How big is Rugby League in the UK

[taste2taste]

Football is obvisouly miles ahead of any other sport, but what would be the 2 or 3 biggest sport?

Biggest sport judged on media attention and amount of fan support.

 

[Copa]

A recent survey showed that RL is played in 33% of schools in England.. ( i think the article refers to England and not the UK).

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/arti...in_page_id=1770

 

[bartman]

Contentious question... I think it's fair to say even though club Union crowds are the same or less than league, it definitely gets the jump on us for 2nd in terms of media attention and international fans/support.

However at various times during the year sports like cricket, tennis, golf, horse racing, motor racing will all jump into second behind football in the media, ahead of both union and league.

Heard worrying comments that over the past four years some schools in the north swapped from playing league to union after the world cup win. Also recall a big resurgence in the amount cricket was played in schools following the home ashes win a few years back.

 

[deluded pom?]

Heard worrying comments that over the past four years some schools in the north swapped from playing league to union after the world cup win. Also recall a big resurgence in the amount cricket was played in schools following the home ashes win a few years back.

You mean after Blair jumped on the populist bandwagon (again) and gave the respective teams a parade around old London Town.

 

[bartman]

Yeah... probably wasn't even up to him, some anonymous govt mandarin's bright idea?

We can only hope the same might be afforded GB/England league team if they win the Tri-Nations/World Cup...

 

[eels_fan_01]

England beating Australia would do wonders.

 

[deluded pom?]

Yeah... probably wasn't even up to him, some anonymous govt mandarin's bright idea?

We can only hope the same might be afforded GB/England league team if they win the Tri-Nations/World Cup...

You've more chance of knitting fog then for the England RL team to get a parade.

 

[Evil Homer]

Heard worrying comments that over the past four years some schools in the north swapped from playing league to union after the world cup win. Also recall a big resurgence in the amount cricket was played in schools following the home ashes win a few years back.

Nah, participation numbers are on the up all the time.

RL is the second biggest sport in terms of crowd numbers for the league games, in terms of mainstream media coverage it might as well not exist. Union, on the other hand, gets similar crowds at domestic level but the internationals are very well publicised.

 

[East Coast Tiger]

RL is tiny in the UK. Union kills it everywhere but in a couple of towns and even there the union WC is a bigger deal than the SL grand final or any other league event. The only way to change it is to grow the game across the UK yet the majority of "fans" of the game in the north seem to think this is either impossible or completely undesirable. Then they whinge when union gets all the media attention and GB loses to Australia.

 

[Evil Homer]

Union kills it everywhere but in a couple of towns and even there the union WC is a bigger deal than the SL grand final or any other league event.

That's not really true - Union is mocked in the North similar to how it is in Sydney. However, because of the media hype and national pride etc, the WC final was just about a must-watch for everyone, even die-hard league fans. The RU Premiership is no bigger than SL despite having a much better geographical spread of clubs. The majority of towns in the UK don't really know much about either code to be honest. It's unfair to call RL 'tiny' though.

The only way to change it is to grow the game across the UK yet the majority of "fans" of the game in the north seem to think this is either impossible or completely undesirable. Then they whinge when union gets all the media attention and GB loses to Australia.

That bit is spot on unfortunately.

 

[deluded pom?]

It's hardly enormous in Australia either. The Eastern Seaboard and a team in Victoria is it. When you've conquered SA, WA and Tasmania come back and have a go at the Brits, until then people in glass houses shouldn't throw stones.

 

[screeny]

160.000-ish registered players. Not bad.

SL crowds I thought had dropped below RU taken on avg crowds per round, although could be wrong, especially considering we just broke the 10,000 avg.

 

[East Coast Tiger]

It's hardly enormous in Australia either. The Eastern Seaboard and a team in Victoria is it. When you've conquered SA, WA and Tasmania come back and have a go at the Brits, until then people in glass houses shouldn't throw stones.

It's all relative. In Australia RL is the number one game in pretty much every corner or NSW and Qld (two of three three biggest states by population). RL is the number one sport pretty much nowhere in Britain. Even in the so called RL towns like Wigan and Warrington soccer would still attract more TV viewers, newspaper inches and merchandise sales. By comparison to Britain, RL is massive in Australia.

 

[Evil Homer]

160.000-ish registered players. Not bad.

SL crowds I thought had dropped below RU taken on avg crowds per round, although could be wrong, especially considering we just broke the 10,000 avg.

They supposedly averaged over 11,000 last season, although looking on Wikipedia the crowds aren't too impressive.

 

[taste2taste]

In Australia League is by far the number 1 sport in N.S.W and Qld, in Victoria Aussie Rules is a religion and no other sports even get a metion, although they do tune in by their millions to watch the RL grand final, which is the most watched event every year according to veiwer ratings

Is the ESL shown on free to air TV in the UK? In Aus we have two games on a friday night and 1 on a sunday on free tv which attracts an enourmous audeince. The NRL believes this is very important to help grow the games fan support. If it was hidden away on pay TV i think League would be struggling a bit.

 

[KalgoorlieRed]

A lot of tripe being discussed here. RL is No2 in the UK, as it is in Australia and NZ.

 

[fourplay]

It's hardly enormous in Australia either. The Eastern Seaboard and a team in Victoria is it. When you've conquered SA, WA and Tasmania come back and have a go at the Brits, until then people in glass houses shouldn't throw stones.

The population of Tasmania is only 470,000 and the population of Sydney alone is over 4 million so I don't think Tasmania really matters in all this lol.

NSW and QLD alone make up over half of Australia's population.

The most watched TV show of the year in Australia so far has been the NRL grand final.

 

[eels_fan_01]

A lot of tripe being discussed here. RL is No2 in the UK, as it is in Australia and NZ.

Do you live in the UK?? I dont think rugby league is number 2 over there mate.

I probably would say rugby league is number 2 in Australia though behind AFL.

And again i agree with you, in NZ rugby league is 2nd behind rugby union.

 

[Mr. Fahrenheit]

A lot of tripe being discussed here. RL is No2 in the UK, as it is in Australia and NZ.

IMO from what ive read and heard... in the UK soccer rules, obviously, and then sports such as RL, RU and Cricket chime in as 2nd sports in various regions. It would be almost impossible to try and predict which out of the 2nd tier sports are doing well, because that all depends on national succes... Cricket after the 05 ashes, Union after the RUWC win, if the English win the RLWC or the tri-nations, similar effects will occur.

In Australia, RL is marginally second, more due to the effects of the SL war and the general dislike from within media circle. The AFL is popular in some areas and is overall, slightly the no1 sport in Australia. I would say Cricket comes next, with soccer, swimming and basketball below that. Union is a joke, only matters when they do somethign that evokes 'national pride.'

 

[The Engineers Room]

I don't agree that it is no.2

If you look at the fact that there is little interest in AFL in places like Nth Qld, Country NSW (except southern Highlands) and most of Sydneysiders then it is a more balanced view.

The NRL may not have teams in WA, SA, Tas or NT

But AFL doesn't have any teams in North Qld, NT or ACT and the teams in NSW and Qld are only being propped up by a mass of free tickets and unfair media exposure.

And in terms of support, the numbers would be fairly similar but RL does have a huge interstate series and an international competition that AFL does not.

We all know that RU is a distant 3rd by the way most people didn't give a toss that the national team was out of the world cup.