Trainman wrote:
It’s not so much the month but where it is in relation to the season. The Challenge cup was effectively the season finale and the big day out. That has now been replaced with the grand final. Unless we move the CC to the end of the season and return to first past the post I doubt it will ever be as big as it was.
I see your point to an extent but even some years after the Grand Final was introduced the CC Final was still a big occasion. I just think it’s so spread out in the fixtures that they just sneak up on fans who don’t even realise their club are in a CC Fixture. We don’t make enough noise about it or put any real effort into it. I think the RFL sit in Red Hall thinking “its alreet lads, it’s the challenge cup. Be reet”.
If we shift it back to May and make fixtures every month fans aren’t allowed to lose that Cup Magic feeling. The first big event of the season followed by Magic, Internationals, War of The Roses, Grand Final run in.
Sport these days is all about events. Making the sport appealing to casual fans by putting on a show. That’s how darts has done it, the NFL and even Baseball are coming over soon! Bloody baseball! It’s rounders on a larger scale! And don’t get me started on NFL!
How we sit there and take that is beyond me.
We’re too reliant on the dedicated fans who come week in week out rain or shine. But they’re a dying breed. Fans and kids these days rarely go for the love of their team. Fans want entertainment.
If we could market ourselves half decently Sky and other broadcasters would sit up and take note. We’re poor at marketing and we always have been.
We have millions of closet RL fans up and down the country but would they go to a CC Final? Magic? No. It’s not an event. It doesn’t appeal to them. Make it appeal to them, market properly and in advance. Don’t just throw up signs in a bus stop a week before expecting every man and his dog to rock up, like was just done in Newcastle.
I’ve gone off on a tangent a little there
