and flog them to within an inch of their lives.
Get them to tell the public that RL IS the greatest game. Stevo did. But he's hated.

Agree that our marketing is pretty poor as a sport. Our first marketing drive must be to get rid of the perception it's a northern sport. Toronto catalans at a London Welsh Scottish stadium would raise profile in area visited but that's a small part in a larger plan that would be needed.

I believe that there are a few key factors that are needed firstly a strong international game. What's the point in marketing a gb tour when it's every whenever! The 6 nations gets figures as it's part of the sporting fixtures now along with Wimbledon Silverstone football World Cup euros ashes etc these things take place regularly and figures have generally increased. Or the marketing and spin has retained viewers at least.

I also think that the BBC are actually quite good at packaging and presenting the sport to the neutral or newcommer to the sport as opposed to sky. We need to increase international viewing and support first and foremost, Mrs Smith in Tunbridge Wells will most likely be supporting England and Murray in 6nations and Wimbledon its going to be easier to sell her great Britain v Australia over hull v Salford.

There are more broadcasters now who could enable the rfl to negotiate better but I get the feeling that they just accept the first offer to cover the salary cap excluding exemptions. Then do not give sky exclusivity like the Premier league sell a quantity of games to each broadcaster. Something needs to change were getting less exposure on sky but that has not been replaced in other media channels.

N finally the cap my view on this is it needs to be higher much higher for us to even consider improvement not only to enable us to bring in nrl ayers but to make the sport a more realistic career choice for some who loitering at earning potential in the spirt and for what the players are asked to do its not particularly a well paid sport in comparison to other professional sports.

Two really good posts. Thanks.

I don’t doubt that the RFU would be as ruthless as they have been in the past in pursuing an anti RL agenda if they ever have to, but I can’t see that it even needs to be “active” at the moment. At what point in the history of RL has it ever posed less of a threat to Union than at present?

In this hemisphere you mean...

I think raising the cap (+ the marquee rules) will definitely help the sport, as it keeps the quality of the product up, and existing fans interested. I'm genuinely excited to see Roberts, Sandow was also great for the league, as was the getting back Tomkins (even if his return hasn't been that great so far).

But that of course doesn't solve the wider marketing problem to new fans. Talking to my friends who are generally interested in sport, we can all hold a conversation on Tennis, Cricket, RU, Football, F1, but when I say how excited I am at our capture of Roberts, they don't know him from Adam. We could have signed Inglis, and my friends would have been just as apathetic as when we signed Kev Brown. So us being able to sign a marquee Aussie name has little relevance to a non RL fan.

I think the RFL need to work on marketing *players*. So many passive fans watch sport because of who's playing. If we didn't have Murray, Wimbledon would not be as big. If we didn't have Hamilton, there'd be less interest in F1. I've never had any interest or care for PSG, but since they signed Neymar I've been watching clips on Youtube. I started to have a passive interest in Sale Sharks after they signed Cipriani.

When Tomkins played for the Barbarians, I thought that was fantastic. His profile (and by association that of the sport) went up. But that was just one little drop. We need to do more of that. Our players need to become media darlings, get their faces out there, and become household names. Get em on the circuit. Don't just stick Ashton Sims on Question of Sport, get him on Something for the Weekend, or Loose Women, they'd love him. Throw Jon Wilkin on Strictly, or Albert Kelly on some crap Saturday night hole in the wall type thing. So many non-celebs crop up on all these shows peddling whatever crap autobiography they have out at the moment. Let's throw our guys in and get them into the public conscious.

Great last paragraph

I think in the modern world of social media, the ability to drive a message by top down marketing is diminishing compared to the impact of stuff being shared and talked about on instagram, facebook, twitter, so fans can drive this themselves.

It's already happened in politics. At the last election the Conservatives spent millions on marketing their strong and stable message but they ended up outflanked on the brand awareness score by Corbyn's activists on social media.

I saw Martin offiah on some daytime nonsense a couple of weeks ago. ....
Seriously no one outside rugby league circles must have the slightest clue who this guy is. He has just become a nothing celebrity.

He is not in anyway a face of our sport. ...he's just become famous for appearing on really bad programmes.

The trouble is, we have none marketable to the media.
Burgess is known to the sport watching public, but the way the 3point code have treated him since his dip into their game, he'll be classed by them as a failure. Rob Andrew and a few others have hung him out to dry. Nowadays, he's plying his trade 13,000 miles away

The rest, well you could trip over any of them iin Coventry's Asda, and not have a clue who they are. Counter this to the Oz tour of 94, we had Davies, Robinson, Betts, Connelly, Offiah, Edwards, Farrell and Clarke, all coached by Hanley.......pretty much all household names in the sporting world, and a few of them in any world.

Yes, Sky saved our sport by their cash injection, but the switch to summer. loss of BBC games and touring sides, and lack of quality in the last 5 years of SL, has really hilurt us. We need a few superstars, and quickly.

We need the RFL to change, and actually promote our sport, as RU would theirs

So who are the household names from union that the average casual sports / non-RU fan could name?

Thought you might respond to one of my posts, as I seem to be a bit of a recent obsession for you. Maybe it takes the heat off others.

OK, I'm game.

I've just Wikipediad England's last squad in the 6 Nation's championship. I've heard of TWELVE of them. Now, bear in mind I've not watched a game of RU in DECADES, I'd call them pretty much household names, for the non RU watching sports fans. I've as much interest in a game of Union, as I have in Tennis, Formula One, women's sport and Horse Racing ( since I FINALLY realised how bent it is)........i.e. none.

Bear in mind (again) that was JUST England's squad. Not Scotland, Ireland or Wales.

Hope that helps

Indeed, I was referring only to England in fact, as that is the extent of the RFU’s jurisdiction nowadays. Union in Australia at state/franchise level is having its own crisis

I don't normally look at who posts the comment, for some reason I can't see peoples avatars any more on my web browser, but your comments must be the more interesting ones if I respond so don't take offence.

I've heard of a similar number but I am more of an engaged sports fan. I don't think today's RU squad has got the household names like the past. Will Carling, Jeremy Guscott, Brian Moore, Rob Andrew, Rory Underwood, Mike Catt, Johnny Wilkinson, Martin Johnson, Matt Dawson were household names in the way that the likes of Davies, Schofield and the Wigan players of the 1990s were. Probably Danny Cipriani is more of a household name than a lot of the players in the current squad.

You could probably say the same thing is happening in football and cricket as well to England teams. England possibly has the best striker in Europe at the moment but his wider profile is still in the shadow of Rooney. In cricket the one real household name is Ben Stokes who is not being taken with the Ashes squad.

without referring to any other website and just trying to right down names

I can name George ford and Owen Farrell, Ben Teo Denny Solomona Josh Charnley and Kyle Eastmond

whether any of them are household names I dont know, all i know is I only know them becasue of their Rugby League links.

The only non League related players I can name are Danny cipriani, maybe Gavin Henson if he's still playing and again David Strettle if he's still playing and that's just because he's from Lymm and he came down to Monday night touch rugby once.

I absolutely hand on Heart couldn't name a single captain from any of the six nations teams.

and I wouldn't want it any other way....