Just been on the BBC sport website to see what pre-season information and news there is in readiness for the new Super League Season and the two main headlines are "Former Rugby League Star denies rape claims" and an even sillier headline of "Rhinos grow grass with cannabis lamps" Yet go to the Union page and all the headlines are positive and relevant with loads of information about the six nations, what the hell is going on isn't about time the leaders of our fine game grew a pair and started to address the BBC's continuous belittling of our game and poor coverage

The bbc is dominated by public schoolboys/girls and the Oxbridge set who have no interest in the success of RL and are delighted when something negative happens to the sport.

i think we are seeing the upping of the RU's campaign to see of our superior game once & for all . We have certainly been moved into the fringe sport department & now even the 6 nations is starting on Friday to clash with Saints opening fixture.

I think RL is ,and has been for some time, a victim of the old school tie culture ,especially since union turned pro, where most establishment organisations are urinating in the same pot.

Yeah BBC are definitely losing interest, Sky is the place to go for news on the sport now!

Paranoid. We have established that, on fan base, RL is on a par with the 3rd tier of English football. The 6 Nations dwarfs it in comparison. RL struggles to even differentiate itself as a sport with most BBC references to "rugby" meaning Union. We are a fringe sport watched by a total of about 100,000 people in it's entirety.

To be fair.
union has always been referred to as rugby, and they do have that right to market it so as it was the original game.

In the southern hemisphere the world union is rarely used.
Its either rugby or league.

I don't hold the BBC responsible for the lapses of league promotion over the years.
The RFL are the only sports body I know that constantly shoots the game in the foot by getting behind something and then walking away.

The BBC used to show by and large more rugby league than any other sport. For six months of the year Grandstand would almost weekly play RL games, only mainly not transmitting them when big events like the Grand National, Four Nations Rugby (ouch!) or for (coughs) The Boat Race etc.

The BBC were not responsible for the dropping of the John Player/Regal Trophy, The Lancashire Cup, The Yorkshire Cup and The Premiership competitions. Plus the RL Ashes tours of GB Lions v NZ or OZ.

That is a lot of terrestrial RL that we don't have any more!

(There was also the short lived BBC 2 floodlit competition too)

I think you are right when the RFL themselves do not appear to have the best interests of the game at heart, I think your 100,000 is a bit far of the mark but the sentiments you express I fear are all to true, think small and that is exactly what you will become, a bit of a self fulfilling prophecy.

Yes, you are being paranoid.

There isn't much RL news around at the moment, due to the season not having started yet, and no-ones bought any players recently.

Regrettably (for the sport), the Raynor story is news, and any media outlet will align Raynor with RL.
The Rhino's cannabis plant lamps story was also used in a similar story for one of the NW's football sides, and there was no throwing up of arms, then.
I see no problem with either story being on the Beeb's RL website, otherwise, there'd be nothing on it (the site), so there'd be whinging again.

I bet there'll be a pre-season preview on in a day or so, so we can all relax.

You do come out with some tripe!

Let's address what the Beeb have lost, not bidded for or snubbed

You say the BBC weren't responsible for the dropping of the Yorks/Lancs Cup.......They showed their last final in 1983, yet these comps went on til 1992 (ITV showed the finals from 1989 onwards). So yes, the Beeb were responsible for dropping them, as they had them, and then no-one showed them....that's the definition of dropping.

The Beeb showed their last live Premiership Final (or qualifying rounds, for that matter) in the early 90's. So they either dropped them, or got outbidded by Sky.

Likewise, International Tests. The last Tests shown live on the Beeb from memory were (iirc) the SL tests of 1997, and the Beeb didn't show another live International for over a decade. So they've again been outbidded or just couldn't be ar5ed.

...and you spout more claptrap about them dropping games in favour of the Boat Race/National/4 nations....absolute conkers. That's NEVER happened as long as I've been watching the game.

Why let the facts get in the way of a BAD argument, eh duckie?

A good amount of blame CAN be laid at the door of the Beeb, but it's their choice. If people weren't watching, they're going to drop them.....or maybe they couldn't be ar53d.

Just for clarity I am not advocating think small at all. Rugby League can be a brilliant, exciting, flair game with wider appeal. I suspect if we add up all the attendances at any weekend for the top 3 leagues we would get a total around 100,000 spectators.

What do we expect the BBC to do with this relatively low level of appeal ?

Well the BBC profiled London Broncos in their televised season preview, so

I have no problems with you using the boards to correct me and welcome it. However its not a place for personal insults.

Where lefty did I say the bbc "drop" Rugby league games for the boat race?

errr ....I think "drop" can equate to "not transmitting"

as for personal insults, I haven't insulted you.

HTH

Garyhulsefan has informed us (on another thread) that the RFL has increased it's prize money to £100,000 for the LLS winners

I've just looked on the Beeb's website, and it is their lead story on the RL page

Proof they do care

Then that is your interpretation and not what I said.

