How we grow the England brand : Sat Dec 02, 2017 11:20 am  

Obviously winning the thing would have been the biggest media boost to RL for decades, but England have put on a good show today and I woulden't be surprised if the BBC1 audience is the biggest RL has had for a long time even with the early kickoff.

We need to capitalise on this. Not playing a game at home for a year after a positive 2013 world cup was criminal. At least the RFL have got dates in the diary for the NZ test series with sensible venues but we need more.

I'd throw money at Tonga to get them over for a midseason 'rematch' theres bad blood due to the dramatic semi final. Use that 'payback' for the marketing and sell a game that would normally only fill a ground the size of Leigh/Warrington in to one that sells the DW/KCOM/JohnSmiths.

Go bigger next time the Aussies come here, put the games at Wembley/Etihad/StJames' Park

The England RL team is finally seen as a credible brand 9/10years after the decision to drop GB was made and we need to make the most of it.

Re: How we grow the England brand : Sat Dec 02, 2017 11:25 am  

Add a little blue to the shirt and call it Great Britain.

Re: How we grow the England brand : Sat Dec 02, 2017 11:26 am  

Don’t play games as Great Britain, play regularly as England, simple.

Re: How we grow the England brand : Sat Dec 02, 2017 11:40 am  

UllFC wrote:

I'd throw money at Tonga to get them over for a midseason 'rematch' theres bad blood due to the dramatic semi final.

Do you think their lineup would be anywhere close to the one in the SF?

Re: How we grow the England brand : Sat Dec 02, 2017 1:08 pm  

Keep the mid season test against an PI nation, and have new Zealand do the same during SOO. There's less chance of players from the PI nations switching if they're playing regularly against the tier one teams.

Re: How we grow the England brand : Sat Dec 02, 2017 1:16 pm  

It's difficult because there are so few competitive or attractive (especially from a casual fan's perspective) teams for England to play against. We're playing New Zealand three times and it's on the BBC, so that's great. I'm assuming Australia won't want to play us at all in 2018, so who else does that leave? It's pointless playing against Wales, Scotland, or Ireland. France are the ones that I think RL should be trying like mad to develop, but even they aren't really worth playing right now. I'm assuming there's no interest in the Exiles thing anymore?

Re: How we grow the England brand : Sat Dec 02, 2017 6:56 pm  

PrinterThe wrote:

Do you think their lineup would be anywhere close to the one in the SF?

Not unless it was in that SoO weekend and the money was good........time for the RLIF to change the country swapping rules and make players choose!

Re: How we grow the England brand : Sat Dec 02, 2017 10:47 pm  

I keep saying it but to make the international game the pinnacle, the club game needs to fit in around it and not the other way round. There should be mid season series just like Union and Cricket. I'm not talking one off games, I'm taking full three game series or four/five Nations.

I'm a Wigan fan and if we have to make do without Bateman, Williams, O'Loughlin, Tomkins, Gildart etc for a month in mid season then so be it.

Re: How we grow the England brand : Sun Dec 03, 2017 1:12 am  

NickyKiss wrote:

I keep saying it but to make the international game the pinnacle, the club game needs to fit in around it and not the other way round. There should be mid season series just like Union and Cricket. I'm not talking one off games, I'm taking full three game series or four/five Nations.

I'm a Wigan fan and if we have to make do without Bateman, Williams, O'Loughlin, Tomkins, Gildart etc for a month in mid season then so be it.

Spot on. Central Contracts could be funded from ticket/tv revenue of a mid season tour, but the sticking point would be the Aussies reluctance to either break their season up or dare I say it, reduce the SoO to 1 game a year......
...you'd have to show the NRL the money to get them to release players mid season, but the potential is there. Look at the number of players Eddie Jones used in the November internationals.....3 games and 240,000 fans would have easily covered the wage bill for the 36 players involved and if the Kangaroos came to play in say July/August we should have no problem selling 100,000 tickets if not more at 25 quid upwards, delivering 2.5 million to cover the costs of 2 squads at 50 grand a man...then there's the TV money etc....not clashing with the football season or Union internationals.....perfect time for a touring side

Re: How we grow the England brand : Sun Dec 03, 2017 9:36 am  

Why should they reduce SOO when it's such a success? That's a nonsense idea.

How about we set up our own origin series to match what they have. Lancashire v Yorkshire? East v West? We can't expect the Kangaroos and Kiwis to come over all the time.