There are a few interesting observations you can make regarding RLs status as a minor sport. The quality of media and administrators for a sport that is not based in London makes RL unique.

Also the minority status of RL results in a player drain. The players tend to go where the money is. NRL and Rugby Union are taking players that would not have been going 30 years ago. This like other sports professionalism and exchange rates can have a large impact.

The Americanisation of the sport is more the Austrialisation of the sport from the NRL, which itself is Americanised so it is a second degree of Americanisation.

Coverage in NRL is mainly free to air but is over advertised due to looser laws regarding it. Revenue is also generated through gambling, again due to liberal laws in that area.

Regarding Licencing see above about poor level of administration and socialist mentality in the north of England as evidence of the anti-authority mentality of RL clubs and fans.

On the back of a beermat was it?
Go to the last page of the SPOTY thread......you'll see a map that pretty much explains why the media consider RL a minor and regional sport

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I like your ideas. Mostly administration and media based so I wonder as a journalist if comparing sports is the best way to go. Focusing on rugby league would be interesting for a RL fan but comparisons with other sports (football being the most likely) gives you more breadth and allows you to vary your examples and conclusions depending on which way your research goes.

Just to throw in another angle for you, you could also do a dissertation on what makes a great player great. Lots to work with there.

Good luck either way

If a journalism degree, I would have thought a dissertation on the marginalisation of the game by the national media. Compare the exposure it gets by comparing it to other sports and separating it into regions. For example, compare it's participation and spectator and viewing figures in the industrial north against other sports. David Hinchcliffe MP wrote a very good book called Rugbys Class War. Gary Schofield's Rugby League Masterpieces is also very good.

Fundamentally, it's an issue of class, so it takes it beyond sport.

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