Quote: Uppo58 "Why can't people just appreciate Murray did a great thing and applaud it ?
Why can't people just appreciate the Lions did a great thing too, and applaud that as well ?.
I dont get all this comparison of our game with those 2? all the ifs but whys and wherefores.
Ours is a great game in its own right, played by equally fit men with great skill creating for me the best sporting spectacle there is.
Where do we fall down ? .....Marketing.
Until our people at Redhall employ real Marketeers who can target all the
Media channels with the Brilliance of our viewing Package we will always be seen as a backwater non-mainstream sport.
Selling our soul to Sky has not helped us in my opinion, some small gains but huge losses.
But we are not blameless ourselves either. Looking inwards fat too much, rather than having a vision and making things happen in the world of Marketing of the SuperLeague brand, which is very difficult when its run by non visionary people who still personify the northern cloth cap image.
Until this changes we will always be a No 1 spectacle with a 2nd rate profile. Supporters will always jealously snipe at any other sport where we feel hard done by with the amount of exposure they receive and more worryingly our amazing game will continue to drift closer to extinction as a top line sport that is able to offer top line rewards to its stars in a UK based version of the game.
We should not only watch and learn from Australian RL. We should also bury our RedHall arrogance and watch exactly how the NRL do their excellent Marketing and interface with all areas of the media. It will be a lesson which would help transform our game within 10 years to one which is competing on a level playing field with all but our national sport.
.....and the answers to the 2 questions posed at the top ? Answer
Much of what you say is true but something’s are easier said than done. Marketing within the RL is rubbish, but I think Sky overall has been more of a saint than a sinner for the game as a whole. The cloth cap you speak of is the main thing that the dark-side, RU uses against us. Their raison d’etre is to make sure our sport never gets the oxygen of media coverage it rightly deserves. As for Australia doing things better than us in the successful way they run their sport, fair point, but don’t forget we do have another great hurdle here that Oz does not have to the same extent, Football, it’s far more fashionable here than either RU, or RL and so I agree with you much more can be done here, but I do think it’s not quite as straight forward as you have said.
