London Broncos make NY Times

[Heritage XIII]

The Broncos struggles have resulted in a major story in the New York Times. This is quite huge coverage really:

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/08/25/sports/rugby/rugby-outsiders-try-to-find-a-foothold-.html?_r=1

 

[Foreign Legion]

Good little read, some one tell Donald trump they need some cash

 

[cumberlandsashes81]

Nice article - thanks for sharing. For an outsider, I think the author summed up the whole Rugby schism quite well...

http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/b/sam_borden/index.html?action=click&contentCollection=Sports&module=Byline&region=Header&pgtype=article

A native of Larchmont, N.Y., Mr. Borden received a bachelor’s degree from Emory University in 2001 and is currently pursuing a Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing from Fairfield University. A soccer aficionado, Mr. Borden is a certified amateur and collegiate referee, and also enjoys poker and other card games.

 

[Bronco Rob]

That was a fantastic article and really feel for the players and diehard fans of London but what about the Union fan in the comments section, has to put his pompous comment in rather than just giving the article credit for what the crux of the story is about.

 

[papabear]

had to post some anti union comments to put the union fan back in his place.

 

[Heritage XIII]

had to post some anti union comments to put the union fan back in his place.

Good stuff. They may get column space in the big papers esp in UK but we can now hit back via social media/comments at these union hacks.

 

[RedVee]

Nice article

 

[RoosTah]

I really find it hard to understand how the ESL haven't been able to make the Broncos an even moderate success... London has twice the population of Melbourne, and of the two Melbourne has more top grade pro football teams across different codes, so I'd argue it's a more competitive environment. Yet the Storm do pretty well, averaging around 16k for their attendances last year and have won their fair share of titles. Sure, they fly under the radar a bit in an Australian Football obsessed town, but people know who they are FFS. So what is the ESL doing wrong? Because it seems odd that they can't succeed when a team like the Storm can.

 

[Evil Homer]

^ It's nothing to do with the 'ESL'.

 

[RoosTah]

What's been the problem in your view EH? Why won't Londoners embrace Rugby League to at least the degree Melbournians do?

 

[Evil Homer]

What's been the problem in your view EH? Why won't Londoners embrace Rugby League to at least the degree Melbournians do?

A few reasons. The main one is that the club hasn't ever had a proper home stadium, drifting between different soccer and RU grounds every few seasons which most of the time were in completely different parts of the city, meaning that putting down foundations in any one area was impossible. Because of the size of the place, people from London tend to associate themselves with the district or suburb that they're from rather than 'London' as a whole, and traveling from one side of London to the other can take as long as traveling between Hull and Warrington (the two geographically furthest Super League clubs in the North), so trying to market a club in an unknown sport to the whole of London is spreading resources way too thinly, it just gets lost in the ether.

Also they've been really badly run for most of their existence by people who either didn't understand the task they were facing or had their hands tied. Most of the time as London Broncos in the early days of Super League was spent trying to make the whole thing 'Aussie-themed' in an attempt to appeal to ex-pats living in London, which was a stupid approach because these people are no more likely to become RL fans than anyone else, they are only in the area for a limited amount of time before moving on and if they are RL fans then they're likely to attend the matches anyway. More recently the club was marketed as 'Harlequins RL' as an offshoot of the RU club, which obviously wasn't ever going to work and saw them lose a lot of the support that they had. Now they're the Broncos again but with no real identity, and all the while moving between various stadiums throughout the city. There's actually a huge amount of youth development in London, I'd guess a lot more than in Melbourne, but the Broncos don't ever benefit in terms of supporters because they don't actually appeal to any one group of people.

 

[cumberlandsashes81]

Speaking of ex-pat Australians / Kiwis in London... in 2009, Manly played an exhibition match against Harlequins RL in front of a crowd of over 8,000. I recall listening to the BBC London coverage of the match and they interviewed a number of ex-pat Aussies who made up a large portion of the crowd and asked them why they hadn't been before to watch Quins in the Super League... I think the answers were: the Stoop is too far away from where the most ex-pats live, "I'd never heard of them before", and some general opinion that anything not NRL was substandard.

It goes to show, though, that if they were engaged there is an audience there.

 

[RoosTah]

A few reasons. The main one is that the club hasn't ever had a proper home stadium, drifting between different soccer and RU grounds every few seasons which most of the time were in completely different parts of the city, meaning that putting down foundations in any one area was impossible. Because of the size of the place, people from London tend to associate themselves with the district or suburb that they're from rather than 'London' as a whole, and traveling from one side of London to the other can take as long as traveling between Hull and Warrington (the two geographically furthest Super League clubs in the North), so trying to market a club in an unknown sport to the whole of London is spreading resources way too thinly, it just gets lost in the ether.

