I can see an almost inevitable retortary moan about why are we straying away from the BBC then if they won't cover us and staying we should stick with them because a highlights package at 2:30am on a Monday morning means we might feature more on their website.

Reality is (AND EVERYONE SHOULD KNOW THIS BY NOW) that if you're looking for Super League news then check the Sky Sports website.

If you have access to the Internet to be able to check the BBC Sport site then you must have the ability to view the Sky Sports one too. It's almost like checking the St Helens website and wondering why they aren't talking about HKR on there instead.

The BBC is a news organisation. What RL news has their been that the BBC should be covering?


It is upto the clubs and the RFL to generate content and news that the media find interesting enough to publish, not the other way round.

I tend to agree - it's a known known that for various reasons, the BBC is mostly disinterested in the day to day workings of RL; for that reason, it's on the governing body and the clubs themselves to create content that engages BBC sports journalists and dials up their interest.

The disincentives to blanket cover RL are many - its regional nature, the Sky monopoly and just maybe, the old school tie/RU connection; that being the case, the sports marketeers need to work that bit harder to overcome those disincentives, rather than simply railing against them as unfair - there may be a certain Quixotic appeal to highlighting the class issue, but it doesn't advance the position one iota.

Maybe the RFL could start by employing a genuine sports marketing expert - preferably one poached from RU - and have them devise, implement and evaluate an *actual* marketing strategy, rather than the scattergun, unfocused work they seem intent on pursuing year on year. If they were really serious about it, they could also offer to work with the marketing managers of all their member clubs, so that on top of all the club-specific marketing work that happens locally, aimed at filling grounds and shifting shirts and season tickets, there was also some joined up marketing of the sport itself on a national basis, that was cohesive and had consistent themes and messages.

Entirely this.

The BBC is not our PR agency. If the BBC doesn't see a benefit in publishing a story from RL land, that is the fault of RL land for not creating a story that interests the BBC and, by extension, the wider BBC audience.

We have 12 clubs in Super League, all with full-time employees in the roles of PR and marketing. The fact that the newest story about RL on the BBC website (aside from the Gareth Raynor trial) is an interview that Daryl Powell did with Radio Leeds three days ago is, quite frankly, a sad indictment of the marketing and PR efforts of all 12 clubs.

Pretty much sums it up.

The RFL have for too long been targeting those who already know about the product. It's up to the RFL to feed the BBC worthwhile news, not the BBC to go looking for it.

The BBC apparently thinks that rape and wounding allegations are more serious than feigning to pee in your own mouth. Meanwhile the international rugby league community will be watching Todd Carney's debut with Catalans against St Helens with baited breath.

The BBC used to show a UK-wide 6 nations 1-hour special, now its just shown in Wales. If they don't do a UK one for the worlds oldest rugby tournament, SL prob won't get one either. So much for the RU/old school-tie connection eh?

I dissagree and agree with some parts of your post.

This is the BBC Sport Rugby League page not the front page of the news site!

Day 6 now and just 5 and a bit days to the new seasons first match yet still the Raynor rape news takes precedence over any other Rugby League news.

I've seen plenty of newsworthy items over the last 6 days, many of which have been reported on SKY, Sporting Life or on the SL website. I don't know for fact that these stories have been circulated to the media but I'd be willing to bet they have.

I agree somewhat that Rugby League needs to work harder to promote itself via the media but I can imagine it gets a bit disillusioning when the stories you send in just get ignored.

Fairly newsworthy headline on the BBC website now, and the kind of story that could break the national print media.

For example, how hard would it be to screen the Superleague Show nationwide at a sensible time of day? Are their schedules so crammed with quality product that there's really no space other 2.00 am on a Tuesday?


I'll bet there are plenty of casual sports fans who would watch it if it came on at 7.30 pm, and aren't even aware it exists at the moment. All these little thing s would help build awareness of our code.

It was..all of last season, on a Tuesday at 1pm on BBC2, it'll never make an evening slot on a major terrestial channel, that's just dreamland.

C'mon lads. Quit whinging. They've changed the front page on the BBC page now.



This time a more wholesome story for the sport on the eve of the new season.