There's an irony in the calls for brands that sell big money, premium products to sponsor the game when, at the same time, these boards are constantly littered with complaints about ticket prices, costs and the RFL "not realising that this is a working mans name and that fans can't afford x......!"



RL is one of the cheapest professional spectator sports in the UK and yet these boards are constantly littered with incessant complaining about the cost of play-off tickets, CC tickets, Magic Weekend travel costs and demands for the RFL to dish out free / cheap tickets left, right and centre.



If you were a marketing / brand manager at a blue-chip, premium product brand, would you honestly read this forum and think "yep, these sound like just the type of people we want to market to!" For most on here, RL is one of our biggest passions and yet we somehow object to spending £18 to see a play-off semi-final.



With fans like these, who needs enemies?

Good post!.

Whilst I am not a fan of Foxy Bingo being on board, this time last year we were all having a pop at the RFL for giving the sponsorship away...this year, regardless of how little cash is changing hands, they are announcing partnerships like this and saying there are more to come.

So who did it ' wrong and rushed ' ? , and who said it was being done wrong and rushed at the time? ,so how should it be done and how long will it take?

So you are obviously an expert on how it shouldnt be done, so how in your opinion should it be done? , and why should expansion done your way exclude building the sport in the heartlands?

Im not the expert on how it shouldn't be done just pointing out the type of sponsor the game attracts in its current format.



I cant imagine RBS, O2 etc getting involved with a sport located in one region of the country-Maybe Woody will prove me wrong next week.



Build the sport everywhere but dont have more teams in the top league from small towns on the M62 (1 limited potential 2 compounds the current problem-do you not see it)

?

I meant an expert on how not to expand into London



Correct, they probably wont, so the options are what?



Once again if we dont have SL standard clubs springing up here, there and everywhere , what other options are there for the makeup of SL in the near future ?

But the RFL are trying to expand with the introduction of 3 new teams in the championship. This is how it should be done in letting them build and growing a fan base. Lets concentrate on getting London right before fast tracking new expansion teams with no fan base or foundations and hope that the likes of O2, Vodafone will suddenly take notice that we have 1000 people attending them.

Is this how it should be done? , I'd have said something in between what they did do and what they are now doing



They annonced 4 before they had any, and are now spreading their resources too thinly, and have completely devalued a whole division as a result



1 new club every 3/4 years properly supported in a spreading pattern rather than the ' sattelite scattergun ' they have employed



The inclusion of all these new clubs at once could damage some existing expansion clubs, I really dont see how they come up with some of these idea's

Translation: I'm wrong, but I'd hate to admit it!

No need for anybody to add anything after this.



Great game, shame about the 'supporters'.

Where's that 'like' button...



Though, thankfully RLfans doesn't account for all 'supporters' of the game.

I don't care if its the main sponsor, the fundamental point is that the RFL consistently underperform and need booting out. Occasionally acheiving something a bit crappy or even vaguely 'par' for the job and salary doesn't change that.



I admit this: what I choose to expect from the RFL may be more than what others expect from them, or what others consider reasonable. But here's the thing: I see no evidence of the RFL setting good MEASURABLE goals for themselves by which we could make an informed judgement as to whether we a ) agree with the goals, and b) think they're doing a good job at executing on them.



If they'd put *nothing* on their website about strategy, people could argue that maybe they do have really good strategic capability, but choose not to share it ( not that secrecy would be a good thing, but hey ). However, its worse than that. They've printed absolute mindless, effort-free waffle about their strategy and aims which indicates they have no clue what they're doing, and in particular, no desire to write down stuff by which they can be measured. Cheap self-preservation which the game shouldn't stand for.



Oh, and by the way, loving the game doesn't mean loving the RFL. Likewise, critizing the RFL, doesn't make you an enemy of the game. I can pretty much guarantee that everyone taking the time to post here, whatever their argument, is a massive fan and wants the best for the game. When people accuse others making a point about the ADMINISTRATION of the game of running the GAME down, its pathetic.

Or maybe that's the simplified version of the strategy for the public, and they keep all their measurable targets in house so that the hypercritical RL universe can get off their backs a little if some targets aren't met (because they sure as hell won't get praise if they meet them!).



But let's boot out the RFL. Then what, genius?



Opinions are like *rseholes: everyone's got one.

The current management, not the body itself, sorry if not clear. As for 'then what?' Er, hire new people. Despite the amazing economic boom, there are still a few people out there willing to work for six figure salaries.

Who is going to hire them considering you have fired everyone at the top of the rfl?

If thats what you think, fine. You really missed it didn't you!!!

I'm completely underwhelmed by the announcemnet of a Bingo company as a significant sponsor of RL. It speaks volumes of how the sport is perceived by industry.

Where as it been stated that there a "significant sponsor", they were announced as the official bingo partner for god sake, there a company turnover 600 million willing too put money into RL, the RFL have already said that more sponsors will be announced in the coming weeks....

Some very good points there, the problem is the supporters on this forum with or against the RFL are not going to have the slightest bit of influence.

This obviously needs to come from within the RFL itself, but what concerns me most is how low the profile of the game will become before anything can be done.

There are an enormous amount of staff in the RFL in a senior capacity who are operating as interim or in part positions which reduces there accountabilty for there actions.

If you read some of the minutes from their community programme meeting, they come across with strategies and targets with no substance, which tells me they do not have the right people in place to carry out there objectives with careful short to long term planning.

We have lost £10 000 000 in sports funding, lost 2 sponsor partnership deals. On the field we have the threat of our best players migrating to Union and the NRL, we also have the worse referreeing standards to date, intensity in matches are few and far between.

All this tells me something is not right and something needs to change, the biggest problem is the RFL are a law onto themselves which compounds the problem with no true vision and expansion plans beyond Red Hall Lane.

The new Super League sponsor needs to be a big company with plenty of dough.



The Warburtons Super League.

The industry will surely know that this brand is a major player in a £600m market, and is owned by one of the biggest companies in the world in Bwin.



The industry is not stupid.

Well said. The RFL are dammed if they do and dammed if they don't over sponsorship. I'm sure whoever the new sponsors of Super League will be there will at least pay some cash, which the game desperately needs.I will be happy as long as the game is not undersold, but beggars can't be choosers at the moment in the UK with the country more or less broke Its my opinion, and others that the next main sponsor of Super League will be a bookie.

Re this regional sport thing, isn;t our popualtion size in the regions RL popualr in the 10-15million range? Isn't the game played at an amateur level all over the nation? Doesn't skys viewing figures for SL include a significant % of viewers Sth of the Watford gap?



For 1-2million quid a year a company can get major exposure in print and TV media to a significant part of the popualtion in two countries, seriously it has to be the best marketing deal ever! I can't fathom why a majpr brand of mobile phone or softdrink or similiar products where there is a lot of competition aren't knocking down the door. Chuck in Englad sponsorship and you are now reaching two continents. Pepsi come on down!

I think the problem with trying to bring in big name sponsors could be two fold.

Maybe the RFL don,t have the suitable management expertise to approach these businesses with the right approach and processes to give any potential sponsor the right exposure.

Also would it be advantagous long term to ITV advertise our sport in a big way as a tough, exiciting hard hitting sport. SKY sports are really competitors in the business market, ITV could be an option but it would be at cost.

The problem with accepting "the lower brand name" sponsor is how will it effect the individual clubs. If the governing body cant play the the "big name game" in business sport how do they expect individual clubs to perform any better in sponsorship deals themselves. For me thats a worrying factor or trend that some club directors are concerned about.