Also they've been really badly run for most of their existence by people who either didn't understand the task they were facing or had their hands tied. Most of the time as London Broncos in the early days of Super League was spent trying to make the whole thing 'Aussie-themed' in an attempt to appeal to ex-pats living in London, which was a stupid approach because these people are no more likely to become RL fans than anyone else, they are only in the area for a limited amount of time before moving on and if they are RL fans then they're likely to attend the matches anyway. More recently the club was marketed as 'Harlequins RL' as an offshoot of the RU club, which obviously wasn't ever going to work and saw them lose a lot of the support that they had. Now they're the Broncos again but with no real identity, and all the while moving between various stadiums throughout the city. There's actually a huge amount of youth development in London, I'd guess a lot more than in Melbourne, but the Broncos don't ever benefit in terms of supporters because they don't actually appeal to any one group of people.

If that's the case, it seems pretty ridiculous and inconsistent... market research should have been conducted to identify the most receptive areas for league, and then the one closest to a stadium of reasonable quality should have been selected for a team.

The ESL should have been on board too, and concessions should have been made to ensure the team was strong and competitive in the way the NRL did for the Storm and the AFL did for the Swans.

Either way, I hope things improve over there. For mine, you lot are way to focussed on the bloody EPL.

 

[southwalesrabbitoh]

Yes soccer is the main problem. But, ya cud write a book on this. A lot of it is also to do with the history of England and its culture.

They had a phone in on BBC Radio 5 Live last year on rugby league v rugby union, and in that hour a lot would be explained to you. One southerner said that, "Rugby League is the beta-max of sport", he's totally wrong of course, but again it's to do with history, perception and culture; even Wales has 7 distinct cultures and accents, England, well I'd guess they have 25 plus.

 

[Evil Homer]

If that's the case, it seems pretty ridiculous and inconsistent... market research should have been conducted to identify the most receptive areas for league, and then the one closest to a stadium of reasonable quality should have been selected for a team.

The ESL should have been on board too, and concessions should have been made to ensure the team was strong and competitive in the way the NRL did for the Storm and the AFL did for the Swans.

Either way, I hope things improve over there. For mine, you lot are way to focussed on the bloody EPL.

It's not as simple as just finding a location and placing a team there. This isn't a manufactured expansion team like Melbourne, London have been around since the 1980s which is one of their problems. If we were launching a new team from scratch with infinite resources then yeah, but that isn't how it happened, they've been struggling for cash, poorly managed and pretty unstable for most of their existence. And concessions were made, the club was allowed an unlimited number of overseas players which just ended up meaning that they ignored local youth development and became even more detached. If you're talking about the club being handed money or centrally run or whatever, that isn't how things work in British sport.

Speaking of ex-pat Australians / Kiwis in London... in 2009, Manly played an exhibition match against Harlequins RL in front of a crowd of over 8,000. I recall listening to the BBC London coverage of the match and they interviewed a number of ex-pat Aussies who made up a large portion of the crowd and asked them why they hadn't been before to watch Quins in the Super League... I think the answers were: the Stoop is too far away from where the most ex-pats live, "I'd never heard of them before", and some general opinion that anything not NRL was substandard.

It goes to show, though, that if they were engaged there is an audience there.

BS excuse because the crowds were no larger after that game. The fact is that 'Aussies live in London and Aussies like RL so let's target them' is a pretty ridiculous idea if you put any thought into it. And that was pretty much all they did for a long time, even going as far as getting a bloke with an Australian accent to do the matchday announcements.

 

[RoosTah]

It's not as simple as just finding a location and placing a team there. This isn't a manufactured expansion team like Melbourne, London have been around since the 1980s which is one of their problems. If we were launching a new team from scratch with infinite resources then yeah, but that isn't how it happened, they've been struggling for cash, poorly managed and pretty unstable for most of their existence. And concessions were made, the club was allowed an unlimited number of overseas players which just ended up meaning that they ignored local youth development and became even more detached. If you're talking about the club being handed money or centrally run or whatever, that isn't how things work in British sport.

I suppose the obvious question is why the English governing body didn't get involved from the outset and why it "doesn't work that way" in British sport?

The Swans were shifted to Sydney from Melbourne in the 80s, and they didn't get a lot of support early on, but good management by the club and the AFL which included concessions and other assistance, has seen them become one of Sydney's better supported football teams of any code.

You say that type of thing doesn't work in British sport, but with a 200 million pound TV deal, perhaps it's time to consider a change of attitude and approach, because it seems to me the "British way" ain't working.

