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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.

Funniest thing I've seen in ages that......if you believe that there's a viable RL presence in all the countries on that map, then you'll like this...
[urlhttp://www.joe.ie/sport/screw-you-sepp-were-setting-up-a-gaa-world-cup/29317[/url