Re: Catalan Dragons v Widnes Vikings : Tue Sep 26, 2017 9:41 am  

Interesting to note on the expansion topic that I have read the Times, Guardian & the Telegraph comment (though gritted teeth no doubt!) that RU's latest foray in to America was a complete flop, crowd of 6k in Philadelphia for Saracens-Newcastle and a dog of a game, hardly worth the teams bothering the fly there. So to be fair to the RFL its not only them trying and failing at expansion.

Meanwhile 3K turned up in a 46k stadium in South Africa for Southern Kings first home game in the Irish/Welsh/Scotland league and that's with the usual RU crowd rounding!

However based on past experience the RFU will probably analyse what went wrong and either try again with a bigger budget or work out what went wrong and try again somewhere else, whereas in RL we seem to just quickly think of another idea and do the same again. Even when we have some success we don't follow it up, Catalan got an 18K crowd in Barcelona one year but haven't been back??

Re: Catalan Dragons v Widnes Vikings : Tue Sep 26, 2017 9:58 am  

bren2k wrote:

I tend to agree that the RFL should take control of the brand and strategy, and issue SL clubs with a very strict set of guidelines about how to implement; charge them for it if need be, and pay for a very skilled marketeer to sit at the centre of the game - that could do wonders, given that there's so much to sell the game on - but clubs either can't or won't do it themselves.

I actually think the 'Different League' campaign is a good one. I also liked the NRL's "Make History" campaign but I think the NRL has things a little easier, particularly as far as digital is concerned. Because every game is televised, it has so much more content to work with. The RFL tries, but with just 2-3 games being properly filmed each week, it's much harder. Last year, Rangi Chase's flick-pass should have gone viral, and had the game been televised by Sky from all of the different angles, it would have. Instead, all we had was one fairly poor quality angle from the TV gantry - and the opportunity was lost.

On the wider joined-up marketing, the difficulty is that the clubs know their markets better than the RFL, and they have their own business priorities (quite understandibly). Leeds, for example, are clearly looking to attract more premium audiences - they're increasing the number of seating tickets in prime areas to do that and, with limited capacity next season, they have no need or interest in handing out cheap tickets. Other clubs may have different priorities.

What I'd like the RFL to do is almost set an ABM strategy for it's commercial side. Say to the clubs "in three years time, we want to attract these sponsors to the Super League" and then KPI the clubs on growing their reach to and engagement of the audience groups that those sponsors aim for. We have affluent areas of North Yorkshire and Cheshire on our doorstep, yet we struggle to engage those audiences. Similarly the RFL needs to set hard and ambitious KPIs on audience volume and on commercial revenue at club level.

This is where franchising should have been a good opportunity for the RFL to set the agenda. Unfortunately, it used the wrong KPIs and they were easily fudged. The attendances KPI really should have been a "ticket revenue" KPI, to mitigate against clubs fudging it with cheap tickets.

Again, this isn't about neglecting the audiences or sponsors that we have (and whilst Kingstone Press is hardly a blue-chip brand, it is clearly a very engaged and enthusiastic sponsor and that is something we want to keep), it's simply about growing our appeal.

Re: Catalan Dragons v Widnes Vikings : Tue Sep 26, 2017 11:51 pm  

bramleyrhino wrote:

I actually think the 'Different League' campaign is a good one. I also liked the NRL's "Make History" campaign but I think the NRL has things a little easier, particularly as far as digital is concerned. Because every game is televised, it has so much more content to work with. The RFL tries, but with just 2-3 games being properly filmed each week, it's much harder. Last year, Rangi Chase's flick-pass should have gone viral, and had the game been televised by Sky from all of the different angles, it would have. Instead, all we had was one fairly poor quality angle from the TV gantry - and the opportunity was lost.

On the wider joined-up marketing, the difficulty is that the clubs know their markets better than the RFL, and they have their own business priorities (quite understandibly). Leeds, for example, are clearly looking to attract more premium audiences - they're increasing the number of seating tickets in prime areas to do that and, with limited capacity next season, they have no need or interest in handing out cheap tickets. Other clubs may have different priorities.

