Did anyone see League Weekly this week and Times man Christopher Irvine's column about the death of rugby league in national media ?

Times are axeing Irvine and rugby league coverage in the organ of a paper owned by Rupert Murdoch and News corporation, the very people who brought in Super League for god's sakes.

Maybe the Times dismissal of league means Sky are pulling out of league. Their contracts run out soon, doesn't it. All of it is terrible news for the sport. If the papers are pulling out of league whose next.

Irvine compares it in his column to speedway. So it must be bad!

Rugby league doesn't have one full time league reporter any more in national press just a mob of freelances. Its a disgrace. Irvine asks what the Rfl's doing about it. His answer is aint very much.

I can't find a link to the League weekly so have copied some sections. It says RL is on a fast track to media oblivion. Irvine says this,

[i[i]The galling truth is that rugby league's presence in the national papers is assured only by a mix of hard-working freelancers, at the mercy of sports desks, for whom football is all that really seems to matter.

Does it matter that rugby league no longer commands decent space ? Newspapers are dead, aren't they ? Not if you consider that 10 million national papers are still sold every day in this country.

That's 70 million a week - a heck of a lot of column inches and invaluable publicity that rugby league is missing out on.

Factor in worldwide syndication rights, overseas sales and newspapers' vast internet audiences and rugby league's lack of presence is of huge concern.

It should have the legions at the Rugby Football League beating down Fleet Street's doors. Alas, Red Hall gives the impression of fiddling while Rome burns.

The "commercial" decisions of news organisations is not seen as their concern.

Try telling that to their sponsors, who are missing out on thousands, if not millions of pounds worth of publicity and exposure.

Little wonder that blue chip companies are not beating a path to the RFL's door, when there is precious little "added value" in terms of coverage.

The beauty for these big companies of national newspapers and their big internet presence is that they reach way beyond the niche website and trade publications - which serve converted rugby league followers admirably, I should add - to valuable new audiences.

It is these new "markets" that rugby league is starting to miss out on.

Without the resourcefulness and dedication of my freelance colleagues, the likes of Richard Bott, Julie Stott, Martin Richards, Dave Hadfield, Andy Wilson, Neil Barraclough, Dave Burke and Gareth Walker, the sport's collapse in newspaper terms might have occurred some time ago.

London sports desks are consumed now by football year-round. Its locust-like influence has left a scorched earth of flattened and trampled sports, rugby league among them. Pick up any newspaper and you often struggle to find much more than soccer in the "sports" pages.

The net result is that a generation of rugby league players, who should be more high profile, are missing out on exposure and income potential, the likes of Sam Tomkins, Kyle Eastmond and Richard Myler. Either they accept that awkward truth, or move to the NRL or worse still, rugby union.

Diversity of coverage that guaranteed reasonable coverage of rugby league is no longer on newspapers' agenda. Football comes first and last, interspersed with blanket coverage of major events such as the Olympics, Wimbledon and golf Open.

It would be remiss of me to neglect the fact that rugby union has enjoyed a massive hike in its profile since turning professional in 1995 - helped in no small measure by England's 2003 World Cup victory, in reinforcing the importance of international success that league has so sorely lacked.

Whither rugby league ? Growth is the only course of action and the RFL has successfully tapped into funding to promote the sport at one level. In terms of publicity beyond its natural constituencies and dedicated outlets, the message is simply not getting out.

It's no good having kids playing rugby league in droves in the south without any role models. Jamie Peacock is one of the best I can think of, yet mention the England captain's name in Devon, Droitwich and Dover, for instance, and you'd probably draw a blank.

As far as our national newspapers are increasingly concerned, rugby league, despite the great strides taken by the sport, is no longer worth covering properly. Out of sight and out of mind, for all Sky's continuing efforts.

Remember speedway ?[/i[/i]

I cant find out the Times sports editors names but I reckon the paper should no rugby league reader's thoughts on all this. Its great we've dedicated websites like this but how can we convert non believers with no national press coverage.

Time to stand up for our game and to the media.

Is this the same Times newspaper that you have to PAY to read online ?

The sport is terribly run. The lack of media support is the fault of the RFL.

Could anyone blame Sky for pulling out completely or dropping their fee? They could halve it, genuinely, and still not have competition for the coverage.

