Sunday 10 February 2013

Salford and London - Rugby League hotbeds?

No I'm not deluded. Yes I know the answer to the question posed above is no! But I don't really think that tells the full story, and I do think the two clubs that carry these place names could be a driving force in the advancement of the greatest game of all. Here's why...starting with a little past and present, before considering the potential as well as the obstacles.

London
London has had a league team since 1980 when they were formed as Fulham and entered the second division. The highlights on the field up to now are a runners up spot in the 1997 Super League ladder and being the losing finalists in the 1999 Challenge Cup Final. In recent times, whist they've retained Super League status, the last play off appearance came in 2005 and in the 14 team era since 2009 the final league positions have been 11th, 13th, 12th and 12th and the average home attendance dropped below 3,000 (2,654) for the first time this century.

Off the field, financial question marks have been raised and it's been felt in the heartlands that this 'expansion' club has been given disproportionate RFL support. The other main problem they've faced is finding a permanent home. Craven Cottage, Crystal Palace, The Valley, Griffin Park and Twickenham Stoop are the main locations for their various tenancies but there is a question over where they will pitch camp in 2014 and beyond.

In the early days the side was often criticised for fielding too many imports. However, in recent times there has definitely been a growth in the sport in London and we're seeing more an more home-grown products coming through into the Super League side. The current squad has 8 players to come through the development system in the South-East and go on to make appearances for the first team. Then there are players like Louie McCarthy-Scarsbrook and Omari Caro who have developed in London and moved on to represent other Super League clubs.

Salford
Then you have Salford. The club has a much deeper history than the London club, founded as it was in 1873. They've enjoyed six championship wins and a Challenge Cup victory along with a number of minor titles, although their last notable trophy win was back in 1976. In the Super League era they've been in and out of the league a little. They missed out on the inaugural season and have suffered a couple of relegations since then, although they've bounced straight back both times. 2006 is the only time they saw playoff action but they were given a license to the 14 team league in 2009 even though they had played the previous season in the Championship, finishing poorly in all four seasons since - 13th, 12th, 11th and 11th.

Off the field the club has traditionally been relatively stable. The Willows was called home for over 100 years. Local steel magnate John Wilkinson had been the Chairman and main benefactor of the club since 1982 and although the club aren't famed for developing many players through their own system, they have shown a knack of picking up young talent from elsewhere and producing long term Super League regulars out of them (think David Hodgson, Luke Robinson and Richie Myler as great examples) or taking players near the end of a career and getting the best out of their latter years (Martin Offiah, Alan Hunte etc.).

The future should have looked bright with a move to a shiny new stadium in 2012 being a big part of their licensing success, but attendances weren't at the levels hoped. Serious financial trouble and the real threats of winding up orders being faced by the club put everything into question and John Wilkinson and friends could no longer support the club in the financially capacity needed. On the eve of the 2013 season there were legitimate doubts over the clubs existence as proposed rescue deals fell through - until an 11th hour saviour in the shape of horse-racing magnate Dr Marwan Koukash.

The future
From what we've seen so far there is no real reason for the optimism about the futures of these two franchises that I offered in my introduction. To the gloom you can add the fact that over the last four years these teams have been the worst attended in Super League. So why do I feel the future of the game could be enhanced by these clubs?

It goes without saying that London is the largest area of population in England. A population of nearly 12 million in the larger urban area (8.2 million for London in isolation) is combined with extensive transportation networks making all areas of the city accessible within good time from any other area. These are things we know. What you might not know is beyond the full-time top tier Broncos, London also boasts two semi-pro teams in Championship One in 2013 - the now established London Skolars and the new league entrants Hemel Stags. Furthermore, the London Rugby League website lists 24 amateur clubs in the London area, with a large number having numerous sides from youth teams up to open age teams.

