As a dozen blokes in front of me chanted for four hours at a one-day international at the Oval:

His name is Irani,

He looks like a Stani

And he plays for Essex, Essex, Essex



Couldn't forget his name if I wanted to. Isn't Stan Collymore on there now? I like him, some compensation for the awful Ian Wright.

Well now, it does appear some of us think that approching Talk Sport may be worthwhile.



Over to you lot at HarlequinsRL HQ (and you could do a lot worse that try to get the genial LMS on the Hawksbee and Jacobs show, both Londoners and both enjoy Rugby League).

It is most definitely worthwhile, like they say, All publicity is Good publicity.



I think all the daytime presenters on there*, have said RL is a great sport, but getting the station as a whole to give us the promo we need is going to be very hard, I have emailed the station about this before,(there is a Talksport thread that happened at the back end of last season) and they sent me a reply back saying they are trying to give Super League more coverage but the fact is the station and its listeners have their major interests in football



If we could keep increasing our awareness on TalkSport though, everything else will get easier





*as with a lot of other famous folk, I remember hearing an interview with Wayne Rooney and him saying he got the whole England football team to watch Super League games on the team coach when the tea were away together somewhere

That's correct. However, most of the football fans I know would say that they prefer League to Union; the atmosphere, the speed and the genuine love of the game that the people who watch actually have (as oppposed to going just to be a part of it or to be seen there !).



I bet that if you spoke to the vast majority of football fans in and around London and asked them which code of Rugby they watched, most would say Rugby Union because they watch the Internationals and want to appear patriotic and knowledgeable.



In reality they probably watch far more Rugby League and thoroughly enjoy it. However, because there is no culture of League down here as yet (apart from in a few locations such as Hemel, Skolars etc) it is easier and more rewarding to be seen as a full time England and part time Union fan rather than just a part time League fan, even if you much prefer the 13 aside game.



Of all the football fans I have spoken to about this subject, I honstly believe that about 90% of them have admitted they prefer Rugby league even though most have started off by saying they watch Rugby Union.



Ladies and Gentlemen, it is a huge untapped market. What say ye ?



Shall we continue our sycophantic dribble to toward the wrong areas or shall we grab the bull by the horns and try and attract those violent, horrible, nasty, brash, uneducated, partisan, loud, loyal, honest, funny, football types ?

your right [association football fans are all potential RL fans, I mean I used to be spurs ST holder, and there are many others on here who saw the light that league offers.



aside from the on pitch entertainment, a massive pulling factor should be the price of tickets, compared to premiership football and probably a good few leagues below it.



The club needs to let them know that they can watch a single match for £15 or £20 at most, rather than just advertising season tickets as I doubt anyone would commit to a season ticket after seeing 1 ad or even just 1 game

I don't even think it's a financial thing.



It's about Rugby League being closer to football than to Rugby Union as a spectator sport in terms of the excitement, atmosphere, speed etc etc as I've already mentioned.

In my experience most football fans hate Rugby and this is the problem. You say the word Rugby and it doesn't matter if it's followed by League or Union they have already switched off and don't want to know.



Obviously this attitude is based almost enitirely on Union and however much you try to explain the differences they still can't get past the 'wrong shaped ball', 'egg chasing', 'scrumaging' etc and so getting them to a game is a thankless task.



Those fed up with the money driven cynicism of the Premier League have lower league stuff to watch. I myself watch lower league football and judging from the people you get there, I think these are the types of football fan you would have most luck with converting them to Rugby League.



I know from experience that if you can just get them to a game then the rest takes care of itself, but it's a potential mountain to climb to get to that point. An example of this is that a great deal of football fans might be quite up for the novelty of a game of Ice Hockey, or American Football, or even Twenty20 Cricket. But as soon as you mention the 'R' word they get all defensive. RU trying to market itself as a 'genuine' alternative to football hasn't helped this, and the knock on effect has not helped us.



We're in a tricky position as both RU and Football look at us with suspicion. RU fans know what we're about but don't like it, Football fans think we're RU fans!



Maybe we should try recruiting Cricket fans!

We have already had 2 opportunities to attract football fans and I doubt that there are many Charlton or Brentford converts still following the team so attracting others may well be a problem if not impossible.

What we need to do is raise our profile locally (Richmond college now have sponsor adverts at Twickenham station

) and get out and about pushing the product and the experience.

I really do hope that Mark Evans comes on board as CEO, even if it is a temporary appointment. If he did do the double job, I believe it would be the best £75k we as a club could spend, as it will free up some of the "shared" resources we have yet to see.

:3k4ehgcr



:3k4ehgcr

Riley now has regular RL column on the BBC news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/rugby_l ... 869156.stm

Riley now has regular RL column on the BBC news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/rugby_l ... 869156.stm

Last quote was mine and I am puzzled as to why you think promoting the game to the 250k odd local residents is a "wrong" thing to do?

Why try to sell RL in TW2 to London when we have an average of (real average, excluding the odd bumper crowd) of about 3,600 at home games. Try to get 3,000 more locals in, THEN promote the game when the stadium doesn't look like a ghost town.

I know for a fact that 1 representitive of the RFL has single handedly raised the profile of the Club with their activities in the run up to manly. With little or no budget, this person has slogged their guts out and as a result I believe we will see a few returnees back at the stoop for the Wigan game and more thereafter.

We do not have the funds to advertise London wide, so why try it? Stick to people who can get to the Stoop inside 30 minutes to start with....then look at the bigger picture.

Spot on Gutters