William Hill is mentioned as the potential sponsor in the paper yesterday

Which paper? Link?

I don't think a BBC investigation into club debts shows RL to be a sport watched by Northerners with no money.

The constant complaining on forums like this at ticket prices for Challenge Cup, play-off and international matches and demands fir various freebies / discounts does that pretty effectively.

I said earlier in the thread - how can we expect premium sponsors when the sport is watched by a fan base that is outraged by £18 to see a play-off semi-final?

Quote: wire quin "William Hill is mentioned as the potential sponsor in the paper yesterday Quote: wire quin "Which paper? Link?'" '" "THE Super League season launches today at the Etihad — but rugby league’s top flight lacks a sponsor for the first time since 1995. William Hill have been touted as white-knights for the hard-up game but as it stands there will be no backer when matches begin this weekend." www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/sp ... price.html ... at the bottom of the page.

Quote: wire quin "William Hill is mentioned as the potential sponsor in the paper yesterday Quote: wire quin "Which paper? Link?'" '" "THE Super League season launches today at the Etihad — but rugby league’s top flight lacks a sponsor for the first time since 1995. William Hill have been touted as white-knights for the hard-up game but as it stands there will be no backer when matches begin this weekend." www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/sp ... price.html ... at the bottom of the page.

To be fair, whenever the RFL try to give out positives about the game they are shot down in flames by many RL fans. What hope do they have of convincing people out side the sport when so many within it are unconvinced?

There is also the issue that no matter how good the message you want to give out, or how hard you try, you can only work with what the media are willing to give. And in the case of RL that's generally precious little.

This. It really doesn't matter what the RFL say or do, even if they invented a cure for cancer and ended child poverty, there are loads within the game who couldn't wait to slag them off. Even something as genius as getting the sainted Wiggo to defer to ours as a harder sport produces queues of doomsayers itching to list the ways in which the RFL has "failed".

If the RFL invented a cure for cancer they'd be accused of wanting to make radiologists redundant.

Comparing rl/sle to English premier league football serves no purpose at all.
There are a million reasons why both sports are completely different, the main one being,football being based round Manchester,Birmingham and London and rl being based round Huddersfield and Batley.
Maybe Scottish football would be a better setup for rl to compare itself to.

Once again your right in what you say.
The sport has devalued itself to such an extent in the last 3 or 4 seasons that no one want to pay the going rate for the product anymore

Really? The RFL got him to say that? Are you sure its not because he lives near Wigan, loves RL, and is mates with Tomkins et al? It's great, but don't credit the RFL with it.

Not finding a sponsor for the first time since whenever counts as a failure to me. Now, there may be endless excuses and not without justification - I don't doubt its very hard to find good sponsors...but, there comes a point when people need to be judged by results, and - whether or not Nigel Wood et al think they've tried as hard as humanly possible - they need to man up and say "We've failed to deliver on a basic requirement. We tried, but maybe others can do better, and so [maybe, post World Cup] we're stepping aside to make way for new blood".

Perhaps all the RFL's defenders are right and there's nobody out there willing to take the job(s) that could do better, but its time we took that chance - they're unlikely to do significantly worse - how could they?

I don't understand what, according to your view, the RFL would actually have to do in order for you to say they've failed (or at least not delivered what you'd expect). Do you really believe the best people are in the job?

On the sponsorship point - one of the major problems is that we have no idea of the value that we are receiving.

We keep hearing this soundbite that the Commercial Revenue will be higher than ever this year - so whilst it may be disappointing not to have a main sponsor, the simple fact is that if there is more overall money coming in, then maybe that should be deemed as success.

Our sponsor portfolio has looked quite impressive in recent years, with partners like Emirates, Gillette, engage, Stobart, Valvoline, DeWalt etc. - but if the income is better now with the current panel, then ultimately that is a success.

We could probably have sold the title sponsor rights to one of the partners for £200k - this may have looked like success, but in reality that may not have been the case after all.

So whilst you may call for people to be judged on their results - well maybe that is exactly what is happening and the results may not be too bad.

Maybe. As long as it works both ways and they're prepared to step aside if not.

The soundbite about biggest commercial income in 2013 is misleading IMO. Its world cup year. Is commercial income excluding internationals bigger than last year? Or the year before?

He calls out the RFL and Super League specifically.