Other that courting some sort of controversy or scandal for the sensation seeking editors there isn't a lot the RFL can do about it.

We have two major trophy finals and they most probably will be well reported, but weekly matches have to struggle for column inches against the god of football.

RU gets good coverage during the six nations, then disappears, similarly it seems to be only International Cricket that gets any coverage.

Athletics will get coverage in an Olympic year and when the world championships are on and again it is only title fights in boxing that attract any attention.

The ownership of the Times and its coverage of rugby league are disconnected. The fact is, the broadsheets cover football, rugby union and cricket and everything else gets fleeting coverage and the red tops cover football and everything else gets fleeting coverage

The print media is probably the closest refection of the demographic makeup of this country and always has been. If you want a good description, search for 'Jim hacker newspapers' on a search engine - it is as true today as it was then

I stopped buying newspapers several years ago due to their lack of rugby league coverage. I sent a letter to the editor of The Mirror, whose office replied with a generic '[ican't please everyone[/i' response.
I was warned about this reduction in column inches by one of the journalists mentioned in the piece a whuile ago. He made it clear that plenty of other sports were in the same boat and that even cricket and rugby union, supposedly mainstream and national sports, were struggling to get more than a page in many of the national newspapers.

Correct me if I am wrong, but wasn,t there a statement last year from the RFL that the Daily Mirror was to be the media *voice" for rugby league.

I blame all the dedicated media personnel at the pro clubs, especially the SL clubs, for this problem!!!

Or perhaps there aren't any

this reporter is only saying what some of us have been saying for ages.
SL/SLE or what ever its called is treading water off the field.

is it a coincidence that the other three main team sports in england are all london based and are doing so well off the field.

perhaps its now time for SL/SLE to re-locate to the capital were the media are based.

The only chance our sport has off the field now is one of the weekly rugby league newspapers becoming a daily newspaper with all your usual trash (Page 3, Katie Price Column etc) in. For example lets make The League Express like the sun (just an example - lots in this country read it) but with rugby league as its main sport.

Of course it’d have a fair share of football etc.

You might still be able to get permission from Samantha Janus to reprint that photo of her in the film 'Up & Under', where she's wearing an Aussie national shirt and little else ...

That's your Page 3 sorted for the first issue ....

Lets take our game back from the RFL then.

If people can overthrow governments then sure the same can be done for sporting organisations. The idea of becoming a fugitive doesn’t appeal to me though so don’t invite me to lead any revolution..





For the second one we could do a Rugby League wag. Ashley Gibson is with a glamour modal

I remember when the times used to sponsor the Super League coverage on Sky Sports.

Anyway, personally I'm not that concerned. National Newspapers will soon be defunct with technology moving on all the time. With hardly any copyright restrictions in the online world the working class (which is mainly what our sports fans are) are not the kind of people who will pay to read newspapers online.

I've always found national coverage a token gesutre anyway. They only seem to put the stuff in the northern editions from my experience.

A bigger priority for our game is getting a national highlights show onto BBC Television or another freeview broadcaster. Last year the BBC offered to do a highlights show for the Blue Square Premier (thats the non league of English Football). They actually turned it down. Yet we still have a regional highlights show that is clearly very low budget. Pathetic!

I also think they need to get all England tests back on the BBC. Now that Sky have taken (or will do next week) the football results show (Soccer Saturday) off Freeview we have a big opportunity to be a lead in to the "Final Score" show on the BBC. Could claw some exposure back. Then again improving the BBC coverage would perhaps be required.

What I don’t get is why we want to save our sport off the field. If a stadium was just piles of rubble and a rugby pitch I’d still go and watch if I really wanted to.

I don’t let how posh the surroundings are dictate my experience. I’ve watched Rhinos at Headingley many times and I’ve had good and bad experiences despite been in the same place.

You go to an estate like where I live you’ll find that the underclass are happy here and the working class aren’t despite it been the same location.

Sport is played without ‘professional surroundings’ and ‘professional equipment’. I went to a sink estate school and pupils still used an empty bottle to play football with.

Didn’t stop their enjoyment - just made the most of what their had.

That’s what we need to do with rugby league right now and stop with this obsession of expanding the game off the field.