BY JOHN DAVIDSON
Salford Red Devils are out to attract more diverse people to their games and will launch a wheelchair rugby league team this year, according to chairman Paul King.
The Super League has plans on improving its fanbase and its connection with its local community.
Salford were founded 150 years ago, and King wants the club to spread its wings and expand.
In 2022 the Red Devils averaged crowds of 4,529 at home games, the lowest in the competition.
This season the club has hosted two home games so far for an average of 5,161. King knows Salford must continue to grow.
“Our Foundation has a big part to play,” he told rugbyleaguehub.com Long Reads.
“We have to improve the base of our pyramid. We have to get more kids playing the game at community level, boys and girls, and develop that way.
“There is a direct correlation between participation and attendance. We are into that.
“We’re trying to build the next generation of supporters because of that ageing demographic. But it’s not just kids…. In the 1970s we didn’t have a Ghanaian population in Eccles. We didn’t have a Polish population in Irlam, we do now.
“We need to target the Ghana, Polish and Chinese communities in the area. It’s not an overnight thing, but we want to attract more diverse people who’ve never potentially been rugby league fans before into the stadium.
“Because if we’re doing that based on our transitional fanbase, we lost many of them 10 years ago. So we need to reimagine it.
“We need to reach out to different people.”
Salford has its own women’s team and will soon debut its new wheelchair side.
“We’ve got a great women’s team,” King said.
“They’re a good team. We’re launching our wheelchair team this year, which it will be fun.
“I suspect it will be compulsory [in the future] if you want to play in Super League, both women’s and academy teams.”
The Red Devils had also started their own academy set-up, despite being denied a license for an elite academy by the RFL.
“We did it [started our academy] because Warrington nicked six kids from Salford Roosters,” King admitted.
“One of our community clubs, and we couldn’t stop them. That just pissed me off. They need to draw boundaries.
“They can play them five grand or whatever it is and we can’t. Come on. These are local kids.
“We’re trying to protect our own and have our own pathway so local kids can come through.Â
“The ambition and inspiration is to reflect a St Helens, a Wigan where you’ve got X amount of local kids – that’s how they do it.
“At St Helens Lomax, Makinson, Roby – they didn’t all start on 100 grand, they started with 30 bob and a goldfish for four, five years because they’re local and they’ve got pride in playing for their local club.”
