Ok, sure this (or similar topics) must have been posted before...but how would you sell rugby league to the general public in London and the south?

Imagine there was a new sport (which I guess rugby league is to many southeners - still!)....lets for the sake of argument call it "Meshball"....and lets say its a fast, entertaining and enjoyable sport that has a league and supporters elsewhere. How would you want, as a member of the public, to be informed about it? This is an exercise that surely any company or activity provider etc needs to start their strategy plan with. We've discussed flyers, posters etc numerous times...but its clearly not worked. This is an exercise Quins should be indulging in.

I live not more than 5 miles from the Stoop and I've not once been approached whilst in towns or through any other media communication and "informed" about rugby league or the Quins. How do we get the message in an effective manner to the "masses"???

I personally stumbled on rugby league whilst on holiday in Portugal where some friends and I met some St Helens fans, ended up going to a bar and watching the St Helens v Wigan derby in 2002 or 2003 (I can't remember the exact year)and then went to the Broncos v St Helens match in Brentford (which we won 40-6). If it hadn't been for this coincidental occurrance I'd never have found out about the game! There are thousands of people who are surely in the same boat.

Your story is an interesting one. You were encouraged to watch RL on TV in the company of a bunch of enthusaists. Then you were lucky enough for your first game in London to see one of the most memorable performances in this club's history.

For all the money that could be put into marketing, I'm by no means conviced that seeing a bunch of ads at railway stations, bus stops etc would persuade me to go and watch a sport that I'd not really thought about. I've become a fan of Swindon Speedway after a mate asked me to go with him. Similarly, my best mate is a Quins season ticket holder after me dragging him along to a couple of games at Charlton in the Broncos era.

Of course, everyone has tried to drag all they know along to games. But I do think it would help if the club made a further incentive to get people along. For example, why not allocate one private box for every game to a season ticket holder, whose job it is to fill the box with others who aren't already regular attendees? A relatively easy way to get people to rock up, albeit in small numbers, but it's low cost and may encourage somne longer-term fans.

rlSEPTEMBER 2009rl....my thoughts on the subject.

Gutterfax....very good point, apologise for bringing this thread up - never saw your previous one. I think all your points in that action plan make perfect sense...its these activities that the club should be engaging in. Half of your ideas wouldn't really cost much and could probably be done by the faithful volunteers they have.

Overall, there is an untapped resource in London for building the numbers....thousands of people just don't know about the sport. Quins can't just "assume" these people aren't interested because we've had posters about...just 0.000001% of London and the south-east's population need to be turned into fans and the Stoop would sell out every home game.

Interesting that you share not only GF's views but also his basic misunderstanding of maths. Either that or the Stoop has suddenly become considerably smaller than a phone box.

ok..well, 0.0001% or whatever I wrote may be inaccurate if we're going to be picky....but the Stoop's capacity is what about 12-14k?? How many people live in London and the South-East (Surrey, Middx, Kent, or even Hants or Sussex)?? Obviously we aren't going to target all those people but if we just concentrate on London, Middx and Surrey...attracting enough people that would fill the stadium is an extremely minor percentage of the overall figure.

I think the number you are looking for is closer to 0.1% so you were only out by 5 orders of magnitude. That's picky is it Can I buy your house for £2 ?

Oh god - it's morning in the land of the long white cloud.

Another busy day in the office, staring out at the view of the bay and wellington in the distance......and somewhat annoyingly, still worrying about the state of the club I follow.
Another hammering at Huddersfield...sitting in second last place with an improving Catalans breathing down our necks, an owner who is questioning the level of FINANCIAL support he wants to provide in future, crowds still shockingly low and the licence application for 2012 being prepared by a management who would have trouble finding their own butts with both hands.....Bob Geldoff was right about Mondays

Yep....usual weapon of choice for those who have nothing to add to a debate.......the pedantic torpedo......
I have no doubt that you are as concerned as anyone else about the state of the club at the moment and you have made it clear that you don't see the point in debating what we the fans can't control, so instead of joining in the debate by pointing out a maths error, I would suggest you stay away from it all together.

The poster was simply pointing out the obvious....a tiny percentage of the population of London/ Greater London would fill the stoop......not exactly a cutting edge statement, but a valid one all the same. The club for their part have done SFA to address this issue and therefore, I will re-hash and re-post until either they do something about it, go under or I lose my posting rights on these boards. As others have said, if my posts annoy you.....ignore them.

how would i sell it? I wouldn't. that's the job of paid pros. I'm a fan. I just wanna watch games and enjoy myself but this team is so poor I can't.

Cheered me up that has. I am still fighting a losing battle with the Rugby League World site to get an e-copy of the article with Quins Marketing Bod......but regardless of what it says.....there is no way in this life or any other life that the efforts this year could be described as the work of a professional.
I may change this standpoint if their website eventually lets me buy a copy, but for now........quins rl marketing efforts in 2010 have been terrible.

I sympathise with all of you fans who just want to watch decent RL......but the fact remains that without either David Hughes Money or a minimum of 7,000 average gates, it will be the skolars or nothing in the very near future. The fact that with gate receipts of about 400k and SKY TV money...the club still need 1.5 or 1.7 million to keep their heads above water ...that's nearly 3.2 million a year with no clue how to recoup any of those funds by promoting the game to new fans.
It really is field of dreams marketing........and it still isn't working and it isn't professional either

Is it ever night time over there??