There's nothing wrong at all with their money, but it's just reinforcing the stereotype for those on the outside looking in. If you asked someone living in the home counties who rugby league was likely to be sponsored by, they'd probably jokingly reply "bitter, pies and graaaiiirrrvy". I've asked that question on more than one occasion. I've had similar answers. It's 2018, 'that joke isn't funny anymore'.

The last 15 years has seen huge sociological changes which have been building up for 20 years previous to that. In the digital age, aspiration and image, and showing off that image, is EVERYTHING. It's sad, I don't like it, but it's true. Just have a browse on Instagram and look at some of the most popular brand hashtags, brand ambassadors and influencers (take some anti-nausea pills mind! My particular favourite is an Audi steering wheel with a hand holding a Starbucks cup, the wrist adorned with a Rolex, and a Michael Kors handbag in the footwell, all accompanied with the description #goals). It's absolutely mind boggling and the people and monetary figures involved when you read into it are beyond the realms of comprehension. Everything I was taught about image, advertising and brands has pretty much gone out of the window since the onset of social media.

The world of advertising/promotion/sponsorship is changing almost monthly but rugby league is still running with things that didn't work the first time round. There's a dilemma of course - chase the Yankee Dollar and risk peeing off the die hards, or carry on as is and still be talking about what we can do to grow the sport in 5, 10, 15 years time?

I used to think that it was because it would be so difficult to market the towns of Wigan, St Helens, Warrington, Widnes, Wakefield, Castleford or Hull to a wider audience.

If it was Liverpool Manchester London Birmingham as well as Leeds it would be an entirely different animal.

But Northampton Bath Coventry Exeter Gloucester Worcester and Reading aren’t exactly the big thriving hubs of the country are they?

At the core of all modern day marketing now is Data. Data, cross polenisation (sic) of data and recycling, renewing and culling data. The "offering" will still be the same, be it a product or service, but the message and who delivers that message is dictated to by data.
Endorsement from a friend is one of the most important ways to get new customers on board and marketing departments and social media are adept at getting you to endorse a product or service to your social network sometimes without you even knowing it.
Endorsement by a celebrity has been around since adam and is still another good weapon, but it would seem that some of the SL clubs still believe that sticking posts in the ground and announcing a KO time is enough......

A few years ago I had some dealings with the sponsorship team at the RFL. At the same time, I got regally ed off that HSBC, whom I've banked with forever, was sponsoring the Union Lions tour to Australia. I managed to get the email details of HSBC's head of sponsorship. I asked him to explain why HSBC money was being blown on what is a minority sport in Aus. His reply was that they were seeking to 'build their brand' in Australia. What this shows is that there is undoubtedly a bias from the big UK finance companies towards Union, as they would have had a much better brand building opportunity down under by sponsoring League in some format or other. It's also worth pointing out that this HSBC guy was in Australia at the time no doubt 'monitoring' (between sips of champagne) the bank's sponsorship 'return'. I passed on this exchange to the RL sponsorship team. Clearly they couldn't get HSBC to change their minds.

Dacia (turnover €4.3 billion) and Betfred (turnover £3.5 billion) are both big companies and decent sponsors to have.

Unless anyone can give the figures, of how much these companies are paying to be Super League sponsors, compared to BMW and RU, I don’t see what the problem is.

Betfred is paying around £1m a year to sponsor SL, Champ and L1. By comparison, Aviva pays £7m for the RU Premiership.

The agency I work for has worked with a number of bookies whilst I have been there and I've got a decent idea of what it costs to earn a customer, and what the return on that investment is.

On average, it costs about £40 to earn a customer from digital marketing, and the average lifetime value is around £260 (using rough numbers). That gives you an idea of what any potential sponsor in RL would be looking for as they will invariably compare their return from sports sponsorship against other marketing channels.

By comparison, whilst I don't know what BMW would be paying RU, I think it's fair to say that it costs a lot more than £40 to attract a customer but by the same token, the lifetime value of that customer is going to be a lot more than £260. Its the same with Aviva - their wealth management, investment and life insurance attract customers who are worth a lot to them, so they can and do pay more to reach them.

Yes, there are other reasons why a company may get involved in sport sponsorship (brand building, CSR, etc) but at the end of the deal, the same questions get asked - what was the ROI?

Cool Story Bro.



The B&I Lions tour of Australia saw 418,000+ fans attend games....that's 40,000 fewer than attended the 2013 RLWC in England and 125,000 more than attended the 2008 RLWC in 'stralia.....not bad for a Minority sport. The SKY TV audience for the 1st test was 1,150,000 UK viewers........on a Saturday Morning...the 2nd and third both hit over 900k........30,000 fans apparently made the trip at some stage over the tour..........I went to the first test in Brisbane and stayed for Origin the following week.......which game do you reckon got the bigger attendance?

Union is a sick puppy in 'stralia, with the exception of Internationals.......I'd hazzard a guess that there are far more Wallaby jerseys in Aussie Wardrobes than Kangaroos and HSBC is an INTERNATIONAL brand....so the fit is perfect. Your bitterness would have been ignored and regardless of your opinion, there will be an entire team of people checking and monitoring this sponsorship and its return.

League doesn't attract HSBC because our audience isn't their target audience.......we get foxy bingo, but Union doesn't.....you join the dots Einstein!

Credit where it’s due, Toronto are good at getting media coverage, just take a look at the number of news articles they’ve shared on their Facebook page.