 

[Evil Homer]

I suppose the obvious question is why the English governing body didn't get involved from the outset and why it "doesn't work that way" in British sport?

The Swans were shifted to Sydney from Melbourne in the 80s, and they didn't get a lot of support early on, but good management by the club and the AFL which included concessions and other assistance, has seen them become one of Sydney's better supported football teams of any code.

You say that type of thing doesn't work in British sport, but with a 200 million pound TV deal, perhaps it's time to consider a change of attitude and approach, because it seems to me the "British way" ain't working.

Because it just wouldn't work. With due respect, you can't tell people what the best thing for them would be from thousands of miles away and a totally different sporting culture. If the RFL bankrolled and managed London Broncos nobody would buy into it, the people of London wouldn't buy into it and people from other parts of the country certainly wouldn't buy into it, there would be absolute hatred for the team (there is already a large amount of hostility towards them for the perceived preferential treatment they have received, as there was for Crusaders when they were in Super League).

I don't know the structure of AFL but London (or Fulham as they were originally) weren't created by the league as a top-level expansion team, they were originally set up by a businessman to play in the lower divisions in order to provide additional income for a soccer club and I think were only hot-shotted to the top when Super League started in 1996 (which was a very strange time for the sport in this country in general). A more recent and relevant example of what you're suggesting would be Crusaders, who were brought in in 2009, given assistance and concessions and even had a CEO appointed by the league, but they ultimately didn't work out and had to drop back down because the owners of the club just didn't want to keep funding them. Contrary to what some Aussies believe there really isn't a lot of money in the sport over here and if there's nobody to run and finance the club then things just aren't going to happen regardless of what the league wants. Maybe London would have been more successful if they had the Crusaders model, but that's just now how things evolved.

They have had plenty of assistance and concessions BTW, league chairman Richard Lewis even put his own job at stake to keep them in the league in 2005 when they were about to go bust. But it's really a case of you can lead a horse to water but can't make it drink (that's in terms of the people running the club, not attracting fans or anything else). Maybe dropping down a division will do them some good.

 

[grouch]

I'll be watching them keenly. I really like Joey Grima as a coach, he's made some good signings for next year, they've locked up their hot young talent Joe Keyes, and I think they're set for a successful year in the Championship

 

[deal.with.it]

The model will hopefully be in the near future:
Tv and Radio broadcast dollars will give the RFL the ability to provide grants to clubs in SL (and champs) that covers the salary cap.
Then any additional money the club can raise (sponsors, ticket sales, merchandise etc) will allow the club to hire coaching and admin staff, rent stadiums, travel costs, promote the club etc.
When the RFL grants don't even cover wages, it makes it tough for clubs to do anything other than rely on the philanthropy of one or two.

 

[RoosTah]

Because it just wouldn't work. With due respect, you can't tell people what the best thing for them would be from thousands of miles away and a totally different sporting culture. If the RFL bankrolled and managed London Broncos nobody would buy into it, the people of London wouldn't buy into it and people from other parts of the country certainly wouldn't buy into it, there would be absolute hatred for the team (there is already a large amount of hostility towards them for the perceived preferential treatment they have received, as there was for Crusaders when they were in Super League).

I don't know the structure of AFL but London (or Fulham as they were originally) weren't created by the league as a top-level expansion team, they were originally set up by a businessman to play in the lower divisions in order to provide additional income for a soccer club and I think were only hot-shotted to the top when Super League started in 1996 (which was a very strange time for the sport in this country in general). A more recent and relevant example of what you're suggesting would be Crusaders, who were brought in in 2009, given assistance and concessions and even had a CEO appointed by the league, but they ultimately didn't work out and had to drop back down because the owners of the club just didn't want to keep funding them. Contrary to what some Aussies believe there really isn't a lot of money in the sport over here and if there's nobody to run and finance the club then things just aren't going to happen regardless of what the league wants. Maybe London would have been more successful if they had the Crusaders model, but that's just now how things evolved.

They have had plenty of assistance and concessions BTW, league chairman Richard Lewis even put his own job at stake to keep them in the league in 2005 when they were about to go bust. But it's really a case of you can lead a horse to water but can't make it drink (that's in terms of the people running the club, not attracting fans or anything else). Maybe dropping down a division will do them some good.

Cheers mate, that's all really enlightening. It sounds like it is a combination of poor management (focusing on expats for your supporter base is about the dumbest thing I can think of) and a general lack of receptiveness to the game by the locals.

I have a couple mates from London, and to them it's as if no other sport exists other than soccer (which drives me mad because I honestly can't stand the game and the EPL in particular).

What's the problem there do you think? Is it cultural? Do Londoners just not like contact sports unless they've been conditioned to like a game like Union after being sent to a private school?