Bravo Sir

did the 'Bullmania' marketing strategy carry on? something like that needs continual investment and development, it is not something that you can do for 5 years then hope the effects carry on forever.

I dont know what the Bulls marketing budget was back in the day and, more importantly, what the financial ROI was? There was lots of local radio and press advertising and a huge presence in the city centre, so Bullmania wont have been cheap to implement.

I think saying no british SL club is good at marketing is harsh and not true my club the Rhinos (branding) are actually a very very well run sports club.

Also as someone alluded to, it would be interesting to see how the NRL clubs would go if the Australian public didn't have a huuuuge gambling problem.

Stick the Rhino's admin in say Leigh, and see how they'd do, Headingley makes the cash, thats why they dont want to change it much

You work with what you got!

You'd have to ask Peter Deakin, though if the proposition was that either he or Cougars "invented" the idea of razzmatazz as a form of marketing then I politely disagree!


Is that actually a serious question? The proposition is if you one time hit on some marketing that works at that time, then you are permanently fine? Like some sort of papal plenary indulgence?



Nah, you can't stand still, if you just do the same old, same old it becomes jaded and folk get bored.


There's some connection, as winning teams are easier to market, but in general, absolutely not. Though i suppose if you had a team that lost 100% of its games every year then even Deakin might struggle. It's an odd question, to anyone with even a shallow knowledge of sport; eg in the NFL apart from the Superbowl, and at a pinch winning your conference, the rest of the teams win nothing yet I don't see the rest struggling for support.

Correct, and the Rhino's had a lot to work with from the start

A stadium capable of making revenue 7 days a week

Just 1 crappy football team locally

A large local population of supporters and commercial sponsors

So anything less than what they have done, considering Mr Caddicks initial wealth to start with would have mediocre at best, stick them somewhere else and they might well have done just as bad as anybody else

So there is no ' magic model ' , every club is different and needs a different approach, we now have the added attraction of ' jeapody ' , it is how various clubs management deal with that added interest how they will perform, just buying Aussies will do nothing but leave a club ' treading water ' until they sink, income outside central funding has to be the aim

This will now separate the men from the boys

Well quite, you're kind of proving my point, it's all very well pointing at NRL clubs saying we should be copying them but they have a fair bit of capital to play with, which obviously helps!

In many respects I'd agree, but marketing is not always about resources and often, much more about people.

There are plenty of examples in business where David has given Goliath (in terms of marketing budget, resources, etc) a hard time by coming up with a product or offering that people want to talk about and, more importantly, buy. There is no reason why that can't happen in RL.

Only this week, SABMiller highlighted competition from small craft breweries as a factor behind their poor UK performance. I'm guessing, but I suspect SABMiller spend a touch more on marketing than the likes of Brewdog and Leeds Brewery.

Do you think that Leigh's issues are a result of a lack of budget or the inability of the marketing staff to devise a creative idea that presents their 'product' in a way that gets people talking about it?

Pointing back to the earlier post, who are the 4 teams that are well run? I see Leeds, Wigan, Warrington, Saints and Hull as being 5 teams that market themselves well, show black on the balance sheet, work hard to develop their youth setups and are generally quite successful.

To me brand, internal development and a good credit rating breeds success. Should it be that it is 5 and not 4 teams who are very well run or have I got one of them wrong?

I am ' persona non grata ' on the Leigh board for actually suggesting the club should set a marketing budget before a player budget , believe me, that doesnt go down well

Yes that is my point, every club has to make the best of what they have, but all too often people ( Club owners/directors ) cannot see how to expliot what they have, or they put wrong values on what they have, a case in point is a shiny new stadium, it will not solve anything, people are no longer dumstruck by a cantilever stand and loads of shiny ( empty ) seats

Smalll town clubs cannot support themselves, or build long term with corporate support, it is very much a chicken and egg situation, what comes 1 st, fans or sponsors? , the more fans you have, the more sponsors will be interested in investing in you, but how many new fans come because of a clubs sponsors?