I am a Wire fan & i don't have sky sports or films or anything like ,just sports mix included in my package. When you look at sky's exclusive coverage ,they have actually marginalised rugby league & we could do with at least some free to air coverage ,probably Championship downwards ,to try & spread the game to a wider audience. Rugby Union has about 4 different fta tv companies showing different competitions.
Look at the sponsorship in RU ,they are mostly blue chip companies the heads of which probably went to school with the top RU bods ,whereas we have flat cap sponsorship.

The Championship would be a great comp for free to air TV.
There are some really decent teams in there, and the style of rugby is less rigid and predictable than Super League.

I do think the sport had more skill and flair when it was part time,but having said that I would still much rather watch rl than ru[ an upperclass sport that would be laughed at if it was the working class version of rugby] or football which ive never seen a game since the 70s.

Are any of those fta RU deals for competitions below the top tier? That I don’t know is maybe a sign that my awareness hasn’t been raised much.

Covering sports events isn’t cheap for traditional broadcasters, so they would need to know there is an audience, even if the rights were more or less given away. Streaming seems to be the way things are going for niche markets. And as audiences fragment, perhaps nearly all audiences will be niche.

Fta stuff, to create interest has to be big ticket imo. Test Matches, World Cups, finals. Pretty much as it is in fairness.

If we’re blaming poor management and oversight (and goodness knows there has been some of that), how much better a state should RL be in? Realistically and bearing in mind the sport’s history? When was the golden age (if you think it coincides with a glorious era for your own club, or your own youth maybe that is why, btw)?

Who would be the target audience?

Tbh the impression i have always had is that the inter war years & 50s were the big times for RL when big gates were regular features.
As for Union ,since they turned professional & reduced the need for Welshmen to turn pro they have deprived us of what used to be one of our best sources of good talent. Their game suddenly became awash with money & sponsorship to be able to spread far & wide with a European league & worldwide interest in the sport.

At the KCOM we don't seem to have too bad with the aging fan base, i've sat in the same place since it opened and a few around us are sadly no longer with us, but most of their families have brought a younger child along so overall we seem to be replenishing the fanbase. Cup wins in 2005, 2016 & 2017 have helped boost the support. But we do seem to have hit a brick wall of about 8k passes and 1-2k pay on the day fans, when Pearson has stated several times he wanted 10k passes and 14k total crowds.

Scheduling of fixtures haven't helped us this year though, games moved to Thursdays at last minute, playing Wakefield twice at home in a month, and I can't get excited over loop fixtures. I saw Saints trample all over us at the KCOM only the other week, not excited to see it again in a couple of weeks time. Would have rather have seen us play Toronto, Bradford, Widnes, Toulouse etc even if it meant a bit less SKY money.

Agree that a bit of success has helped us, and good that you're seeing younger fans too - the club does a good job in this regard with family days, takeovers etc. Agree on the loop - it does get dull against the same sides.

I don't think that you should worry too much about what some say because from what I hear a lot of folks are cheesed off with the game at present and a not enjoying the game as much any more. I went to direct debit recently just so the pain is spread over 12 months because I wasn't sure whether, with my current feelings I could bring myself to shell out £500 in November as I usually do. I certainly feel disenchanted with it at present but I guess our situation and demeanour as a team doesn't help either.

Union are simply better managed. RL could have built its own National Stadium (Odsal in its heyday probably the best spot) RL could have built up its own '6 Nations' instead they focused on the club game and got it all wrong. International RL has improved again the last few years, but it's all a bit too little too late.

RU are also a lot better at involving their community clubs, often they have them selling tickets to big events for commision, and some even international RU games have a community feel with picnics in the carpark etc, RL has instead cast its smaller clubs to one side, and then expects the fans of those clubs to still come to Magic Weekend, Challenge Cup Final, Grand Final and England games.

RL often has decent ideas but it doesn't stick enough money in or we don't give things enough time. For example The Exiles games weren't a bad idea as such (and RU get much coverage and revenue from the similar Barbarians) but after one or two poor crowds for games held midweek and promoted little (and at a time the profile of overseas imports had temporarily dipped) the whole idea was binned. We've also had new SL structures and rules about every other season, the casual fan has lost interest in keeping up with what the actual format is.

Hindsight is a great thing: but instead of focusing on mergers when SL started which caused a lot of controversy as it just isn't British sporting culture. They could have simply picked the biggest team out of the proposed merger and focused on them. Instead of starting with places like Workington, Oldham & Paris which were either not interested or just too small. We should have been focusing on the big northern cities Manchester, Liverpool, Sheffield, Leeds & Newcastle. If we wanted a French team they should have gone with the South Of France where the game is strong from the off.

Instead we haven't won the big cities (Leeds aside) and the small towns and cities have shrunk in power, population and interest in RL. Sponsors aren't interested in paying to sponsor teams that have small, low income followings. Our own clubs sponsors have got smaller and smaller this decade, 10 years ago we were getting P&O, Tetleys, KCOM, all stock market companies, now its local building firms. Fortunately our loyal fanbase still brings the cash in through the turnstiles and the shops, but people are starting to get bored.

In the 1969 documentary that I mentioned, there is this line:

‘In England, rugby league never left its cradle. It still lies landlocked in three northern counties.’

Is comparing a sport with regional base with one with a national reach, fair? We could blame our grandfathers’ and great-grandfathers’ generations for failing to spread the word further in the UK, but they were up against significant establishment resistance from RU and the most popular sport in the world in soccer.

Looks all over for them now.

NFL season starts next week. I'm more excited for that than anything still to come in Super League this year (playoffs, grand final, relegation battle).

We have to get back to all UK Super League clubs playing on a Sunday with one live TV match ko 18.00
Its the only way we will get more fans back into stadiums instead of sitting on their bums watching TV