Superleague Bulls

A solution, of sorts, to the Bradford saga with Super League tabling an offer for the club.

In the absence of another deal in the offing that would satisfy the RFL's criteria, it's difficult to see why this won't go through. The failure of other bids seems to hinge on the interpretation of the word 'unconditional'. Two previous bids seemed to be under the misapprehension that the first syllable was optional.

The move makes sense. The RFL have been acting as ersatz owners for a while now, covering wages and other costs for some months and buying the lease on Odsal Stadium at the start of the year, so formalising that with a Super League - a subtly different organisation to the RFL, but with the same chief executive - buy-out enables them to put the whole thing on a commercial basis rather than month-to-month payments and ever-increasing administrators fees.

Questions arise, as they always will. Firstly, Super League is made up of it's member clubs so there's a potential conflict of interest issue there. What are Super League's intentions? If it's to get things back on an even keel and streamline the failing (failed) business while seeking new buyers, then fine. Even if they run it until the business is turned round and then seek to sell, fine. There are clearly local businesses/businesspeople interested in taking a stake in the club, but on the proviso it remains a Super League club, so if it can be first stabilised and then brought to a position where it will lilely fulfil license criteria, then there's investment to be tapped into. However, if it drags out into a longer-term arrangement, then people will start getting twitchy.

Or should that be twitchier? One valid question is where were Super League during previous insolvency events? What makes this so different and what precedent does it set? One line in the SLE statement says that without this there is "the tangible prospect that we could lose one of our most famous clubs". Are future decisions to be made on the fame of the club involved and does that explain why the clubs weren't willing to save Crusaders? What weighting is there on the fact that the RFL own the lease on the ground and that, were Bradford to fold, they'd be left with a worthless piece of paper?

Questions, questions, questions - that's all this whole saga ever seems to produce. But for the short-to-medium term at least, it looks like we'll still have a Bradford. There's still a lot more to come from this though. This isn't the end.

A modest proposal

Stobart are ending their title sponsorship of Super League two years early. One of the more self-serving press releases you're likely to read accompanied the announcement, spinning club unity (outright untruth) and the increased visibility (which we've addressed previously) and profile (unmeasurable, bordering on specious). The key phrase lies here:

Super League ... need to realise the next objective of monetising the competition’s title sponsorship.

Yes, that's right - the Stobart deal brought in no money.

Let me therefore make this modest proposal.

I will carry Super League logos on 50%* of the vehicles in what I call my fleet, far greater than the 4.5% of vehicles in the Stobart fleet. For this, I will pay the princely sum of five English pounds per year for three years.

This will achieve similar visibility on the road network as was achieved with the Stobart deal and enable Super League to report an infinity percent increase in the sale of naming rights over the previous year. Even the Premier League can't boast of figures like that.

I also promise to show at least as much outward enthusiasm for the deal and for the game as has come from Stobart over the last six months.

In exchange, the Little Grubbers web address should be displayed on post pads, corner flags and a billboard behind the posts at all Super League grounds.

Don't let me down here, Super League. I await your response.



* - I'd have said 100%, but I don't think the wife would appreciate it

Super League and Stobart - some maths

We all saw the announcements about the new title sponsor of Super League. Eddie Stobart haulage branded up 100 wagons with Super League related imagery for no exchange of money. It's a bold move and I come not to crticise. With belt-tightening ongoing and the UK economy only not in recession by dint of semantics, it's an interesting, innovative solution.

Times RL journalist Chris Irvine asked on his Twitter today whether anyone had seen one of the branded trucks yet on the back of him having done a fair few miles up and down the RL Motorway (formerly the M62) and not having done so. Out came a calculator and a web browser with some pertinent Google searches...

Stobart have a fleet of - at last approximation - 838. It sounds reasonable, so let's go with that. 100 of these, as mentioned, have been painted up in Super League livery. Stobart's big marketing claim is that you'll see one of their trucks every four and a half minutes spent on Britain's major roads. Based on that, you will encounter 320 Stobart trucks for every 24 hours spent on major roads or 38% of the fleet (I'm discounting repeat sightings of the same truck, just because it's unquantifiable and therefore difficult).

100 of the 838 represents 11% of the fleet and 11% of the 38% gives us 3.5 sightings of SL branded trucks for every 24 hours. In turn, that tells us that for every sighting of a Super League branded Stobart wagon, you can expect to be on the road for 6.85 hours, or 6 hours and 51 minutes.

I have no idea what this tells us. I have no idea how that translates to the estimate that the sponsorship being worth £2.5m per year. I draw no conclusions as to whether this means the sponsorship is good or bad. It was just a fun* exercise which diverted me for a few moments.


* - fun for me, not necessarily for you

EDIT: It was brought to my attention in the comments below that the Stobart fleet is 2250, not 838. Which means that you can expect to be driving for 18 hours and 22 minutes for each sighting of a Super League branded truck.

Rugby League and Twitter

A new season and, two days in advance, a launch. The flagship no-money-down sponsorship with Stobart saw a convoy head up to Salford where those people in the media who aren't either in the UAE for the cricket, exhausted from transfer deadline day or covering the build up to a minor European international rugby union tournament could see what's on offer. Artificial pitches, rule tinkering, granting independence to the state of Exilia and Monday Night Football were all on the agenda.

Super League also tried to get to grips with Twitter. Chances are that if you're reading this, you're already au fait with it's charms. Super League aren't. They seek to instruct people on the use of hashtags, seemingly oblivious to many aspects. For a start, Bradford and Wigan chat will get lost among conversations between wearers of hairpieces and discourses on women's underwear. Good luck Dragons fans as you get lost among cats playing pianos. These things arise because people use them, not because people are instructed to use them. For example, Dragons fans have happily been using #lescatalans to discuss their team under and it's worked very well. It's unlikely that a well-paid marketing executive's word is going to change that.

We're also being instructed on tags for individual matches. All this is likely to achieve is the fragmentation of conversation. Super League have grossly over-estimated the popularity of the sport. There simply isn't that number to warrant dividing chat down into a number of several brackets per weekend and especially since the #rugbyleague - note the use of 'rugby' rather than 'super' as well there - has been around for some time and works well. It's inclusive and it's clear. #SLCasSal may look great in a marketing PowerPoint presentation, but to the casual observer, it is gobbledegook. It makes the game look cliquey in the extreme and won't help attract new fans to the game.

The best way to get onto Twitter is to observe what's happening and worm your way into that, not do away with established practice and impose arbitrary rules and standards onto people who have embraced and been using it for a lot longer than Super League seems to have done. So rise up, people! Eschew this frippery! Stick to #rugbyleague and let's all stick together rather than go our separate ways.

Now, what hashtag should I use to promote this article? Any ideas, Super League?


ADDENDUM:
When manipulation of social media goes wrong.

McDonalds and Wendy's are just two major corporations to have fallen foul of manufactured hashtag promotions, as detailed in the Independent here.
Tottenham Hotspur's whizzy new website automatically included comments from their Facebook page with hilarious consequences as noted by Football 365 (second item).
Point is, Twitter doesn't obey your rules. It does it's own thing and one of it's things that it does well is subverting obvious marketing bullshittery.

Super League

Competition in Europe that comprises 27 weeks of regular league fixtures and a month of play-offs in order to decide that Leeds play St Helens in the final.