Twickenham itself, in the Richmond upon Thames district, would only be considered the 11th biggest local market of English Super League teams - although when you half the populations of the two local districts with two Super League teams in them, it rises to a theoretical 7th place for local market. But considering the nomadic nature of the club and there being three London boroughs that alone would push it into 4th place, without considering the public transport links that more quickly than anywhere else in the country shrink the distance between districts, it shows the scope to expand a fan base should be there.

On top of the population potential, London is also the biggest media and sponsorship market in the country. The potential for growth in support, both fans and financial, is massive. If the sport could be successfully promoted in the area it would bring the money into the game that is clearly lacking as it stands. Success on the field could lead to greater interest. Development of local talent into England internationals or Super League winners could really cause a media stir that would put the sport higher up in the mainstream consciousness.

Clearly, the problems that have always exists still exist - barriers do need breaking down. Culturally, the game is seen as a northern sport. Additionally, there is massive competition from other sources of entertainment - both sporting and otherwise. This level of competition isn't so fiercely faced in some of the traditional northern heartland towns that make up the majority of the professional teams.

How can these barriers be brought down effectively? Well one way to start is by tapping into the massive numbers of Aussie ex-pats in the London area. Market the team directly at them if you want - its a ready made market of people from a country where Rugby League is the national sport through half the year. Target fans of other sports that don't play through the summer. Football, Rugby Union and increasingly American Football have big fan followings in the South East of England, but all have seasons that only overlap with Rugby League and have transferable qualities that fans should enjoy. Target these fans by getting plenty of advertising aimed at them when their first choice sport sees it's season end. Intense, sustained (over years, not days) advertising and promotion to all London based sports fans could do the trick. Imagine the possibilities...

The future for Salford should be similarly exciting. They too are the only professional club in a massive drawing area. Salford alone would be 5th in the population stakes for Super League clubs (adjusted for two-team districts). Then consider that it is the only top level rugby league club in the 3rd largest urban population area in the country - Greater Manchester - then the potential increases (Wigan, although technically in the county of Greater Manchester, isn't included in the figure for the urban area as defined by ONS). The Reds have a potential drawing population of around 2.2 million people.

Again, they face competition from other sources of entertainment, but there is no cultural struggle here. People of the north culturally identify themselves through sport and the sport of rugby league is deeply entrenched in northern sporting culture. Though no where near as popular as football, the chances are if you're a real sports fan along the M62 corridor, you'll know enough about rugby league to reel off a few of the big name clubs and players and you'll tune in to the odd Super League game. Greater Manchester has the biggest urban area in the north and Salford are the only full time team that represents that area. They need to exploit that potential and sell themselves to sports fans that don't really identify themselves with a rugby league club yet.

Another thing it now seems like they have on their side that might make things easier than London have it is money - at least that is what the new owner promises. Early signs are good. Manly squad players Liam Foran and Vic Mauro have been signed for the 2013 campaign, showing some fairly serious intent. Former Wigan and New Zealand coach Graham Lowe has been brought in to oversee international recruitment. Closer to home, rumours of strong attempts to bring Salford-born Adrian Morley and Castleford star Rangi Chase to the club have led to suggestions that the club could become the Manchester City of rugby league over years to come and get up to the title winning heights seen in the club's past.

What Salford need to do to capitalise is to build some stability first and foremost and weather the storm that this very difficult year is likely to produce. No knee-jerk reactions in non-playing staff should be considered as this year could well be a write off. Links need to be established with the large number of amateur clubs in the local region, both to encourage a local support base and to help develop future talent. They also need to get into schools as much as possible to promote the sport and the club. Give the club a public face for supporters to catch on to outside of the immediate Salford area and give youngsters some heroes to attach themselves to.

