I think Nigel Wood needs to be more specific and how the Stobart Deal could benefit Rugby League upwards to the tune of £2.5 million.

With my job I travel quite a lot of miles up and down the motorways and the busy time or "visible time" for Stobart Lorries is early morning or late evening, which is outside of the public commuter time window. Also the signage is showing SKY superleague on Friday Nights only, so a non RL person would be blinkered into thinking they don,t play this sport over an extensive weekend.

The package might migrate people to watch rugby league on SKY but I doubt it will put "bums on seats". For me the deal has pure "novelty value" and won't generate income, exposure. Only serious media marketing will do that, Aussie rules did this a few years back with a concentrated marketing campaign, there attendances are now sky high whilst the NRL have stagnated.

24 hour trucking is not an exagaration, its a reality in this day and age.

Take one of mine for example today , where it was and times

0300 Hull, 0600 Newcaslte, 0900 Hexham,1000 Washington, 1300 Bradford, 1700 Hull, 2300 Lutterworth and will finish back in Hull around 0400.

650 miles covered and use of the M62, A1 and M1.



Example 2 is one thats been away all week (just to show were its been)

Monday Hull to Berwick
Tuesday Berwick to Seaham to Burton Latimer to Peterboro
Weds Peterbro to Stevenage to Sandy to Doncaster to Hull
Thurs Peterboro to Trowbridge to Bristol to Swansea to Cardiff
Fri Cardiff to Erith to Bedford to Peterboro
Sat Peterboro to Hull

Those extra trucks won't make a massive difference, Roy. But, as is said in the interview, there is more involved in the deal than just new livery on the side of Stobart trucks.

I'm not saying that this is a fantastic deal for Rugby League. It isn't. But neither is Betfair's 750,000pa which, if you take the RFL statement on the deal as truth, does infer that the Betfair deal would have given them sole rights over the RL brand and SL logo.

So, if they can make up the difference lost in cash from the Betfair deal, with a plethora of smaller sponsorship deals, then the Stobart deal is the better of the two evils.

By the sound of it, after listening to that interview, it seems that the RFL are trying to develop a long-term relationship with a major brand sponsor that would lead to a better, more financially rewarding deal, in the future.

So we could end up with both money and massive national exposure from the deal we have now, and possibly a lot more in any future deal. It will still be chickenfeed compared to RU though. But gaining a lot more national exposure could help increase the sports desirability to big brand sponsors.

It's sad that RL is so far behind RU in being able to attract big brand sponsors with massive financial benefits, but that is the way it is. There was no-one offering anything like the £40 Million Aviva deal. We had two choices; the Betfair deal or the Stobart deal. In the long run, the Stobart deal is likely to be the better of the two. Forget all the fanciful nonsense on here about how much better it could be done by them. There are far too many self-appointed experts on this board commenting on something, the details of which, is known only within the boardrooms of Stobart, Betfair and the RFL.

We'll have a better idea of how good or bad this deal is when we see all these sponsors, that the RFL have promised, ploughing the extra sponsorship money in for the next three years.

Or not, as the case may be.

Whats in this for Stobart?

I could understand a betting company wanting the sponsorship as people will bet on RL matches and they could do live betting during games at half time etc so they could increase numbers betting hence making money, but a trucking company hmm

More exposure. They get a mention every time the Superleague is referred to. So they will be mentioned on the BBC and Sky pretty much every week.

There's quite a few people on here who appear to know that this is a bad deal for the sport when I don't believe we've actually tried it before. Now I don't know if it's going to be a success or not but I'm quite happy for us to try something different and something novel.

For it to work each club needs to increase their turnover by approximately £54k for us to break even with the BetFair option. That works out at just over £4k per home match which is (based on £20 admission charge) an extra 207 fans per game which is very achievable if you ask me.

If these lorries driving up and down the country are able to increase each team's attendance by more than 207 fans a game it will have served a basic purpose. Will it help attract more? Quite possibly because it's not just about attracting new fans it's about increasing the frequency of those fans coming who perhaps only go to the odd game or big game. Let's not forget that.

Now come on Pepe.

Are the going to move every game to Friday nights? As that is the only day that is advertised on the pictures i have seen. Are they planning on advertising different games on the lorrys?
It seems to be more about advertising the game for sky rather than getting people though the gates (not that it couldnt happen).

What difference does it make? If you see the sign and are interested you go and look it up don't you? I can't think that too many people who are influenced by this sort of advertising (it's more brand awareness than information giving) sit in their car and have to take the details down of the match there and then. It's about provoking interest. Build it and they will come. We've built it (let's face it with the new stadiums the sport has never been more attractive) and now we're telling them to come.



Increase in RL's worth to SKY = increased power for us at the negotiating table

Win-win!

Totally agree Mc

Is it not possible that people will see the lorry, watch a game on Sky, like what they see and then go and watch it live? IMO it's something different which is to be applauded and continues the RFL approach if trying to raise awareness of the game.

Once again this deal is primarily aimed at building watching on TV numbers and ultimatly a better TV deal , the advertising is subliminal, its just a shame SKY couldnt have got an advert featuring the trucks out now instead of the dodgy one currently being shown

As for the Betfair deal, would the clubs have spent their 60 grand share marketing themselves both as a live and a TV product? , or would they have just found another loophole foriengher to give it to?

Hopefully Stobarts will be working with the clubs on a more local basis, like having the trucks available to their community depts visiting schools and town centres / shopping centres with free or cheap ticketing offers

That will be up to the clubs, time to grow up and start to look after themselves

Potential customers are not lame. If the advertising gets your interest you go looking for it in the same way that when you see a film trailer you don't wait for it to tell you where it's showing you go and find out. People are a lot cleverer than we give them credit for lol.

Good post.