Rugby League Media Exposure and Coverage

 

These are all part of my own opinion about what is needed for Rugby League to grow and expand. Primarily, I feel, there is a need to return Rugby league to the level of media exposure needed cause an increase the interest among the wider UK, Europe, and World population.I've done this a couple of times over the last few months and, although the season is finished,  if you click on the links below you should see that the coverage of Rugby League doesn't seem, and hasn't seemed, to be at the top of any list of journalistic priorities and readily visible to everyone looking at the sports pages. This lack of media exposure and coverage is one of the areas where the RFL and IMG would score extremely low on the grading points but it should be one of the main features of the RFL and IMG strategy as they attempt to stabilise and widen the appeal of Rugby League across the country.

 I use a couple of online newspapers to keep up with current affairs and always look at the sport pages. As an experiment I've taken a "snapshot" view across most of the main media outlets and this is what I found:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport at least there is a direct link to Rugby League in the main sport banner but if you dig a little deeper you see NCL fixtures and results which includes Premier, Div 1 and Div 2 but no SCL results so Tier 4 community Rugby League outside the North is not highlighted.

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport-all/  - clicking on “more” leads to list including Rugby League, on 20 Oct 2024 this is the lead article https://www.telegraph.co.uk/rugby-league/2024/10/19/wonder-tries-lozowski-saracens-derail-bristol-rollercoaster/ on the Rugby League page!

 https://www.thetimes.com/sport select “Other Sports” and scroll down to below Darts! https://www.thetimes.com/sport/all-sport and then for a subscription (£15/mth) you could read articles like this https://www.thetimes.com/sport/rugby-league/article/stephen-jones-london-broncos-fulham-rl-nomadic-club-final-farewell-super-league-zwnqpbjm6

https://www.independent.co.uk/sport no Rugby League section that I could find

 https://www.theguardian.com/uk/sport has a Rugby League link on the main banner menu of sports page https://www.theguardian.com/sport/rugbyleague but no article on Championship GF

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/index.html “Rugby” link is just Union and there is no link to Rugby League, using the search function gets to Nathan Cleary articles but not much else.

https://www.express.co.uk/sport - “rugby” link is just Union

https://www.thesun.co.uk/sport/ using the search function gets to 3 articles on Rugby League

https://www.mirror.co.uk/ using main menu bars shows a Rugby League link https://www.mirror.co.uk/sport/rugby-league/ and there are pages and pages of articles covering the season! 

https://www.dailystar.co.uk/sport/ have to use the search bar but there was this article

https://www.dailystar.co.uk/sport/rugby-league/super-league-2024-season-preview-31957157?utm_source=mynewsassistant.com&utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=embedded_search_item_desktop

 Overall, it seems that Rugby League is low on the list of sport priorities of most of the sports journalists and this needs to change. We have the characters involved, we have great people e.g. Kevin Sinfield, we have bits and pieces of scandal, we have outspoken critics of the way things are being handled, we have one of the best teams in the world and we have an interesting change to the structure of the game about to be instigated but we have a game struggling to maintain it’s level of interest across the country. The effort to grow the game over Europe is obvious with many countries taking part in competitions that are not heavily publicised. There is an issue in Norway that needs to make it to the mainstream media. Europe seems to be doing quite well as far as growing the game but where is the open support from the main Governing bodies?

There are quite a few specialist Rugby League websites and papers produced, there are some great podcasts being made - I like https://rugbyleagueoutsiders.com/ which covers a wide cross section of Rugby League and highlights the game in the South. But, unless you follow Rugby League as an avid supporter and, probably, have a professional club to follow, the chances of being attracted to the game and drawn toward supporting a local team (London Broncos - 9m population in our Capital city, around 150,000 within a small-ish radius from the Cherry Red stadium and average crowds of around 3000 (in Super League) is not likely. There is an online TV Youtube channel https://www.youtube.com/c/thesportsmanrugbyleague that is doing great work to show the lower professional leagues and it has good commentators! but the game needs a serious TV deal that introduces the finances that can support all professional teams along with money to grow the game at community level. 

Growth will only come from increased interest, increased interest will only come from exposure and the exposure has to be mainstream media and TV driven. Rugby League needs to be on the "back page" (main sports pages) and given the coverage it deserves.