Quote: Odem "I'm still waiting to see some serious marketing strategy on how to increase memberships across the board in Super League as seen in the NRL.
There seems to be no 'league wide' strategy to address some of the issues we have such as low crowds and lack of sponsorship.
I can't help but feel there is a lack of a long term plan when it comes to these things, more of a "we'll leave it to the clubs attitude".'"
It should be down to the clubs though. They should know their businesses better than anyone else and they should know their audiences better than anyone else.
This year, Salford have marketed themselves as something of a "disrupter" in the game (the "Devilution", "Welcome to Hell" etc). Koukash's persona suits this branding very well and whatever praise or criticism you want to throw at him and Salford, there is no denying that they have got people talking. However, if the RFL is running the show, I suspect much of the effectiveness of that would be diluted. Salford, like every other club, would have to toe the party line - and that can do more harm than good. Fourteen seperate brands, all saying the same things, all looking the same and all (in effect) selling the same is a bloody terrible marketing proposition.
The other issue I have is that it limits clubs in targeting their marketing at the audiences they want to attract. Let's assume that the RFL set out to attract a family audience, yet a club like Leeds or Wigan decides that they have a good proportion of families already attending and instead, would like to focus on attracting high-value corporate customers - would those clubs still have to pay into a pot to attract customers that they already have enough of?