Was talking to a couple of people last night and the one thing we did all agree on is that we can’t recall being so apathetic about the game of rugby league generally. We all had different reasons for it, but some of it was things like - poor quality of Super League, not enough teams in the league, Hulls style of play, poor officiating, etc etc .

Personally I love going to the game on a Friday night, but am finding myself more and more ambivalent about what is happening on the pitch. I can’t even be bothered to hate the Dobbins now either.

It’s not just Hull though, even when there’s a Sky game on, I’ll find myself watching T20 or EFL instead.

I’m not sure what would re-enthuse us, but for all of us to feel the same way after decades supporting the game is quite telling.

Same here but be careful expressing your thoughts otherwise the self proclaimed thought Police will be questioning you.

I’m actually finding it more difficult to enjoy going these days and question if it’s worth the money and disappointment.
The sport as a whole just seems to be dying on its and becoming less recognisable of the sport I loved playing and watching.

The sport just seems to embarrass itself at every turn. The standard of officiating is amateur, the coverage we get on Sky is laughable, and the gates we get at some grounds are a total joke. Time for a gamble and the rfl to bring in a decent marketing agency and go all out. (By we, I mean the whole game).

Eamon McMannus (sp) had a brilliant rant in the Saints programme last night which is worth a read. It’s out there on all the fan sites.

The problem for me is watching the Aussie stuff. It’s on a different level. Makes our game look pedestrian

The game is dying a slow death .
TV and media coverage is poor. Marketing is non existent.
SL has killed it . There has been too much emphasis on the top level.
The grassroots in schools , local amateur Clubs , and the lower leagues has been ignored. To build, you need a firm foundation.
The structure of the game has cut off pathways to play the game .
Clubs have been allowed at the top level, to throw everything at their first team .
Youngsters have been lost to the game through the greed of Clubs . No Academy , no Reserves ! And the RFL has let this happen !
RL is not a cash rich sport , it will implode within 5 years . Once Sky lose interest, the cash that most Clubs rely on will dry up . Clubs will cut their cloth , or cease to exist .

Totally agree that the grassroots of the game has been ignored.
A dozen Super League clubs have looked after their own self interest, believing that all the interest in the game stems from them downwards.
The game at a lower level will be cut adrift, and Super League clubs will take all the money from Sky, who will probably reduce funding as they know they can (as we’ve followed a path of total exclusivity with them).
The failure to grow the game (including lower league teams) with Sky money is nothing short of criminal.

Spot on about self interest of the SL clubs IMO. The most exciting moment I can remember for the sport was that night in Paris at the dawn of SL. Unfortunately the horizons of the game have shrunk and we are stuck with the paradigm of the 4 richest, dominant clubs. Of 42 GF appearances so far, only 8 have been outside this group, and 6 of those by Bradford who had an unsustainable model. Just 1 from us and 1 from Cas outside that. Maybe it's just a little repetitive. Although I don't think it's hugely different in football?

We get old and we complain that things used to be better.

Apologies to any posters above who are millennials, who got lost on their way to snapchat or insta. Your turn will come though.

Its bizarre that the league table itself is the most competitive I can remember, with only Saints and Catalan not having something to play for, and Saints of course still may not win the title anyway...yet I agree with the feeling of apathy.

But agree with others that the standard nas gone down, the teams of the early and mid 00s would walk all over most of the current league. Englands best players going to the NRL has had an effect (though is great for the National team) as has the decline in quality of NRL imports (a few better ones this year though such as Hastings and Austin)

Too many structure chsnges havent helped, a few casual fans I know were baffled by the Super8s, you had situations like last year where Hull had gone months without a win but were 'safe' yet Rovers were winning but still in danger. I also hated the franchising era as it made some teams including ours lazy. Current format is better but woukd prefer 14 teams with no loop fixtures.

For Hull specifically it doesnt help that we keep promising and not delivering, and the KCOM is a big place to fill and the atmosphere is getting steadily worse. Id like to see the club come up with some new matchday ideas for 2020, the announcer used to introduce the stands and try and whip the crowd up, now we just have the same music booming out that you cant even talk over never mind sing over. I also think they should look at reopening the East/North corner as an unreserved area at cheaper prices. 'Chav corner' had its critics but at lesst they sung.

Ain't that the truth - those of us of a certain age are such miserabilists

Is that a word?

Agree with most of that, although Catalans do still have something to play for. I do think we suffer from the fact that 3 of the 4 the dominant forces are all within spitting distance of each other and there is no real prospect of this changing. I do wonder as well whether the fanbase is ageing and that presents a risk that the sport will die out, would be interested to see the stats on this. The KCOM is a great facility but simply too big for us, and, derbies like Good Friday this year apart, the atmosphere is poor.

The RFL have let control over the game to slip through their fingers. Grass roots rugby is largely left to its own devices and the international game is a joke. Kick and clap have built a global presence with their international set up. All we can manage is some stupid notion of a transatlantic competition! I despair!

Agree with most of what is said on here. AS a Bradford supporter we have had our share of troubles lately and looking at our current position I am not alone in feeling that if we go under then so what. I am just grateful we had our golden time when SL was in it's infancy and also it's hay-day.
I think the first pointer of SL exclusivity was when we were fined our Sky money for going into admin. It could have been put into grass roots rugby but the SL clubs decided to split it amongst themselves.
As some have said if you take Saints out of the equation the competition at top and bottom has never been closer and yet interest has fallen.

It is and it is apposite.

I recently crossed the line from being somebody with some grey hair to somebody with some brown hair, and feel that the last great popular music album was released in 1994.

The ageing fan base is an interesting issue - though that possibly reflects an ageing population and other economic factors.

