Quote: mapleyther "You know, you were actually making sense until the penultimate word of the last sentence. Being paid for something doesn't make you a professional.
Sponsorship is the bellweather of any sport. Poor sponsorship directly reflects the health or perceived health of any game - take snooker as an example. The reason being that sponsors will only pay for two things a) to reach a target audience and b) to be associated with a winning and solid brand.
Sponsors obviously believe that our target audience is too small and/or our brand is crap. Interestingly, the clubs seem to do a better job of getting sponsored than the RFL.'"
Mmm. JST600, Probiz, Q-Connect Office Products, Hirebase, Leeds Building Society, MediaCity, Ty-phoo Tea, Eric France, Bensons For Beds, Stobart and Applicado FS.
I don't even know who four or five of those are. Fair enough, Hull FCs sponsorship with P&O Ferries is probably the most prestigious name in sponsorship in RL, but still isn't a huge company.
I'm sure you'll agree that 'professional' means 'does something for a profession'. A profession is your job - paid or otherwise - but in this particular case, I would take the paid professional with contacts over an unpaid amateur with none.
Frank, I entirely agree that Leigh (and other CC clubs) apparently got nothing from this deal, but is that down to the RFL officials, or is it down to the greed of the individual Chairmen of SL clubs who agreed the sponsorship deal? I know which I believe.
I would offer an opinion, but it's completely without any foundation, that the Stobart deal wasn't brilliant, but that it could well have been the better of the two. That doesn't make it a fact though, it just makes it an opinion. I'm also of the opinion that the Betfair offer would have had so many strings attached that it was an even worse deal than the Stobart one. Again, only an opinion, I have no inside knowledge and can only go on gut instinct.
We can argue and disagree endlessly on this (and many other RL related subjects), but without any inside knowledge, and without any details on what the contents of both offers where, we can never come to a definative opinion on which was the 'better' (and if you want a subjective word, then that is one of the best) deal.
