I have a theory to support the closer synergy between soccer and RL. When the guys got together in Hudderfield they wanted to be paid and go professional,. They had seen the early success of the Football League that was established in Lancashire but obviously spread across into Yorkshire. Judging from some old films discovered in Blackburn, gates at some of the early football matches were pretty big. In the back of their mind they had to create a product which they felt would attract the punter to partially compete against football and were looking for something different from rugby as played by amateurs and out of this thought process RL was created.

The RFU based in London probably had no idea of the growth of professional sport, bearing in mind communication in those days was pretty dire, no telephones, cars etc and they probably lived in a completely different world of corinthian sport, ie amateur sport. The strongest football team in London was probably the famous amateur club Corinthian Casuals and the whole ethos of professional sport was something which was not understood nor desired. It wasn’t a question of class. The number of people paying to watch sport in Southern England was low, there was none of the big gates for Arsenal and Chelseas’ of this world. The big gates were in the North with kick offs timed to allow the working man to go the game after working Saturday morning. Hence the 3.00pm kick off, which was always the same until recently with the advent of blanket TV coverage. So it was no surprise that there was a breakdown in communication not only would they not appreciate the impact of professional football in Lancashire and Yorkshire, but a lack of understanding that players who entertained wanted to be paid.

Funnily enough when rugby went professional in 1995 one member of the RFU council was heard to say that “rugby would not become a major spectator sport”. Ok there were large gates for internationals but for a leading clubs such as Quins you would be lucky to get a crowd of 2/2500. Entry was probably £2.50/5 and there no stands and pretty rudimentary facilities. It really is quite staggering to see what has happened over the last few years.

So early professional football was the benchmark and the driver for professional rugby in Lancashire and Yorkshire, here endth the lesson.

What is the alternative? Just sit there and let everyone bang on about the M62 and NSW and Qld for eternity.

Also you’ll find the players playing for Scotland and Ireland are very proud to represent their family roots.

I watched the SkyTV broadcast on Justin.TV. The broadcast focused primarily on the grandstand side. Which had no more than 150 people. On the rare occasion a try was scored we got to see the other side. Not a soul. Just a fence next to some Soccer fileds. As for my watching of League. I watched less than a dozen NRL games this season. On Foxtel they show highlights of both the NSW Cup and QLD Cup. At 2am you pretty much watch anything, they were the best option. Why do you think I was watching the Scot vs Lebanon game. I was actually hanging out for some Top 14 or Super 10.

Leeds and Saints are like ManU and Chelsea, no matter what players they loose, they just seem to be up there.

Both are working mans games, this beds well with supporters, the underdog thoery. And football is a goliath, lets not kid ourselves, and the soccer dudes love rugby league also, most of the socceroos love watching rugby league. Probably vice versa when the soccerdoos play.
So, you dont get that between the rugby codes, one is out to squash the other, always have been. Maybe one day the crossover will be easier to except, in the meantime, game on baby, we are building the world’s greatest rugby comp.

Rugby league has produced a package that now can be sold around the world and hopefully over the next 5-10 years, to the highest bidder, not a add on to a sports presenter. I can watch all the soccer and union here in oz as i wish, but, i have to pay for them. Why would i pay when we get rugby league free to air, and every game repeated 3 times on fox sports.
Yes , i pay for that, but those overseas games are extra to pay.

All i know is that rugby league is in demand on alot of sports channel’s around the world, Spike the cable network is going to show a full season of NRL next year, i would also say they might include the Origin series, they are in the bussiness of expanding their cable network. If this happens by showing rugby league, then league’s value will increase. Yes only 250 thousand might have watched the few games, but how many more will take up the service if they know it includes a full series next year.

I dont know how UK operates with ESPN, but i can rest assured if its showing the NRL, it will make good progress.
Their is a few poms over here next year, we might see more as the years progress. The NRL is on the verge of a massive T/V deal with-in 2 years, and add on top the Pay and cable services from overseas, i think it would be safe to say, pay packets are going to increase nicely, so we can compete with foreign cash-up comps.

Why should oz suffer so France can just do as it likes with the top 14. We are in the market and we are selling a very good product, one that saw massive increase in Bussiness last year, thanks to the quality on offer. Well you tasted that quality in the Kiwi Kanga match.
And that is close to the level you get weekly with the NRL, not every game, but towards the finals it really punches the juice. That is why we can sell 75 thousand between 2 local clubs in Sydney. I dont know what your hearing over in the UK, but i can tell you the feeling here in OZ, our international game has just improved 50% we now have 3 teams all very close.This is the work being done by the super league and NRL.
Just one last point about the pacific cup comp. Alot of those players were from the under20 toyota cup comp, these are future NRL stars, many play for cookie islands, so they did extremely well. PNG will also gain untold experience and exposure next year.
The possitive for league is the fact that nearly 40% of players will be from the island nations with-in 10 years, thats why the island nations are going to keep gathering strength.

Hopefully the next rlif meeting will fix up the international player rules for ellagibility, something that i here union guys talk about so often. To me its not a issue, if i lived in France and was ellagible to play for them, i would. Why not, the aussies wont pick you, as far as they are concerned, your a frog now.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rugby_League_Championship

Don’t believe that reflects badly on League, but it hardly shows more variety than RU.

If we compare it since the Super League came into existance in 1996, 5 different sides have won the Guinness Premiership. Only 4 different sides have won the Super League.

There will always be some crossover amongst sports fans but Ian’s suggestion that RL and soccer have a synergy is not exactly true. In many ways in the big RL towns there has been rivalry between the soccer and RL teams for 100 years. In Bradford and Hull that is particularly true.

“Do you think the GP is becoming repetitive? There hasn’t been many winners over the years.”

