Quote HertsSaint="HertsSaint"https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Z4u1bmhE0o4
So I’m up late, watching college football on espn and the solution to RL’s problems has come to me in a flash of inspiration. College Football in the states has a lot of similarities to rugby league in the UK. A game built on tradition spanning more than 100 years, rivalries which are equally as old. There’s a professional cousin where much more money can be made but college games actually get larger attendances. And…..they generate huge TV revenue deals.
Why?
Because of the tradition, the rivalries, the histories, the stories going back generations, the pride in your local team. And of course, as you’ll see in the clip - the gameday experience! I’m watching Penn State v Auburn and no-one going to this game tonight would say they’ve not enjoyed it….whatever the result. Getting so many people bought into the same thing is amazing!
Imagine a “White Out” game at St Helens…..everyone wearing white, get there an hour before, get the music blasting, Zombie Nation…. “WE ARE THE SAINTS!!”. Make it so that there’s only one place to be in town on that Friday / Saturday night. A can’t miss experience.
Don’t worry about London, Toronto, New York or whatever, let’s make our game the biggest event in the towns we already play in. It would look amazing on TV and we go from there. I know for me (40s), for you (60s probably) the game itself should be enough…..here’s some news..it’s not! We’re in competition, not as a sport but as an entertainment product - so let’s get it bloody set up as such.
Look at the Hundred or the IPL in cricket….fake teams that have no real basis. We have such a huge headstart on that, play to our strengths.
Anyway, if anyone at Saints or RL marketing want to talk about it, you know where I am'"
Back of a beer mat musings do not make for a structured achievable plan. YOU are already a RL fan. The good folk who live in St Helens, Wigan, Warrington etc already know the teams exist and that games are on....they just don't care enough to go.
You're correct that the matchday experience isn't as good as it could be, but that's more to do with the clubs themselves cutting back, not the game as a whole.
Your "imagine a white out" comments betrays you as a fan. What is needed is non RL people to be engaged in selling the sport. The RLWC 2013 semi final was marketed by a non RL company and was a huge success. RL has to stop milkingnth same fans (some clubs issue 4 or more replica shirts a year) and reach out to new ones.....a "white out" ain't going to do that.
The game needs to reconnect with its roots....schools, amateurs, local companies.....I recall Wigan selling half a stand to a local firm a few years back for a game....Heinz? Didn't the big soup sponsorship thing happen soon after? That's how you grow the game......and forget the hundred or IPL.....the amount of money ploughed into the hundred by the ECB would bankrupt us....and the ipl is owned by billionaires.
College football is based around affordability and school rivalries......they have societies and groups who are responsible for whipping up support and selling packages.......if you want to engage locals as fans, start with the schools.....attending games is a habit and if you get them young you've got them for life.....it's a problem now faced by football in the UK with 18-25 years odld being less engaged with the game now than at any time in the modern era (80's onwards)
Eddie hearn is quite probably the answer. It's just that the RFL/SL can't agree on what th question is.
