I agree.

Back in the heady days of Bullmania in 95-97 Peter Deakin made sure there were stories sent to all news outlets every day. There had to be a rugby related story and someone non rugby related that showed the club doing positive works in the community e.g. schools, hospitals, voluntary groups, old peoples homes you name it.

The papers lapped it up as it was free copy. They were well written stories with quality pictures.

The club's profile rocketed. Add to that the ticket deals like free entry to school age kids if they were accompanied by a paying adult and our crowds doubled. We reached a whole new audience.

We need to repeat that.

Indeed. The BBC isn't going to employ its top investigative journalists to track down content for its rugby league page, or any other sports page for that matter. It needs to be made as easy as possible for them, i.e. not depend on them clicking on, for example, the Rhinos official site to listen through an interview with Brian McDermott talking about a sport in which they've zero personal interest. This isn't laziness; they can easily fill their working day by utilising material supplied more professionally by other sports and generate a greater output into the bargain.

Sky Sports have interviews with Wane and Jack Walker up recently, news on captain appointments at Leeds, Hull and Saints. The Sun website has interviews with O'Loughlin, Tomkins, Luke Burgess, McDermott, Ian Watson and Steve Price in the last few weeks and an article about the 13 things they'd like to see happen in RL this year. In that same time the BBC has had barely nothing. So some other prominent websites are able to keep their RL sections going along with stuff regularly yet the BBC isn't? Whilst the RFL and clubs can do better they're obviously getting stories and articles on other outlets so can put all the blame on them and absolve the BBC.

TBF Sky has paid for RL TV rights so is going to give more publicity. The Sun is from the same stable too. It's undoubtedly editorial policy for them to give greater publicity to the sports they have the rights to.

Exactly. I get more coverage for my local branch of the Labour Party in our local media than the RFL get for the entire sport, simply because I take the trouble of writing something for that media on a regular basis. They usually cut and paste it straight on to their websites, and often into their print editions, just because it's easy.

There is no excuse for the RFL not to be providing every major news outlet and website with a new story every single day. No excuse at all.

Whilst not a SkySports subscriber I do find their website more upto date than the BBC.

Both have a story today about Wayne Bennett's future as England coach. Yet the BBC doesn't and they're the ones that show England internationals.

The crux of the Bennet story is "Man might carry on doing his part time job for a bit if he is allowed to." Stop the presses!

Yet both Sky Sports have covered it and are more likely to keep RL fans coming back visiting there sites than the one that doesn't bother. Is the future of the coach of a national team and worst than the recent stories on BBC about the bowls? The Irish women's cricket team squad announced or a former American Basketball player getting an Oscar nomination?

Not every story has to be amazing blockbuster news but if you go nearly 2 weeks on the eve of the new season with nothing then people will go elsewhere and not return when you do have bigger stories or they're are trying to get people to tune into those England matches at the end of the year. And for what? Because they haven't it the time to a quick little article here or there every couple of days?

WoW......that's a long way to go to back up an "opinion" and good for you for using facts and dates!

The BBC do not struggle for visitors to their site. Here's what the #5 UK based News Media site had to say about this a couple of years ago
[urlhttps://www.theguardian.com/media/greenslade/2016/feb/09/bbc-websites-dominate-the-market-in-online-news-views[/url
Similarweb has a more up to date list [urlhttps://www.similarweb.com/top-websites/united-kingdom[/url

Now, I doubt sites such as xhamster????? understand what their visitors want, but maybe you and your fellow zealots can start a thread bemoaning the lack of RL coverage on Pornhub in future

In which case, if the BBC is genuinely ignoring content that is newsworthy, then it raises another question: Why have the clubs allowed the sport to get into a position where the BBC believes that nobody gives a flying one about the England RL coach.

There are two sides to this. One, is that we need to be creating enough content to actually earn that coverage, and the second is that we need to be so embeded in the public conscience that the BBC feels that it simply needs to break RL news.

But if you're the BBC, and you see that supporter numbers are falling, that TV audiences are falling and that the best players in the game no longer play in the domestic league, is RL really going to be high on your list of priorities.

Again, we need to ask some hard questions about what the clubs are actually saying, and about why people don't seem to care about what the are saying.

I'm not saying the BBC do a great job but you're not comparing like with like. Do the BBC pay millions for the rights to show England internationals? Sky/Newsco do for SL and so it's in their interest to promote it.

Likewise Sky often go missing when it's the cup or international time.