No, because you genuinely feel anybody, bar a couple of sides, can win it. There wasn’t much to chose between the top five last year, and this year Northampton look very good and Wasps (despite their loss at the weekend) look like they could challenge as well. Combined with a resurgent but dull Saracens side, London Irish, Leicester (obviously), it could well be an exciting end of year. Bath and Harlequins are also very good sides on paper who are yet to fire, perhaps because of off-field difficulties.

Do you find the Super League repetitive because of the recent St Helens-Leeds domination in the last few years.

The TV ratings don’t assume a standard household – they measure the people in the household watching each programme. If there are 6 people or 2 people in that household those people are measured as individuals so will fall into their own particular age brackets for the ratings.

I have seen some cracking international rugby league recently, not bad for a sport with no international presence.

Do you think the GP is becoming repetitive? There hasn’t been many winners over the years.

The standard household I suspect is assumed to have Mum, Dad and 2.3 children (UK national average under 16), hence the problem with counting over 16/34 years old. We can go round the houses on viewing figures and pick holes in the arguments but the point is that the competition to increase viewing figures is driven by the brand awareness and the problem with RL is that it has no international presence and the SL is becoming repetitive. Although this year at last the Wolves won the Challenge Cup outside the Leeds, St Helens, Bradford cartel, pity the Grand Final was normal service resumeed.

So what was the GP audience for that weekend then?

It is not rocket science as the viewing numbers relate to actual households and with the high price of houses in the UK the number of young people able to afford their own place is small, hence the low number of people below 34 recognised as viewers. If you also go to my local pub on a big match evening that is where some are, with their mates drinking a few ales and enjoying the repartee. These viewers are not included in the figures.

I suppose in England we are not too dispressed about the state of game as we have a vibrant club competition, which may not be the best but there are some great contests. The national side will continue to be soap opera and whatever happens on Saturday will be another talking point ,as judging from Johnson’s squad there will be a number of young faces with potential but are they good enough for the test arena.

Odd date to pick for a comparison – the other SL game that weekend was on Sky Sports 1 but didn’t make the top 10 so it was less that 207,000 but probably comfortably more than the SL and GP games you mentioned – the SL game was the highest rating on Sky Sports 2 that week.

The GP game that week was shown on a Saturday afternoon – there is no live soccer shown on Sky on Saturday afternoons, the only live sport it was up against was Tennis which rated at 35,000 – the SL game was up against Live Speedway and Live soccer. Rather different from your claim eh?

I lived in Lancashire for many years and am aware of the synergy between RL and football in that area of the UK, also the rabib RL poster Oikee suggested the same. As a matter of interest Eng v K’s was held Wigan Athletic’s stadium.

Setanta UK no longer exists and the contract previously agreed with PLR no longer exists, there is a new package in the offering.

The GP figures are close to a standard SL game,W/E 25/4/09 SL 122,000; GP 116,000. The majority of SL games are shown on Friday evening and in the summer, no competition with football, the majority of GP and HC games are shown on Saturdays and Sundays in direct competition with football on both Sky and ESPN. I think the Anglo/Welsh cup is a mickey mouse competition and it probable that the majority of the GP teams will use it as a development competition. In many ways similar to the EPL clubs using the League Cup as developemnt, Arsenal being the classic case.

At the moment because of Sky’s football coverage the ABs have bought the dish for that purpose but there still is a large market for Sky to capture The new union coverage only really started this year and will take time to bed down. Sky want to spread their net and if I recall they have 7 M dishes in the UK and they want to increase that to 10M, Rugby will help and as others on the Roar are continually bleating about rugby being the game of the toffs perhaps you can understand my drift. There still is that preception, although as a professional sport it is changing rapidly and some would say to it’s determent. The more ABs they sell to, the better quality higher value products they will advertise, ie moving from Ford to Jags and Range Rovers ?

However you must admit that Scotland, Ireland and others are cobbled together teams with no real national competitions to make up the numbers and create an international presence.

You must watch a lot of league to be able to pick the difference between Qld Cup and NSW Cup. I watch a heap and would struggle to do just that.

Who said anything about league inspiring fear in these countries?

Sky had decreased its GP programming with Setanta grabbing the majority of games (although at a fraction of the cost Sky paid) – the GP viewing figures for the regular season are not great and haven’t improved much in recent years. It will be interesting to see how the Anglo/Welsh thing rates on Sky, it didn’t exactly set the world alight on the BBC and teh clubs mostly treat it with contempt. The IRB 7s series hardly rates at all so I can’t imagine Sky paid much for it.

As I said, Sky charge advertisers based on ratings not on the perceived social class of the viewers – of course companies will target their advertising based on the perceived viewership but there is a huge amount of crossover within the viewership of all sports. Far more ABC1s will watch soccer than union on Sky.

I believe that due to geography and the fact that there is no one at their level in their own region they have joined Europe. Can’t see it being a big deal myself. Why are Israel in Uefa?

Not too many Arabs? Not sure if there are meant to play in head dresses but the side is full of them. You may mean domestically raised Lebanese. There are certainly a few in the side, I can’t name them off the top of my head but I do know there is a developing domestic competition played in lebanon that has a good representation amongst the univerisities.

Of course there are players from Australia, these blokes are largely first generation Australians, so their parents were born in lebanon. How are they not eligible to play for Lebanon? How many African footballers grew up in France?

I appreciate your point about the idea of international game being overhyped, but I’m not sure it is the case. These countries are a work in progress and I’m not sure anyone within the code would say any different.

In fact, speaking of Lebanon they probably have an argument of why they had to include a quota of domestically produced players when attempting to qualify for the World Cup and the same rules didn’t apply for Ireland and Scotland.