There is another, much more challenging, route that the club may want to go down. They could, as has been speculated, look to become Manchester Rugby League Club. This could increase their appeal and level of identification with the massive potential audience, but it would likely face serious opposition from traditionalists. Typically narrow minded and nostalgic types who favour the history they've seen over the future they won't get to see will oppose such an idea - both from within the club's fairly small current fan base and those with a stake in the other clubs in the area. We've seen this before. When the Super League was being planned out there was talk of a Manchester RL to be formed from a merger between Salford from the west of the city and Oldham from the east, but criticism from fans, entrenched board members and the traditional media meant the prospect of the merger was rejected. Any future move like this wouldn't be a merger, it would be a name change, but this will similarly face traditionalist opposition.

Get their acts together with the promotion and marketing of their teams, build a fan base, get positive media exposure and put some winning teams out on the pitch and we could be seeing two of the dominant forces in ten or twenty years times. The obstacles are there and they are significant, but the progress is bubbling away and the potential is massive...

Super League - Attendance vs. Population

Straight up facts based piece here, which has just come out of curiosity really, but may help inform some of my future writing.

I was wondering which Super League clubs do relatively well in attendances in terms of the population of their immediate drawing market. 

The drawing market is defined here by the English district the stadium is placed within as per the Office for National Statistics population statistics. The clear drawback to this analysis is the Catalan Dragons - I've included them in the analysis but I can't say how well their population statistics relate to the English ones, some of which include wider areas than just the town or city the club is based in. Another note before we get going with numbers is that in terms of districts, London is broken down into its smaller parts.

A note on the data, attendance figures are for the 2009-2012 seasons inclusive, other than for Widnes, who have only the 2012 figure to use for that period. Crude figures are taken from the individual season data as given by the excellent resource that is the Rugby League Project. I haven't scoured through them or independently verified them as they seem robust enough at a glance to give a strong indication of the true picture.

Finally, Wakefield and Castleford are both part of the Wakefield district, and Hull FC and Hull KR are both part of the Kingston upon Hull district. Now, it would be too simplistic to chop these districts in half - both teams in these areas don't show the same level of support. To get around this I took the combined attendance then matched the proportion each team was responsible for to the proportion of the total district population - i.e. Hull FC have roughly 60% of the combined average attendance for the Hull teams so I allocated them 60% of the district population.

Below are two tables - one for population, one for attendance. These are followed by a graph illustrating the respective rankings within Super League.






The teams above the line show better attendance than their population would suggest, and below the line vice versa. Warrington and Widnes are where they might be expected, sitting as they do on the dividing line. The Hull teams look in good shape, whilst London, Salford and Huddersfield aren't faring so well. London and Salford deserve particular criticism as they have much larger potential drawing areas than those given in the tables above, being as they are the only Super League clubs in London and Manchester respectively. (I know Salford isn't actually Manchester, but you understand my point I'm sure.)

Now I know this analysis isn't perfect. It doesn't factor attendance as a percentage of capacity, although there are so few capacity crowds attending Super League games that this doesn't influence matters too much - rarely would a crowd have been bigger if the stadiums were bigger. It doesn't account for fans that don't live in the district, of which there will be many (I would fall into this category myself). It assumes everyone in the district is a potential fan of the local team, when there will be some who may already support a rival team or may have no interest in following a sports team at all. It doesn't account for the percentage of a team's attendance is made up by away supporters, although you'd expect the effect of away numbers to even out some what with teams having a stable core of away support going to all away games. It doesn't account for support that can't make it to games for whatever reason. Also, as the charts are based on rankings, rather than proportions, it doesn't give the real gap between attendance and potential audience, but then it doesn't account for substitute goods (other things people could do other than go watch rugby) either. 

Like I say, it isn't perfect, but it is an indication of who gets the best out of their potential market. Some teams are doing better than others, and I would like all teams in real attendance terms to be doing better than they are. This sport deserves more attention and bigger audiences.

Saturday 9 February 2013

NFL coverage in the UK

This year NFL coverage in the UK has broken new ground I feel. TV, radio, social media, podcasts - all were there in abundance.

