Like the old "if a tree falls in a forest and no-one is around to hear it, does it make a noise?" thought experiment, I suppose.

The club's build up to the new season seems to revolve almost* entirely around sending out tweets. There's next to no sign of them in Ealing and I'd guess very few people living or working here even know the club exists, let alone plays matches here, or that we're in Super League, or that we kick off in 2 weeks time.

It's not only disappointing and frustrating (although sadly predictable) but it's also just downright bizarre. Do they actually want people to come and watch them play?


*I say almost, because they did take a stand in Ealing Broadway Shopping Centre on Friday, from 11-1pm. Although I'm not sure who was around at that time, mainly housewives and the unemployed, because office workers would have been popping out for lunch just as the Broncos team was packing up for the day. But it is 'something' I suppose.

Watch out Nadera78, you will have Northernbloke telling you that Ealing, is not really where the club should be promoting itself.

Very good opening post. Club really are missing the boat here

Obviously it isn't, especially as nad is saying they got it wrong.

We do exist but it's a secret, so don't tell anyone.

Are you say the club are not missing the boat here?? That they are doing really well in promoting themselves???

So, that means we are the Schrodingers cat of Super League?..

It is no surprise to me that marketing efforts are understated. In many respects, we have gone backwards from the days of Chris Warren when there was a broader match day experience. Some interesting thoughts in this [url=https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/blog/trends-redefining-game-day-experience-ds00/blog[/url on what clubs should be aiming to do in that regard.

Honky, for clarification bosty suggested I would comment on marketing in ealing. Should the club be promoting itself in ealing? From nads comment the promoting in ealing that they did was wrong! Take from that what you wish.

A fair suggestion given you'r views are documented on this topic
You have gone on record as saying that the club should market to the wider community but you are a tad light on suggestions of how to do so....
Sounds like it was the usual London Broncos fare....half ar53d and badly run

You have stated that Ealing isn't the market for us to target.......it would seem that you and Hughes agree because in the years we've been at the venue he's spent less than a pittance marketing to the new neigbours.
The reality is that the only ground we left with more fans than when we arrived was the one ground that we leaflet dropped the neighbours and had bus stop adverts near the ground......as much as I wondered about the abilities of Chris Warren, he at least gave it a go....and it worked. Every other ground we've called home has seen a decline in crowds......any increase this season will be down to the ex-pat community attending "their" home team game when they come south....the Likes of Wigan, Leeds and Saints games are always bolstered by london based northerners rocking up.

Well, do you think it was a good idea to host a stall at 11-1 on a Friday morning? Who, exactly, are they likely to be targeting at that time, on that day?

I'm not interested in the arguments about Hughes, it's all been said a million times, but I do find the club's attitude to this downright bizarre.

There were 8 London born players on the field at once yesterday. 8. That is massive.

Keep pumping investment into the academy. The other things will follow.

Clearly it is a good strategy to invest in the academy and develop local players as the foundation for the team.

It puts the club on a more sustainable footing but doesn't really address anything in terms of attracting new fans.

Nad, have you possibly thought that they were dictated to by the centre itself!? They are managed centres with lots of organisations and businesses wanting to be in there! It was something it could have been nothing. Ideally it should have been sat afternoon, but it wasnt. They can't just pitch up though!

Local players are more likely to bring local fans in!

Really, where is your evidence for that alone being more likely to bring in fans ?

If a local lad plays locally then yep his family his mates are more likely to come and watch him. Evidence, LMS did you ever see how many of his family and mates just come to see him. Tony Clubb was the same.
Have chatted to mates of KD who have started watching again since he came back.
So yep have seen the evidence of local players bringing people through the gate.
Get them coming and they spread the word.
So If it's new fans to the game it's local players that will generate interest. If you want the dormant RL fans in the region to start coming back only way that will happen is by being competative.
What's my evidence of that? I know London based saints Leeds Warrington fans, came to Broncos week in week out when we were competative, stopped coming when we were a team losing badly and in champ.

Right, so you are really only talking about friends and family. I can see how that might add a few to the gate but it is hardly the basis for a strategy to grow the fan base.

Absolutely, the only time slot EBC had unbooked was 2 hours on a Friday morning. When did Broncos phone and ask, the night before?



Make all the excuses you want, but the club is absolutely abysmal in this regard. Always has been.

17 local players bringing 10 family members would bring in an extra 170 people. Well, that's a new scrum half paid for!

"Local players bringing in local fans" is the kind of thing you expect to hear from a shinty club in a remote village in Scotland. Or a genius like Ralph Rimmer. For a professional sports club in one of the world's biggest, richest and busiest cities it's suicidal.

Based on northernbloke's theory, LMS must have brought about 2000 mates when he was playing for us

.

you can't spend it twice

Using your "logic", when Mr Hughes leaves us, we will have a squad full of local players but no way of paying them.



Also, we could have 8 or even 17 local academy trained guys on the park and it wouldn't make a blind bit of difference to the reality that nobody other than our existing fan-base either knows or even cares. Mr Hughes steadfastly refuses to market the club, instead believing that if we build it they will come and this is despite a decade under his stewardship that has seen us drop 75% of our fan-base caused by exactly that strategy.

Apologists on here and elsewhere will doff their caps to him, but the reality is that he has run us into the ground and we are more reliant on him now than we were a decade ago and I am at a loss as to how that is seen as anything other than a negative.

The claim that Ealing Broadway only had that particular window open is a perfect example of the mindset of your average London Broncos/David Hughes fanboy.......it was a badly thought out strategy, poorly executed and an utter waste of time and (hopefully not too much) money. Whe last in Lodon I stayed 350 meters from Trailfinders and my host had not a clue that the Broncos Played there......she is a Kiwi, who loves her sport, is a Quins ST holder and attends Ealing games when Quins are away.......how friggin' hard is it to arrange for the Academy squad to leaflet drop 3,000 homes near the club?

Although it is the season he really needs to do some marketing, Hughes won't because most of the Northern SL clubs will bring anything from 500-1000 extra paying guests to Trailfinders for every home game . So he'll probably care less about marketing and promotion of the club more than he usually does with that many extra visiting supporters.

Personally, I think we should be caring more about filling the small ground with new (and returning) Broncos fans. Visiting fans may help in terms of revenue but to become properly sustainable we need to regrow the fan base. Home fans are likely to be regularly outnumbered this season. I wonder if the club has ever tried to properly understand why the fan base has reduced so much ?