Err, not sure that Union has lower figures in terms of crowds or TV as well....

I was just responding to someone's claims. But I'm sure SL gets better TV figures than the union thing.

think you're right, I was under the impression that Super League has the highest TV figures for a domestic league in the UK after football, well ahead of Union and county cricket.

At any rate, regarding Stobart- we tried it, it didn't work, let's go again. Carling/Molson Coors must be looking to sponsor something after losing the S*** Beer Cup, and they must have some dosh.

Every sport claims to be the 2nd behind football it seems. The key is the sponsors of union obviously feel that advertising with them attracts the audience who would use their product. It's not how many watch, but how many of those you target watch.

True. I think a lot of advertisers believe that union has a) mass appeal (which I'm not sure it truly does) and links to the law, the City etc. (which I think have weakened hugely). And assume that RL has an entirely working-class profile. I'm not sure that either stereotype has ever been 100% true, but I'm certain that they aren't now.

I'm still convinced that this country's number two sport is cricket.

Unions Premiership is on ESPN isn't it? Hardly surprising then that it rates horribly. As for crowds, the poster who brought them up said aggregate...not average. Given the Union comp is 2 teams less and they don't have a Magic weekend, then it's not surprising League gets more in attendance given they have 5 extra games a season, 2 at home each....although I think it might be a very close run thing...given they have double headers and the wembley thing.

Back on topic....
rlhttps://www.aviva.co.uk/media-centre/story/7399/aviva-becomes-new-sponsor-of-world-leading-domesti/rl
20 million over 4 years........that's where the benchmark is.

Alternatively ..

If you want to get yourself loads of free publicity in the RL community just tell the RFL that you are interested in bailing the Bulls out of the situation they are currently in .
String them along for a few weeks whilst making impossible demands . Make sure your demands are tempting enough for them to spend time taking a serious look at them , but so ludicrous that they have to refuse them but still leave it looking to the general public like you were serious . Hey presto . You now have a curry house full of very grateful but gullible people wearing Bulls shirts .

It could work .

Got to say, this is quite baffling, surely for this to work it needed a 3/4 year run, unless of course the trailers continue to be used until their normal ' life span ' expires?

I would be happy with 10 million over 4 years for Rugby League, but its not going to happen. Perhaps 10 million over 5 years would be bad might be slighty easier to get.

Saracens just got 8 million for shirt sponsorship and stadium naming rights for 6 years.....anything less than that and the RFL may as well just give up.....

For your money you get approximately 85,000 fans in attendance each week over 7 games, between 200k and 300k viewers over 2 games on SLY TV, BBC showing the highlights reel once a week, The "your name" Superleague Results printed in all the national papers.

Over 27 weeks of regular season exposure, that's about 2,300,000 fans at games, around 7,000,000 TV viewers and god only knows how many mentions on radio, in papers etc....then there's the pay-offs and GF......


sarries have about 187k in Aviva attendance a year together with another 40k odd in H-cup matches (including wembley and double headers) and maybe a couple of games on ESPN.......if they get to the H-Cup final, maybe another 1/2 mill TV viewers... if that's worth 1.33 million a year, then the RFL need to up the ante...

Shirt sponsorship is probably worth more than you think compared to 'overall' sponsorship, as every time a team is on TV their logo is in shot for the whole game. It's pretty well proven that all but the most one-eyed supporters don't boycott products because they sponsor a particular team they dislike.

My own view is that SL blew the sponsorship completely last time, and it will take some time to build back up to a decent deal. I'm glad they've binned the non-cash deal with Stobarts, but wouldn't be surprised if they don't get a massive deal next time.

The deal with Stobarts was left way too late - SL didn't have much choice but to accept a no-cash deal at the eleventh hour. What they need to do is restructure the whole sponsorship award process. What I'd do is go for a 3-year deal from next season, but including opt-out clauses after 1 and 2 years (even if that reduces the overall fee for this next deal) purely at the RFL's discretion.

The reason I'd do that is because I think the only way to build the value of the sponsorship back up is to get a deal in place for next season ASAP, but immediately start negotiations and a bidding process for the next deal. That next deal would be the one I'd be looking to start making big bucks out of.

I also think that RL as a sport can't afford to be holier than thou with regards to who the sponsors are. Gambling exists and will continue to exist with or without sponsorship of SL - as did tobacco use in the days when the big cig brands were major sponsors of sport.

The only other 'left field' idea I can think of is to somehow get major NRL sponsors involved. The sport is much bigger here, but by leveraging value across the NRL and SL, SL may be able to get something more.

they could offer the package:

SL naming rights , GB Jersey sponsorship and renaming Odsal. Whatever the deal needs to be worth a min 2mill a year and preferably a 3 or 4 year deal.

Don;t care who gets it, booze, bookies, soup whoever as long as they stump up the cash. Don;t buy this RU fans is richer bullox. Depends on the product, maybe of your advertising land rover but if your advertising John Smith's I know where I would be putting my money,

That is now the problem they have got themselves into with the ridiculous Stobart deal. Trying to justify why the sponsorship rights are now worth £2m a year, when previously they were only worth a logo on the back of some trucks will be a massive sales job - even with an increase in viewing figures. There doesn't seem to be any other substantial reasons why the sponsorship rights are more valuable than last year.

Awful deal for RL.

We've made a profit at the RFL go and find some marketing talent.

There should be some sponsorship money sloshing around next year after the olympics though I suspect the new deal will be betting / money related

Stobart have done jack all save rebranding a 100 trucks encouraging people to watch Sky.

Is they want to find innovative sponsor arrangements id like to see us target companies like Groupon, Living social etc to get more people to the games and capture their data.

That is the lifeblood of any business and what is getting more and more attractive to sponsors going forward.

Did we even get access to Stobart Spotters data/ be able to market to them as part of the deal?

A year long campaign where the clubs make a number of seats available for each game would be visable and useful going forward.

Groupon Magic Weekend in particular targeting a city I could see being a good idea.

Even taking one home game from each club to their nearest city area if needs be with a Groupon/other social voucher sponsorship could be interesting.