It shows why the sport is the omnishambles that it is. The problem is not people whinging that it's not good enough, the problem is most league fans are more than happy to embrace abject mediocrity, as seen throughout the thread, they're happy to be viewed as Jeremy Kyle-esque, because a lot of them are!

People with expectations of growth see these sponsorship deals as a reminder of the pathetic spread and supporter base that English League boasts, the insular, backwater nature of the game. The darts, bingo, amber leaf and chunky soup demographic that the flat cap wearers embody.

Members on this forum see it as money is money, people have heard of Foxy Bingo therefore hooray. It's no wonder the game is on its knees, most are complacent.

And now they(flat-cappers) have a new trick, they blame a minority of fans who aren't happy with the game as the reason for poor sponsorship. They say, 'Ah, by complaining about crap sponsors you're the reason for crap sponsors', as if they makes sense. As if critical voices in other sports don't exist, and to the same degree, and even higher. Doesn't seem to stop any other sport. But a few fans on the RLFANS message board are enough to cripple the sponsorship opportunities for Super League, we're told!

It's just a sad state of affairs and it will continue to be so until people stop undervaluing the game by excusing the crap we're served up

It will be very difficult to convince the dogmatic flat cappers on here that the RFL need to work a damn sight harder to raise the profile of the sport.
The marketing and commercial model coming out of Red Hall is atrocious, once again they fail to get a sponsor to give the game some stature and worth.
No doubt the RFL will hype it up, like the Stobart deal was going to benefit the game by 2 million quid.
I suggest the flat cappers on here look at the long list of partners associated with union against the list of partners associated with league. This is not suggesting we compete on equal terms with Union we can't, but the gap is an ever widening one. Which tells me the RFL are not doing there job in selling our sport.
The RFL has imploded on itself become more region based thats why we have our "expansion showcase weekend" in.....er Manchester.
I agree with the poster above me the game is UNDERVALUED massively, the RFL know that but probably don;t have the right people in Red Hall to do anything about it.

Judging by some of the views expressed on this thread, there's little wonder that some people are happy for RL to remain a regional sport, played and spectated largely in the M62 corridor and with it's roots very firmly in working class communities; if expansion means welcoming some of the boorish, sneering tosspots who crawl out of the woodwork periodically to bleat about flat caps, whippets and northern mining towns, it's not surprising that some folk think the game might be better off without them.

"The RFL don't have the right people in place."
"The RFL aren't doing enough to expand the game."
"The RFL aren't doing enough to pull in top sponsors."

Yadda yadda yadda.

Apparently the brainiacs complaining about the deals on here think that the way to do these things is to stop accepting money from anyone and everyone until the right deal comes along, and at the same time hire the top administrators in their field, as well as expand the game on loads of areas in order to get these sponsorship deals.

Easily done, obviously. No flaws at all in this plan.

Oh, and whilst this doesn't happen, they're going to b*tch and moan about it not happening as that will increase the probability of it happening.

Ingenious!

Ta dah!

I'll moan about the RFL for as long as its run by a man who has not the slightest idea about strategy or marketing. When he occasional delivers the odd thing here and there that might just about be in line with the bare minimum requirement of the job, I'm not going to suddenly give him praise. He's paid a lot of money, and therefore doesn't deserve credit just because he delivers something for which you might give a pat on the back to an 18 year old marketing intern. We deserve better, and he should deliver better. He can't, because he's not smart enough and he's an accountant not a leader. The job is hard, but don't let the challenges he faces convince you that nobody else could do better. He's not good enough, end of.

exactly. Some of the RFL's defenders need to ask themselves "if this is good work, what would bad work look like?" We put up with absolute clowns.

Look, if this was the main sponsor of the SL you may have a point, but it's not. Let's wait and see what that is before we start flapping around.

What we have is a financially sound company putting money into RL because they see value in it, this is actually a good thing. As someone posted earlier, Keno in Australia are a sponsor of the NRL and I don't see anyone calling that a disgrace, is that because it's Australian so it must be better?

There you are, Sky have a monday night game in the soccer off season because we pull the punters in. For me the buck stops with the rfl.
I remember seeing that nrl advert with tina turner. It was sensational. Made rugby league look the sport to watch, fashionable and easy on the eye. I'd love us to do something like that. It sometimes feels as if we are always apologising for something instead of saying look at us, we are awesome.

There's an irony in the calls for brands that sell big money, premium products to sponsor the game when, at the same time, these boards are constantly littered with complaints about ticket prices, costs and the RFL "not realising that this is a working mans name and that fans can't afford x......!"

RL is one of the cheapest professional spectator sports in the UK and yet these boards are constantly littered with incessant complaining about the cost of play-off tickets, CC tickets, Magic Weekend travel costs and demands for the RFL to dish out free / cheap tickets left, right and centre.

If you were a marketing / brand manager at a blue-chip, premium product brand, would you honestly read this forum and think "yep, these sound like just the type of people we want to market to!" For most on here, RL is one of our biggest passions and yet we somehow object to spending £18 to see a play-off semi-final.

With fans like these, who needs enemies?

Good post!.