Between SL and the Championship. For me it’s not on the pitch, the RL on offer has been ok, stadiums not bad, it’s been ok tbh.

The one that’s shocked me is the total lack of media coverage. Even though we are top and a bit of a flavour of the month club, finding a match report is tricky as is anything else.

As I say it’s been mostly ok, but in terms of media profile you really do fall off a cliff. That’s been my biggest shock. Must be very hard to build a brand and attract sponsorship if you’re stuck in the championship permanently.

The one thing that's struck me is how some of these clubs survive at all in today's world .

There's nothing coming their way in terms of tv revenue , just how do Batley and Dewsbury keep going with a few hundred fans and volunteers ?

I find it absolutely incredible but the most thought provoking afternoon for me personally was at Odsal the other week , from what they were to where they are today just blew my mind .

I came away thinking how incredibly lucky we are to have Matt Ellis because that could be us without seeing anything like the Bulls fans have seen .

Was thinking the exact same thing stood on terrace at Whitehaven yesterday..
There must be some incredible effort going in by clubs like batley Whitehaven to try and run them on shoestring budgets..
If only the RFL could show the same effort as these clubs..
It’s absolutely disgusting that they seem quite happy to be loosing a six figure sum on the odsal ground whilst faffing around for a buyer.. just sell it!!! While it’s not Suttons fault. The RFL need to take the hit and move on from this particular fiasco..

It's all about money unfortunately.
They can't do the media because they are having to cut costs on a shoestring.
But without it they will find it hard to attract money.

A lot of teams will look forward to us visiting this season.
I hope Cas keep them going once we are back in SL.

Literally leagues apart. There is no way we'd be top playing the way we have been, teams would have capitalised on all the errors and their defenses wouldn't have tired. Watching the SL at times has been like watching our games on fast forward.

Jeez your ability to miss the point is astonishing at times. Nobody is suggesting they are the same. Might stun you to know that we are not stupid, most of us can see the difference doh!

Obviously I expected the quality to be lower and it is but it’s still enjoyable! You ought to try it!! What I didn’t expect was the lack of press interest.

I get what you mean. The press are all SL and the championship largely ignored unlike football.
I've been of the mind for ages that there has to be a way of bringing the championship into the fold - perhaps some sort of interaction with SL - to get more spectators attending from clubs like Bradford, Halifax and Widnes who have a
good potential fan base. More fans mea s more media interest.

Just imagine if Saints, Wigan and Weeds had signed 2 current internationals, Sky would have been all over it, I may have missed it , but don't recall any mention on Sky RL news about it.

Do Sky and SL actually care about the rest of RL.

It was on BBC Web site and local news and all across Sky Sports.

Tbf, with the exception of football, RL is little different to other sports, in that, the top flight receives some coverage but, below the elite competition, there is very little exposure, if any.
The most disappointing part would be on local TV and Radio, where you would think that RL would still hold a decent amount of interest.

Local TV and radio always include Championship results.

But if a couple of hundred people are watching the games, it isn't popular enough to take up media space.

This is it. You have to remember that while it’s really important to fans (and in some cases towns), Championship clubs get similar attendances to National League football sides, and I don’t see much about Woking or Eastleigh aside from local website reports.

I’ve worked on and off in RL reporting since I was a teenager and it was always a massive frustration of mine until I realised SL gets similar attendances to League One footy, so while I love it, I don’t expect National papers to pick it up anymore, in the same way League One might just get promotions and playoff finals on National homepages, we get big playoff games and the finals.

But to get back on topic, the biggest differences I’ve noticed are the condition of the grounds (it was hard to imagine Odsal being the same ground I watched Vainikolo et al set alight), and the fact that we ‘get away’ with more - can always be confident our forwards will dig us out eventually. That hasn’t really happened for the last 7 years.

I understand what you're saying, but that's not really the point.

In this country, SL is top tier and Championship is 2nd tier. It doesn't really matter what the attendances are relative to something else. Otherwise we'd never get to see Scottish football 3rd/4th tier results on the TV every week - some of their attendances are on a par with English non-league level 5.
Similarly cricket County Championship matches only get a smattering of fans, but you still expect match reports.

I think the biggest problem is that the media are mostly London based, and they think there's only one code of Rugby worth covering.

There is an issue with not enough viewers or importance, tonight on the BBC look north, the only important single issue was the women's rugby league Wembley game which I am ok with, but why the he'll does nothing else exist, nothing else mentioned only Leeds & women's game due to the bbcs s
Woke practices, ie minority over takes a larger majority, period !!! ????
Wakey does not exist choose what !!!