EHW wrote:
The BBC is a news organisation. What RL news has their been that the BBC should be covering?
It is upto the clubs and the RFL to generate content and news that the media find interesting enough to publish, not the other way round.
I tend to agree - it's a known known that for various reasons, the BBC is mostly disinterested in the day to day workings of RL; for that reason, it's on the governing body and the clubs themselves to create content that engages BBC sports journalists and dials up their interest.
The disincentives to blanket cover RL are many - its regional nature, the Sky monopoly and just maybe, the old school tie/RU connection; that being the case, the sports marketeers need to work that bit harder to overcome those disincentives, rather than simply railing against them as unfair - there may be a certain Quixotic appeal to highlighting the class issue, but it doesn't advance the position one iota.
Maybe the RFL could start by employing a genuine sports marketing expert - preferably one poached from RU - and have them devise, implement and evaluate an *actual* marketing strategy, rather than the scattergun, unfocused work they seem intent on pursuing year on year. If they were really serious about it, they could also offer to work with the marketing managers of all their member clubs, so that on top of all the club-specific marketing work that happens locally, aimed at filling grounds and shifting shirts and season tickets, there was also some joined up marketing of the sport itself on a national basis, that was cohesive and had consistent themes and messages.
