Quote ="Him"Except every game isn't an event. It's only an event if you make it one. To make it one you need to spend some money but also you need an underlying interest and, crucially, a market of people willing to attend that event who don't normally see those teams play.
We don't have that in RL. The only RL team that even comes close to that is Wigan, due to their past. But even with significant publicity Wigan v (for instance) Saints isn't going to get much more than it would at Wigan. Because any extra people you pick up in London is going to be affected by regular fans who don't make the trip down to London.
The reason it works in Union is that there is an underlying, low level interest in Union and a willingness to attend big events at big stadiums. Plus it's a (relatively) local club involved, so you get both the regular and irregular "fans" turning up.
The only way we can get a big crowd in London is for a final or international, because the regular fans will travel for it and the irregular fans can relate to it.
The only game, in my opinion, that might do ok (approx 20k+) is Wigan v Saints or Leeds.
But that's about what you'd get anyway at Wigan and probably less than what you'd get if you put the same amount of publicity into it as you'd have to do in London.
We just don't have the clubs to generate interest in London.'"
Every game is an event. Its not only by definition an event, its reason for being is to be an event. Its only RL that seeks to underplay it . We have a huge market for the game. We do next to nothing to tap into it.
But in a way I agree, that we need to make people relate to it. I disagree that we cant, we can, and we need to.
Our desperation to make 'every game mean something' means that the game (as in the event) itself means nothing. We will have an entire competition next year where winning is entirely secondary to qualifying for another competition. Why care about who wins Leigh v Hunslet its all about getting promoted. Why care about Hull KR v Wakefield, its all about staying in the 8.
That is the big thing we are missing, finishing in the 8 isn't the event. Its the 23 games leading to that point which are 23 different events with different histories and narratives. That's what we should be selling, there is over a century of history in some games, Leeds v Wakefield matters not because it will make a 1/23rd contribution to where Leeds finish but because Leeds v Wakefield is already part of a huge picture, a huge narrative of clubs that have played hundreds of times.
and there are small, little things we can do to make that easier. Why don't we have a replay of the GF to kick off every season? Have it on a stand alone weekend and play it somewhere bigger. Doesn't need to be 60k, but surely we could sell 40k tickets for that? Wheres the heritage round? We have traditional easter fixtures but how much do we do to actually sell those out?
The game has spent a ton of time, and no doubt money promoting the new era, explaining how the structure works and trying to sell it to people, how much is being sent telling people who is playing in the first round? why should you care? and where you can buy tickets?
