Fox League Broadcasting Euro Championship

[jim_57]

Didn’t the tournament used to get crowd of around 5,000? Outside of France, this seems to be drawing in the few hundreds at the moment.

Not anywhere but France. Wales might have got a few 2-3k attendances but Ireland and Scotland have always been below 1000 from memory.

 

[Pommy]

Didn’t the tournament used to get crowd of around 5,000? Outside of France, this seems to be drawing in the few hundreds at the moment.

That’s the reality of the sport outside of country’s where it has a hold.
The vast majority in Scotland and Ireland won’t even know there two sports and the welsh are diehard union fans

 

[miguel de cervantes]

you won't get decent crowds for the national team unless you are a part of the national psyche
you won't be part of the national psyche unless you play in "national" scale stadiums
you won't be part of the national psyche unless you have good exposure in the national media
you won't be part of the national psyche if you don't have national scale participation in the sport
you won't be given any of this for free, you have to earn it over years and years of constant effort
you need to take the initiative in getting it - you need to foster demand by providing supply, not hoping for the opposite. you need to project success.

rugby league doesn't really do any of this at the international level. in fact it has always shyed away from it except in a few rare excursions to London, Eden Park, Paris. These are by far exceptions rather than the norm.

 

[yakstorm]

It's not like any of the nations do much to help market their matches to help, which in many ways makes the fact Ireland, Scotland and Wales have drawn crowds around the 1K mark quite encouraging.

Imagine if they had a bit of a marketing budget and a resource or two who knew what they were doing? Between FB and Banner advertising, I honestly feel somewhere like Galashiels could have looked a lot better on TV with the Grandstand full and people around all of the boundaries.

Sad reality is you could possibly do that for 10K and then easily make your money back... But I get it, 10K is a lot for Ireland, Wales and Scotland...