What I'd like the RFL to do is almost set an ABM strategy for it's commercial side. Say to the clubs "in three years time, we want to attract these sponsors to the Super League" and then KPI the clubs on growing their reach to and engagement of the audience groups that those sponsors aim for. We have affluent areas of North Yorkshire and Cheshire on our doorstep, yet we struggle to engage those audiences. Similarly the RFL needs to set hard and ambitious KPIs on audience volume and on commercial revenue at club level.

This is where franchising should have been a good opportunity for the RFL to set the agenda. Unfortunately, it used the wrong KPIs and they were easily fudged. The attendances KPI really should have been a "ticket revenue" KPI, to mitigate against clubs fudging it with cheap tickets.

Again, this isn't about neglecting the audiences or sponsors that we have (and whilst Kingstone Press is hardly a blue-chip brand, it is clearly a very engaged and enthusiastic sponsor and that is something we want to keep), it's simply about growing our appeal.

All down to Sly that one..As I have said before,they may be regarded as the saviour of the game,but in the same context are actually the demise of it.

Re: Catalan Dragons v Widnes Vikings : Wed Sep 27, 2017 1:32 am  

atomic wrote:

All down to Sly that one..As I have said before,they may be regarded as the saviour of the game,but in the same context are actually the demise of it.

Well in that respect in Aus, the NRL are basically the equivalent of the Premier League and we get that in this Country. With it not being the most followed sport in the Country, how could we really show all the games? Only way atm is Sky to give RL it's own channel then have kick off times and days to suit but that isn't going to happen after they've already messed with the Sports channels to try to keep customers happy. It's hard to think of a way to get it done. You wouldn't get any joy with the BBC that's for sure.

Maybe in the future when the Sky contract ends something can happen and we can go to market again. Also with online streaming becoming more popular we could see that avenue open up.

Re: Catalan Dragons v Widnes Vikings : Wed Sep 27, 2017 5:20 am  

Maybe we should take a look at what the AFL are doing? AFL V NRL

Maybe we should take a look at what the AFL are doing? AFL V NRL

Re: Catalan Dragons v Widnes Vikings : Wed Sep 27, 2017 3:43 pm  

hooligan27 wrote:

Sport is about promotion relegation. Football you would not close the shop on the premiership or league one or 2 etc so why would you want a closed shop in super league.

For years with that franchising bollox there was nothing to play for in the championship and nothing for the bottom teams in superleague to fear. The middle 8s as had more views on sky than the super 8s.

When the likes of Barrow, Halifax won the grandfinals we should of been up not stopped by the fat controller. The franchiseing was crap wakefield was in administration Halifax ut in a good application proved we was running at a profit had a better stadium than half the super league clubs were still rejected.

The tv deal is crap for the championship. We used to have Thursday night games on premier sports which were brilliant until sky bought the rights now we get the blackpool bash and I wont count the middle 8s as they have not shown one championship v championship game at all.

When you superleague worshipers realise there are decent teams below super league you will see the bigger picture.

Good luck to leigh sunday send the dragens packing and leave egg on the fat controllers face

Why is sport about Promotion and Relegation? Say's who?

The NFL is one of the biggest sports enterprises in the world and guess what it has no Promotion and Relegation.

Biggest basketball competition in the world? NBA

Biggest Hockey competition? NHL

Biggest Rugby League competition? NRL

Neither have promotion and relegation but they all do just fine and are no less of a sport than those that do have Promotion and Relegation .

A competition can thrive and be successful without Promotion and Relegation if the aim is to make sure that the teams in such a competition are evenly matched as possible.

The problem with Super League and it has been this way since the start is the depth of competition hasn’t been deep enough. Promotion and Relegation doesn’t solve that problem and doesn’t magically raise the standards at all.

We need to bring back licensing and we need a real change in Super league. A competition that can be called the M62 Super league is not the answer. We need a minimum of 1 French side but ideally two. If Toronto is a viable business we need them in Super league Asap.

Asking them all to try and get Promoted (If Catalan go down) is just nonsensical when we have a competition on it's knees in terms of sponsorship and commercial revenue.

We are not going to generate any more revenue with promotion and relegation and a competition stuck in the M62. We need real changes and something really different to what it there at the moment.