Does anybody know who is the marketing director of the RFL.

My apologies for any misunderstanding, that was my interpretation.
Our nearest sport to benchmark against is RU, pro rata the turnover and 13% sponsorship would equate to £3m more revenue - so why are we incapable of hitting that percentage number?
More money is now available from Sport England etc which we seem to be getting more of in £ terms but when it comes to selling the product to the competitive world we are clueless, or so the results seem to indicate.
You look at two non execs at the RFU in Miles Templeman and Andrew Higginson, compare their backgrounds and contacts with those of Lewis or Wood etc and you start to understand why we are so far behind.

There is also Ian Ritchie from the RFU, who as I understand it has seen a weakness of league in Manchester and is presently doing a fact finding mission of promoting the game to a further level in the area.

Andy Hewitt

How similar are the different demographics between the two sports? What are their jobs and how much money do they earn because they can be very significant determinants in who wants to sponsor these sports i.e. McCain's might sponsor RL, Range Rover union. How rich are the areas that the sports operate in? Is there more money in St Helens and Leigh than there is in Richmond?

Rugby league is the women of sports. We have to work twice as hard as anyone else to get the same pay and level of recognition for what we do.

I,m not too sure, did he leave the post last year.

The Stobart and Elonex deals will have no impact on the RFL financial results.

Using that analogy then we should be looking at Ford as opposed to Land Rover, or ASDA/Tesco as opposed to Fortnum and Mason, or Yorkshire Bank as opposed to Coutts. I cannot see any reason why in monetary terms we cannot be securing 25% of the RFU sponsorships ie £4m pa, maybe its because of how the sport is seen as divided and club focused.

As for women, life of riley the lot of em - all they do is look after the house and kids whilst we are at work, cleaning, ironing and cooking, but mainly watching daytime tv.......

What? By advertisers? Half of them probably don't even know where Leeds is never mind how our sport is structured lol.

Could be true, they might even think Red Hall is in China.

Or maybe it's because whilst we view it as the greatest game, the money people in business see it as a minority sport played mainly in the north.

But the population of that area is greater than Wales, Scotland or Ireland.

That population shop, buy food, use banks, credit cards, mobile phones, interenet, insurance, ale, etc We will not hit the £16m sponsorship of the RFU but surely 25% of that is achievable for the second highest watched sport on Sky?

Nobody is saying that there isn't value in what we can offer in terms of exposure just that it isn't as easy as turning up at XYZplc demanding sponsorship. If you're a national company you're more likely to plump for national advertising because that's your market. If you limit yourselves to the M62 there may not be as much benefit unless you have a specific strategy in which isolating the Lancashire/Yorkshire markets was critical e.g. Waitrose launching in the north (used them as an example because there aren't any around this next of the woods).

Again, nobody is saying no but sports like cricket, golf and RU have strong representation with old boys etc at senior corporate levels which means sponsorship goes looking for them more than it does RL. Those three sports have spectator bases which have more disposable income than the RL fanbase. Given that the RFL have grown the business from, what? £7m to nearly £30m in ten years is no mean feat and I don't for one second think the sales teams we have are sat there twiddling their thumbs because that growth suggests something is going right doesn't it?

Excellent point! Never mind the RFU in England, if we could match the sponsorship incomes of the rubgy unions in those nations we'd be doing a lot better.

There are 3 in Leeds.