The Virtual Terrace & RLWC2017 • Re: Genuinely funny article in the Torygraph!

I disagree the issue is one of delusion, rather it's a lack of understanding of the market in which large-scale commercial sports operate. What Rugby League fans don't understand is the difference in make-up of people that watch other sports with a national profile (I am exempting football from that comment - it has an entirely unique position in the UK sporting landscape).

Rugby Union and Cricket are the two obvious comparable sports for RL in the UK. Both sports have a broadly similarly size hardcore fanbase - those that turn up to watch Sale v Newcastle on a Friday night in January, and those that watch Lancashire v Sussex in a County Championship game on a Tuesday. What those sports have been successful at that RL hasn't however, is in engaging the casual sporting fan for the big occasion.

I live in London and most of my mates down here are natives, rather than exiled northerners... and most of them are more than happy to pony up to watch England RU or England cricket - to the tune of £50+ per game - or go to Twickenham 7s or a Surrey T20 fixture - even though they usually know a minimal amount about the rules of the sport, nor can they usually speak to the current status of the traditional / domestic game - who is top of the Aviva Premiership and so on.

What they buy into is the narrative that those sports do a great job of cultivating - England cricket beating the Aussies in the Ashes, or England RU trying to win the Six Nations - and the mythology (=marketing) that surrounds these events. This in turn gives them the opportunity to build events which the casual - cash rich - fan will buy into, and return to as long as the social side of the event delivers. The actual quality of the sporting product on offer doesn't really matter as most of them don't understand it anyway.

It's like buying anything - there are options for those that care about product quality, and options for those that care about what is trendy but fast. Think a pair of high quality handmade leather shoes from Northampton, versus a pair of made in Vietnam Nike trainers. If you care about quality, you'll pay more for the better product. But if you care about being fashionable you'll buy the Nike's, and what British RL fans tend not to understand is that the market for people that care about being fashionable is quite different to, and much larger than the market that wants to buy quality. Until British Rugby League understands this, and develops a product to appeal to the buyer of Nike's, it will never expand its horizons in the UK beyond the hardcore in the North.