The communities that birthed and built RL, while never prosperous, have been in relative economic decline for the best part of 40 years. Despite that we now have a full-time sport, mostly played in modern stadia (in the top flight), [ugenerally[/u played in front of bigger crowds (per game) than then. There are problems, and the sport shouldn’t be complacent, but there always have been. There’s a BBC documentary from 50 years ago that is worth a view. It is called The Game That Got Away.

Not going to lie, I had to look up apposite.



Would be interested in stats over time, both generally and by club. I remember the general Framing the Future era and the threat of mergers etc - felt like a moment of reappraisal - threats and opportunities. Better facilities, salary cap and summer rugby are big positives, but we have a dominant group of clubs no one else can break into. I hope Toronto get up and make a fist of it as Catalans have as we need some new angles.

I am a Wire fan & i don't have sky sports or films or anything like ,just sports mix included in my package. When you look at sky's exclusive coverage ,they have actually marginalised rugby league & we could do with at least some free to air coverage ,probably Championship downwards ,to try & spread the game to a wider audience. Rugby Union has about 4 different fta tv companies showing different competitions.
Look at the sponsorship in RU ,they are mostly blue chip companies the heads of which probably went to school with the top RU bods ,whereas we have flat cap sponsorship.

The Championship would be a great comp for free to air TV.
There are some really decent teams in there, and the style of rugby is less rigid and predictable than Super League.

I do think the sport had more skill and flair when it was part time,but having said that I would still much rather watch rl than ru[ an upperclass sport that would be laughed at if it was the working class version of rugby or football which ive never seen a game since the 70s.

Are any of those fta RU deals for competitions below the top tier? That I don’t know is maybe a sign that my awareness hasn’t been raised much.

Covering sports events isn’t cheap for traditional broadcasters, so they would need to know there is an audience, even if the rights were more or less given away. Streaming seems to be the way things are going for niche markets. And as audiences fragment, perhaps nearly all audiences will be niche.

Fta stuff, to create interest has to be big ticket imo. Test Matches, World Cups, finals. Pretty much as it is in fairness.

If we’re blaming poor management and oversight (and goodness knows there has been some of that), how much better a state should RL be in? Realistically and bearing in mind the sport’s history? When was the golden age (if you think it coincides with a glorious era for your own club, or your own youth maybe that is why, btw)?

Who would be the target audience?

Tbh the impression i have always had is that the inter war years & 50s were the big times for RL when big gates were regular features.
As for Union ,since they turned professional & reduced the need for Welshmen to turn pro they have deprived us of what used to be one of our best sources of good talent. Their game suddenly became awash with money & sponsorship to be able to spread far & wide with a European league & worldwide interest in the sport.

At the KCOM we don't seem to have too bad with the aging fan base, i've sat in the same place since it opened and a few around us are sadly no longer with us, but most of their families have brought a younger child along so overall we seem to be replenishing the fanbase. Cup wins in 2005, 2016 & 2017 have helped boost the support. But we do seem to have hit a brick wall of about 8k passes and 1-2k pay on the day fans, when Pearson has stated several times he wanted 10k passes and 14k total crowds.

Scheduling of fixtures haven't helped us this year though, games moved to Thursdays at last minute, playing Wakefield twice at home in a month, and I can't get excited over loop fixtures. I saw Saints trample all over us at the KCOM only the other week, not excited to see it again in a couple of weeks time. Would have rather have seen us play Toronto, Bradford, Widnes, Toulouse etc even if it meant a bit less SKY money.

Agree that a bit of success has helped us, and good that you're seeing younger fans too - the club does a good job in this regard with family days, takeovers etc. Agree on the loop - it does get dull against the same sides.

I don't think that you should worry too much about what some say because from what I hear a lot of folks are cheesed off with the game at present and a not enjoying the game as much any more. I went to direct debit recently just so the pain is spread over 12 months because I wasn't sure whether, with my current feelings I could bring myself to shell out £500 in November as I usually do. I certainly feel disenchanted with it at present but I guess our situation and demeanour as a team doesn't help either.

Union are simply better managed. RL could have built its own National Stadium (Odsal in its heyday probably the best spot) RL could have built up its own '6 Nations' instead they focused on the club game and got it all wrong. International RL has improved again the last few years, but it's all a bit too little too late.

RU are also a lot better at involving their community clubs, often they have them selling tickets to big events for commision, and some even international RU games have a community feel with picnics in the carpark etc, RL has instead cast its smaller clubs to one side, and then expects the fans of those clubs to still come to Magic Weekend, Challenge Cup Final, Grand Final and England games.

RL often has decent ideas but it doesn't stick enough money in or we don't give things enough time. For example The Exiles games weren't a bad idea as such (and RU get much coverage and revenue from the similar Barbarians) but after one or two poor crowds for games held midweek and promoted little (and at a time the profile of overseas imports had temporarily dipped) the whole idea was binned. We've also had new SL structures and rules about every other season, the casual fan has lost interest in keeping up with what the actual format is.

Hindsight is a great thing: but instead of focusing on mergers when SL started which caused a lot of controversy as it just isn't British sporting culture. They could have simply picked the biggest team out of the proposed merger and focused on them. Instead of starting with places like Workington, Oldham & Paris which were either not interested or just too small. We should have been focusing on the big northern cities Manchester, Liverpool, Sheffield, Leeds & Newcastle. If we wanted a French team they should have gone with the South Of France where the game is strong from the off.

Instead we haven't won the big cities (Leeds aside) and the small towns and cities have shrunk in power, population and interest in RL. Sponsors aren't interested in paying to sponsor teams that have small, low income followings. Our own clubs sponsors have got smaller and smaller this decade, 10 years ago we were getting P&O, Tetleys, KCOM, all stock market companies, now its local building firms. Fortunately our loyal fanbase still brings the cash in through the turnstiles and the shops, but people are starting to get bored.