Perhaps I could have ring fenced it and said not transmitting rugby league on that day as there would be no rl cup scheduled because the BBC would be televising the varsity boat race!
But...
I assumed you might have worked that out and I totally didn't expect a barrage of insults from you because I hadn't been so attentive to pedantic details.

You've come on here, pontificating that the BBC never dropped RL (when they did, in certain circumstances).

Then you say that they dropped RL cup games to favour the Boat Race....they never have. As far as I can remember, for decades, the Boat Race was always transmitted, 99% of the time, on a Saturday, as were the Challenge Cup semis (they were on at the same time of year, late March/early April). The BBC didn't drop the CC games. They may have had to get round the Boat Race times on the Saturday, as did the Boat Race itself due to tidal times, so they co-operated around each other. Please don't go round making stuff up, just to "big up" your perceived claims of BBC neglecting RL, and then, in a different paragraph, NOT neglecting RL. For God's sake, make your mind up on which side of the argument you're on.

Or better still, give up while you're behind.


...and again, I ask, when have I insulted you

Quote ="Wires71"Paranoid. We have established that, on fan base, RL is on a par with the 3rd tier of English football. The 6 Nations dwarfs it in comparison. RL struggles to even differentiate itself as a sport with most BBC references to "rugby" meaning Union. We are a fringe sport watched by a total of about 100,000 people in it's entirety.'" Our clubs are easily on a par in terms of spectators as Union. Look at this from 2009, a while ago, and some League clubs have well upped their attendances since then...(for some reason i cannot find a more recent version of this...?): billsportsmaps.com/wp-content/up ... land_w.gif Even though they have European cups and a hugely bigger International game, we reckon up with attendances [ivery[/i well indeed. With an improvement (a huge one needed, granted) in the organisation running our sport there's no reason at all that we should just be falling by the wayside in terms of the way we are covered in the media and perceived by the rest of the country. The product we have on the pitch is better than theirs and if we can just enlighten the world to that then we are onto a winner...it's just how we do that (we need the Aussies on board with our game here for a start and the World Club Series is a great start with that!)/

Quote ="Wires71"Paranoid. We have established that, on fan base, RL is on a par with the 3rd tier of English football. The 6 Nations dwarfs it in comparison. RL struggles to even differentiate itself as a sport with most BBC references to "rugby" meaning Union. We are a fringe sport watched by a total of about 100,000 people in it's entirety.'" Our clubs are easily on a par in terms of spectators as Union. Look at this from 2009, a while ago, and some League clubs have well upped their attendances since then...(for some reason i cannot find a more recent version of this...?): billsportsmaps.com/wp-content/up ... land_w.gif Even though they have European cups and a hugely bigger International game, we reckon up with attendances [ivery[/i well indeed. With an improvement (a huge one needed, granted) in the organisation running our sport there's no reason at all that we should just be falling by the wayside in terms of the way we are covered in the media and perceived by the rest of the country. The product we have on the pitch is better than theirs and if we can just enlighten the world to that then we are onto a winner...it's just how we do that (we need the Aussies on board with our game here for a start and the World Club Series is a great start with that!)/

I think a glaring difference between the 2 codes is as Buckley Street says "how the game is run". Unfortunately ,ruggah has the patronage of world class sponsorship & is run by what is seen as the establishment ,with its heartland right in the middle of England's great & good ,many of whom rub shoulders daily with Britain's captains of industry. The best thing that ever happened to Rugby Union was turning professional because ,at a stroke, it stopped players leaving to join League clubs so it preserved their player base & starved rugby league of its main source of top players. Union is also played in the top universities which also happen to produced most of the previously mentioned great & good so it is hardly surprising at the forward strides the game has made recently. It is going to be a hard slog but marketing may be the key in the long term & attracting world class sponsors to lift the profile of our game....Emirates needs to be just a start.

As for the BBC , we are still only a convenience for sky with it's scheduling slots.

Quote ="BuckleyStreetWire"Our clubs are easily on a par in terms of spectators as Union. Look at this from 2009, a while ago, and some League clubs have well upped their attendances since then...(for some reason i cannot find a more recent version of this...?): billsportsmaps.com/wp-content/up ... land_w.gif Even though they have European cups and a hugely bigger International game, we reckon up with attendances [ivery[/i well indeed. With an improvement (a huge one needed, granted) in the organisation running our sport there's no reason at all that we should just be falling by the wayside in terms of the way we are covered in the media and perceived by the rest of the country. The product we have on the pitch is better than theirs and if we can just enlighten the world to that then we are onto a winner...it's just how we do that (we need the Aussies on board with our game here for a start and the World Club Series is a great start with that!)/'" I didn't argue that SL and RU League attendances were broadly similar (Union have the edge by 10% or so). I said that compared to the 6 Nations it is dwarfed in terms of mass appeal and interest in the UK so you cannot blame the BBC for it's limited coverage. In terms of the product on the pitch being "better" this is subjective. I have some RU mates who criticism Leagues formulaic play, lack of value of possession, lack of ruck, uncontested scrums etc. They honestly prefer RU. It appears to me that the majority of UK citizens prefer RU too. This would explain professional clubs in England, Scotland, Wales, Ireland and the popularity of the 6 Nations (as much as it pains me to say it). What organisational improvements do you think the RFL could make to improve the way RL is covered in the media and perceived by the rest of the country ?

