Is it a bigger sport than league. When I’ve seen some games on Sky( channel surfing) the stadiums look as empty as a Giants or Salford game,so I’m guessing it’s just the money and backing it relieves than our sport does.

Reason I’ve brought this up is these up coming Union internationals, Sky are ramming it down our throat virtually every advert break, our sport gets nothing like the same exposure.

The league attendances aren't too dissimilar, and I imagine the Premiership TV viewing figures maybe around the same, but RU internationals are relatively massive compared to league.

Back in the day when we had international tours and GB v Australia test series we also had sell out crowds. Since then we opted for summer rugby, hence no tours, and dropped the GB brand. Two home goals. RU win.

More people know about and watch union than league probably just because it's a historical/cultural thing. People watch union in England because that's what everyone else does. People watch league in Aus because that's what everyone else does.

I’ve got to ask what you’re watching; Sky haven’t had rights to the Aviva Premiership for a few years now, and the average attendance in that league last season was over 15,000. They do show Super Rugby from the Southern Hemisphere, where the games in Australia and particularly South Africa are prone to having sp crowds in huge stadiums, but most Aviva Premiership games are played to busy crowds in stadiums of 15-20,000, and regular games between some clubs at Twickenham and Wembley can get 70,000. It doesn’t give me any pleasure to say it, and we can discuss the reasons going back to 1895, but to argue there is an equivalence in club attendances is just not right.

I've seen similar figures too. More telling is the continual rise. Union attendances are on a decent upward trend year on year, where as SL attendances are generally flat over the last few years.

But the TV figures are even more stark. Since BT took over the rights in 2013, the viewing figures have been on the up and up. They were up a staggering 13% on last season. Just goes to show what a decent broadcaster can do when they genuinely invest in the package, rather than just buy it to use as a filler when the football isn't on.

Stats are always misleading.
1% with Fox or terrestrial tv is huge.
13% of nothing is nothing.
BT sport is very much next to nothing.

I get what your saying, and it is difficult to get actual figures as Sky are shrewd about them, but looking at various reputable news articles -

276,000 people tuned in to watch London Wasps against Leicester Tigers on BT (2014 news article)
An early season Wigan vs Huddersfield game on Sky Sports in February attracted an average audience of 299,300.

Yes they're cherry picked figures due to the difficulty in finding anything, but I think it's fair to say that the BT sport numbers are not "very much next to nothing". The growth rate of Union on TV is very real, and very significant, while League still stagnates.

Some of the Aviva Premiership average attendances are heavily skewed by their event games at places such as Wembley.

e.g. if you get 5K attendance at each of 9 home games, then have a Wembley mega match that gets 75k then all of a sudden your (mean) average attendance is 12k !

That's not to say they aren't doing well to get 75k for their one-off Wembley games, just that people often go along for it as an event and it doesn't translate into sustained crowd increases.

I sense that Union is ramping up quite aggressively against RL....last night I tuned into BBC R5 last night...now I missed the start...but no mention at all about the RLWC....plenty of stuff about meaningless Autumn RU internationals though...they can spin an hour talking e about nothing...its all about spin, good PR and the old boys network

Anyone who can suggest that there is no such thing as an active anti RL agenda from the RFU is, quite simply, an idiot who has no idea how the upper middle class go about their business. Wouldn't trust any of them. The type of people who'd rather watch you drown than part with a single penny. The same people who cover up sex scandals and paedophile rings within the establishment.

That escalated very quickly....!!!

but never a truer word spoken,
I hate the sport with a passion

however I'd give Nigel woods left nut to have the media coverage they have.

Off the field Union is simply a different league to League.

Fortunately its still a dreadful sport and they know only by reducing the number of players and getting rid of lineouts and 7ft beanpole plodders and short chubby blokes is their only hope of making it any good.

If a sport has to introduce bonus points in the league to encourage teams to actually score tries, it is broken.

Wonder if any RL will get a look-in with these latest plans from BBS Sport ? I know we got some of the early rounds of the CC last year, it would be great if they were able to bring some live Championship/League 1 RL games too.

""The BBC plans to broadcast 1,000 extra hours of live sport a year online as it attempts to "reinvent free-to-air sports broadcasting".
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More than 30 additional sports or sporting events - including Women's Super League football, the British Basketball League and wheelchair tennis - will be streamed live via iPlayer and the BBC Sport website.

There will also be more coverage of early rounds of the FA Cup.

BBC director general Tony Hall said: "We're giving people more of what they love by working in partnership with the sports industry and making the most of digital technology.

"This shows how we're reinventing the BBC for a new generation.""