We are atrocious at marketing the game, above us in this particular area:-

Football, R Union, Cricket,Tennis, Golf, Snooker, Athletics.

We no longer have any "Blue Chip" companies sponsoring our sport:

All we have is haulage, bathroom, bingo, local contractors sponsors.

We don,t market the game in national newspapers, I remember 2 years back the RFL appointed the Daily Mirror as the official "rugby league voice" for the sport and more or less give up on the rest. Hence Union gets nationally a few pages, rugby league gets column inches regionally.

Marketing the international game is almost non existent.



Most of the above sports use a market research agency, I think its called IFM to develop the sport to sponsorship involving:- Banking,Telecomm, Kit Sports, Car Manufacture, Airlines, Leisure groups, Drink Trades etc. The RFL don,t bother, they bleat on about expanding the game nationally but they won,t do it with local sponsorship deals.

Gillette are heavily involved with rugby league both domestically and internationally.

Co-operative, Sky Sports, Steeden, Carnegie, Holiday Inn. They're all official partners/sponsors of the game and hardly your local corner shop.

The way things are at the moment I'd suspect most clubs couldn't give a flying fooz what their sponsors do or sell just as long as the money comes in.



ps Make this the last Magic Weekend please.

I was thinking more in the line of Reebok, Adidas, Nike, Vodophone, O2, Orange, Toyota, Nissan, Mazda, Guiness, Heinekin, Barclays, HSBC, Santander, BP, Shell etc, if wewant Rugby League to have any standing in Sports these companies need to get on board......so its over to RL marketing to get there finger out.

Nice wish list but if they aren't interested what are the RFL supposed to do?

Don't Puma make the national teams kit and leisurewear? I may not be 'down with the kids' anymore, but aren't they one of the leading brands in sportswear?



Gillette are known around the world as a male grooming company. Irn Bru is sold worldwide. The Co-operative have chains all over the UK.



Away from the RFL, Nike make the Catalans jersey.



Toyota are sponsors of the NRL and the U20s Cup. The Australian competition is sponsored by many well known multi-million dollar national companies down under.

Of course if you're talking about gloabally then the NRL does very well in terms of sponsorship.

Its a big problem, I suppose you could say the RFL are putting the game into "one basket in Sky Sports". I,ve just found another body called sporting link UK (sponsors) and they show the current sponsors for Union:-

Emirates, Land Rover, O2, Nike, M+S, Bollinger, Sports Match, Sunday Telegraph, Gilbert, Yazoo, BMI,IPA, QBE, Investec, Wolf Blass, Powerade, Rhino, Guiness.

I think the RFL need to spend (or waste) loads of money in advertising the game on national TV, newspapers etc in the hope that some major sponsors take a risk in backing our sport. I,m not sure if the correct people are in place at the RFL with the right vision.

What do Sports Match, Yazoo, QBE, Investec (got an idea) and Rhino do?



You could argue it's horses for courses. How many of your average Land Rover owning, Bollinger drinking, Sunday Telegraph readers are going to be tempted to watch a game of rugby league?

Cricket are in a similar position to us then. If Sky pull out, then the ECB could well have huge debts and struggle yet again.

And football?

there were 34 races in the wacky series, the bulletproof bomb (the mobsters) was the most successful car with 4 firsts and five seconds

The Ant Hill Mob.

Always preferred the Slag Brothers myself.