Quote ="BuckleyStreetWire"Our clubs are easily on a par in terms of spectators as Union. Look at this from 2009, a while ago, and some League clubs have well upped their attendances since then...(for some reason i cannot find a more recent version of this...?): billsportsmaps.com/wp-content/up ... land_w.gif Even though they have European cups and a hugely bigger International game, we reckon up with attendances [ivery[/i well indeed. With an improvement (a huge one needed, granted) in the organisation running our sport there's no reason at all that we should just be falling by the wayside in terms of the way we are covered in the media and perceived by the rest of the country. The product we have on the pitch is better than theirs and if we can just enlighten the world to that then we are onto a winner...it's just how we do that (we need the Aussies on board with our game here for a start and the World Club Series is a great start with that!)/'" I didn't argue that SL and RU League attendances were broadly similar (Union have the edge by 10% or so). I said that compared to the 6 Nations it is dwarfed in terms of mass appeal and interest in the UK so you cannot blame the BBC for it's limited coverage. In terms of the product on the pitch being "better" this is subjective. I have some RU mates who criticism Leagues formulaic play, lack of value of possession, lack of ruck, uncontested scrums etc. They honestly prefer RU. It appears to me that the majority of UK citizens prefer RU too. This would explain professional clubs in England, Scotland, Wales, Ireland and the popularity of the 6 Nations (as much as it pains me to say it). What organisational improvements do you think the RFL could make to improve the way RL is covered in the media and perceived by the rest of the country ?

You can bet your life that if rugby league somehow managed to become the pre-eminent code, with clubs all over the country, and regular 5 figure crowds each week, and loads of media coverage, people would be on here moaning that 'the game is not what it was', 'why the bloody hell are we letting these Southerners and Midlanders get involved?' and 'if you think I'm driving to Hemel Hempstead to watch Warrington you've got another think coming' etc, etc. RL is what it is, Union dominates media coverage. So what? It's always been like that, we think RL is better, it doesn't mean everyone else has to. They can just be 'wrong'

Damn you BBC: www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/rugby-league/31098420

Damn you BBC: www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/rugby-league/31098420

www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/rugby-league/30987066 And again!!!

www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/rugby-league/30987066 And again!!!

I didn't realise until I was checking the BBC website from abroad, that the link to Rugby League isn't on their main sports menu. I had to go to All Sports and possibly A-Z sports after that.

I don't know if this is a regional or national thing.

To be fair to the Beeb, in certain circumstances, as Harold McMillan once said, "You've never had it so good"

As I said in counter to duckie's codswallop earlier, yes, the Beeb DID drop the Lancs/Yorks Cup, and they lost the Prem/Tests for years (whether they bidded for them, or were outbidded I don't know), BUT, we now (and have for the last few years) get TWO Challenge Cup games per weekend ,shown FULLY, and live. For those on here under the age of 30, let me tell you JUST how the Beeb treated our game in the mid to late 80's.

Picture the scene.
It's 2:40 on a Saturday afternoon.
Des Lynam would sneer, and say here's Rugby League. The game is already underway, and you get literally 5 mins of highlights of the first half, and then the second half live. As soon as the match was over, the players would just be shaking hands, and it's be straight back to Des sneering at our game again, just in time for the all important footie half times. No interviews, no try recaps, no analysis. Just Des' self love.

But, these WERE the days of the Old School Tie, when the Beeb's hierarchy were all Oxbridge educated, and in their 60-70's (typical Rah-Rah fodder). For the last 20 or so years, the Beeb's been run by middle class lefties, so the Old School Tie brigade are of a bygone generation.


I think Granada's Saturday afternoon games from the autumn of 1989 were a HUGE kick up the Aris for the Beeb. It's hard to believe, but ITV's sports department did a half decent job (for once), and the Beeb really took notice and immediately started showing our game the respect it deserves. It upped the standard of their coverage, even though we had to put up with Steve Sims and Ross Strudwick.

With regard to the 6 Nations, we've just got to admit defeat.
We are a nation of 60 million people. You mention Rugby to someone, and automatically they think 6 (or 5 Nations). Not because it's better, it's just the one thing they subconsciously grab hold of, once a year. That bottom hole Chris Evans has been on about it this week, and will be 'til it ends. After that, he won't mention it again. Similar to Wimbledon. Joe Public doesn't give a stiff one about tennis, 50 weeks a year. Come the last week in June, I'm sick of hearing "Come on Tim/Andy/Fred Perry". After that, the public don't care.

Nah, the Beeb don't particularly like us, but they tolerate us a lot better than the did, a generation ago.......and we get a magazine show, now. "Enjoy your Rugby League.......we do"

BBC just lost The Open. Let's hope they consolidate their assets and look closer at RL!