Sky Sports have kept up their excellent coverage with 2 Sunday night games and NFL Network's brilliant RedZone on the red button. All the Thursday night games were live on Sky as well, with a new midweek special with extended highlights and a couple of editions of Total Access thrown in too. Other than Bradlee Van Pelt, the guest summarisers have become better and more extensive this year. Aki Jones was a good addition to the team and Moose Johnson was a great addition in the playoffs. Jeff Reinebold was excellent in his stint and Cecil Martin brought his aloof antics in the late autumn as usual.

Channel 4 finally figured out that the best way to present their coverage was getting the old Five team back together, bringing Nat Coombs in to set Mike 'on the side' Carlson up for his consistently great work. It gave the show the sense of humour that it had struggled for with less Mike friendly anchors of the past couple of years. The feature at the outset of the show where they contact an American journalist with a local angle on the teams playing was a good touch, and the interactivity with the viewers made it feel like a fan friendly show.

A big enhancement this year was the addition of a new broadcaster to the Monday Night Football slot - the BBC. The drawback to the coverage was the red button basis, making it harder to record and meaning I didn't bother with a number of fixtures. They only had some studio based content from a third of the way through the series in 'the man-cave'. Let's not pretend they had it totally right this year, but the games were there to watch free-to-air, which can only be a good thing. Having Darren Fletcher presenting was good - a familiar voice to sports fans, but an unfamiliar and happily excited face, the man clearly loves his job! He was helped out by 'experts' like former NFL player Rocky Boiman. BBC capped the season off with live coverage of the Super Bowl, borrowing Iron Mike from Channel 4 and bringing in 3 time Super Bowl winner Willie McGinest as an expert guest, as well as some big name visitors popping in through the coverage.

The BBC went beyond the TV coverage too. There was extensive coverage on the radio too. As I found myself watching he games on TV most of the time I didn't really catch much of the game coverage but its good to know that BBC are getting the game covered in some free to air capacity on a Sunday evening. Then there were the specials Darren Fletcher presented. I really enjoyed the documentary he did for 5live on the Green Bay Packers and what that franchise means to the community in (relatively) small town Wisconsin.

The opportunities to listen to NFL content didn't stop there either. Podcast listeners were treating to an entertaining and growing list of shows. I can't say I listen to all the UK based NFL podcasts out there. I've probably not even heard of a lot of them as every fan and his dog seems to have one nowadays, but there are some I feel deserve note. The most well known is probably NFL UK's 'Inside the Huddle' with Fletch and Reynolds. This year we've been treated to regular twice weekly shows making sure fans are up to date with all the important news and what went on in the games that weren't televised. 'NFL Rants & Raves' is another long standing pod that although presented and recorded by Americans is heavily aimed at a British and global audience. It can be enjoyable, it can be a touch irritating, but often detailed and informative. A newcomer this season was the 'Tuesday Morning Football' podcast. An all Brit affair this one, and often an enjoyable listen, although you sometimes feel you've slipped into a conversation between some mates exchanging in-jokes. The most notable thing here is the quality and range of guests they've managed to get on the show, from personalities familiar to UK fans to former GMs and coaches from the league. Most notable was probably hall of famer Warren Moon, although they also did a great job getting active players from both sides on the show for the Super Bowl preview. The 'Americarnage' podcast which isn't exclusively NFL based content but covers off all you need to know is possibly my favourite. Always entertaining and funny, with good insight too - plus, as it involves Coombs and Carlson, it helps you understand some of the jokes made on the Channel 4 coverage too.

There are also a massive number of UK based fan Twitter accounts to interact with on social media and the forums on the NFL UK website to interact with other fans. You're never short of content on the web and you learn that we probably are the most knowledgeable NFL fans around. Probably why the best and most details NFL analysis available on the web, Pro Football Focus, is a British based British run organisation that many NFL teams and media guys have come to rely on for statistical support.

No wonder we're getting two games at Wembley Stadium next season! It's never been a better time to be an NFL fan in the UK.