Words: Steve Mascord | Image: SWpix
By STEVE MASCORD
RUGBY League Commercial held a media briefing on Tuesday morning, ostensibly to push a new marketing campaign.
But with Salford forfeiting a game at the weekend, Super League expanding to 14 teams despite RLC managing director Rhodri Jones predicting it would stay at 12 and the future of Rugby League Commercial itself under threat, there were always going to be questions on other things.
The marketing campaign details were slapped with a 10am embargo, the general news items with 3pm – due to other media releases around midday.
From the whole 30-minute Microsoft Teams chat, here’s What We Learned.
Salford fulfilling all remaining fixtures is regarded as “a week-to-week thing” by Rugby League Commercial. “Last night was encouraging when they said they’ll fulfil Friday against Leigh. I think they’ve got Warrington the week after as well,” said Jones. “Look, I think it is a week-to-week thing but, you know, I’m confident that they and everyone else around the game will look to get them through the next five fixtures.”
Sky have been advised that Magic Weekend is “under review”. “There was discussion about Magic Weekend in that clubs meeting but no decision was made about it,” said Jones. “Clearly with the ambition to go to 14 teams it removes the loop fixture sequences and Magic – as we all know – is a loop fixture. I don’t think we’re in a position to go to six clubs, or seven clubs, and ask them to give up a home game. I’d say at this point … Magic is under review. We are working behind the scenes on provisionally securing a venue on the outcome that we might need it. But I’d say at the moment that it’s under review and that’s the conversation and the dialogue that we’ve had here internally – both with the Strategic Review Group and with Sky as well … which they’ve accepted. I think attendance this year shows Newcastle is a good home for it and it works. The challenge for us will be the date, in terms of where it sits in the calendar. We’re aware of those Newcastle (United) fixtures January through to May of next year so it’s finding the right slot that avoids clashing with Wembley at the end of May next year and Easter, which is obviously April time. And the other Challenge Cup round,s which is in between all of that. So that’s the bit we need to work through and obviously the Catalans (in) Paris in early June as well. Yeah, it’s just about trying to find the right weekend for us.”
Sky has never indicated it would take money back or otherwise punish the governing body for there being fewer matches each weekend due to Salford’s woes: “I’ll be honest … it’s never a conversation I’ve been party to with Sky in the liaisons I’ve had with Sky over the course of the season, talking about Salford. They’ve been fully aware of the challenges that we’ve faced and Salford have faced and as you’d expect, I speak to them or we speak to them on a very regular basis to make sure that they’re across it and they’re not reading things from you guys before they’ve heard it from me. But we’ve never had the conversation about ‘what happens if they go, what would the consequences and – dare I say – what would the punishments be?’. So, yeah, I think it’s probably people assuming an outcome rather than actual reality.”
Rugby League Commercial are launching a marketing campaign for the period before the play-offs: “We had soft-launched that, you may have seen, across some of our digital channels in the last 24 hours,” said RLC head of marketing and communications, Joe Steel. “But really it’s about building that up ahead of the big game on Thursday, Rhinos versus KR. The campaign: one that we’re really excited to launch and really excited to hopefully make this a usual part of our season and the vernacular of the end of the Super League year.,”
Grand final ticket sales are 25 per cent up on last year: “That’s from a strong base of last year, when we had the best base since 2017,” said Jones. “We’re very hopeful we’ll be pushing that 70,000 mark come the 11th of October.”
Almost 40,000 tickets have been sold for the first Ashes Test: “We’re about 110,000 tickets now, which for those who can’t do their maths is about 38,000, 39,000 for that Wembley fixture at the moment. Our target there is 65,000 to 70,000 with a lot of the marketing activity to start in earnest come September time, particularly down in London.”
Video views and social media engagement at Rugby League Commercial are up 75 percent: “… all of that down to the work that’s been going on here, the work that we did with IMG over the last two years to refine what we were doing, become more efficient, deliver things that people actually want to see rather than just volume of content,” said Jones.
There have been 100,000 new data entries on Rugby League Commercial systems: “…primarily because of the change in ticketing system,” said Jones, “but also the Ashes has contributed significantly to that data number and also us selling centrally for the events that previously clubs sold for. By that I mean the Challenge Cup semi-finals, the Challenge Cup final. All ticketing now comes through Rugby League Commercial, so we’ve been able to grow our pool of data and information on our fans.”
Super League attendances overall are up 10 per cent this year: “…which is all credit to the Super League clubs and the work they’ve been putting in to generating crowds, exemplified by the Wigan attendance,” said Jones. “Over 20,000, I think for the third time this season. We’ve had strong attendances over Rivals Round, Magic Weekend and also the Challenge Cup final was the second highest attended since 2017.”
Sky TV ratings are up, as previously reported here, but only in terms of the channel’s two ‘exclusive picks’ each week as last year they also showed other games on their main channels for a period as well. Cumulatively, as a result, 2024 is way ahead of 2025.