BY JOHN DAVIDSON
He started in the job in June 2018 with a wild wave of publicity and media interest. Robert Elstone was the new man to lead Super League, the figurehead to reshape and revive the competition, to breathe new life into it. See you later Nigel Wood.
But his appointment sparked off a civil war between the top Super League clubs and clubs from the Championship and League 1, backed by the RFL. A war for control over the top division turned into a bitter debate over central funding, structures, promotion and relegation, and a squabble on who will get what from the next TV deal. More on that in a minute.
After a few months of conjecture and division, in September the Super 8s were finally voted out and a new competition structure voted in. Elstone, the boy from Barnsley, had won his first major battle.
Little by little the former accountant has began to make his mark on Super League and the face of English rugby league. He led the charge to move Magic Weekend from Newcastle to Liverpool in 2019, a city he knows well after his time at Everton.
Elstone appointed Leeds-based creative firm The City Talking to rebrand Super League and make it deeper, more attractive to outsiders, and to create more compelling characters out of players. The desire to turn players into superstars, and to lift theirs and the competition’s profile, is paramount.
Supporting this 2019 season tagline of ‘New Beginnings’ was a rejigged fixture list, the decision for Catalans to play Wigan in Barcelona, the push for more marquee players from the NRL, new on-field rule changes, giving the Man of Steel award a makeover, and a move of him and his staff out of the RFL’s offices and into their own base.
It has been a big brief, a large to-do-list and one that is far from over. Behind it all are two main objectives – putting Super League in a better position for the next TV deal, that runs out in 2021, and giving the competition and its players a bigger profile. The two go hand-in-hand.
Sky Sports are a controversial figure for some Super League fans, loathed and lampooned by many for their coverage and powerful role. But the simple fact is without them and their £200 million broadcast contract, the competition wouldn’t exist. Rugby League as a professional entity in the UK would disappear.
Sky were a founding partner when Super League launched in 1996. Get rid of them and the sport would still be semi-pro and with an even smaller national profile than it has today.
At the same time in recent years, as ratings have waned, so has Sky’s Super League coverage. Magazine programs such as Boots N All and Back Chat were scrapped. The in-depth touchscreen video analysis after matches, admired by many, has been axed. Cross-promotion for Super League on other sports programs and Sky identities appears non-existent.
In an uncertain TV broadcast environment, where traditional models are under attack and ratings across genres, including sport, are down there is no guarantee that big, fat TV deals will be dished out in the years to come as they have in the past.
When viewing figures for behemoths like Premier League football are down, rugby league has every right to be nervous.
But on to Elstone’s second goal.
He has spoken often about his target that “we need to break out of our bubble and aim big for this competition”. That getting wider cut-through for Super League, making it cooler and trendier and making players into huge names, while also attracting new fans, is the ultimate aim.
That is easier said than done. And so far little to no success has been made in this area.
Compounding the issue is the vast change the media landscape is going through. Journalists are dropping like flies. Magazines are closing and newspapers are shedding pages. Nationally, across the UK, rugby league’s presence is minimal.
And mostly it is getting smaller.
Most national newspapers care little for rugby league. Several have slashed their coverage of the sport in recent times. A recent example of this was a select media briefing that Elstone had with a small band of journalists in Manchester’s Northern Quarter in mid-January before the start of the 2019 season.
That briefing resulted in precisely no media coverage in the next day’s papers. They just weren’t interested. This should have served as a huge wake-up call to the CEO.
The band of reporters who cover Super League seems to dwindle every year. Most are part-time, with the game simply unable to support more than a handful of full-time operators.
There has been an explosion in online coverage from new websites, but most are poor in quality or in analysis. They mostly lift stories and rumours from other places, add little original content and don’t conduct interviews or research.
They don’t contribute positively to the discourse and debate around the game. They also only add to the digital echo chamber that already exits. They do not “break out of the bubble”, just contribute to the existing audience.
Elstone largely seems unaware of this, unaware of the massive challenges in the media landscape, or how to try and combat them.
He has been in power for more than 250 days and has still not hired a head of communications. In terms of a detailed media strategy and policy, the 54-year-old seems lost and unsure of himself.
Engagement with many sections of the media has been poor. TalkSport is the number one sports radio station in the UK, but Elstone has not had a single meeting with them. How can you “break out of the bubble” by not engaging with media and getting them on-side?
Elstone and his creative guru Lee Hicken have spoken about moving away from the approach of presenting players as comedy characters. Elstone then goes and gives exclusives interviews to a TV program that presents players as comedy characters. The mind boggles at the hypocrisy.
Another bridge for the CEO to cross is changing the culture and mindset of some Super League clubs. Many do a great job at building relationships with the media and getting coverage for themselves. Some, are frankly, abysmal and act as closed, amateur organisations stuck in the past.
While Elstone was going public for the need for more column inches, more headlines and media coverage, one Super League club in Huddersfield didn’t even hold a media day before the start of the 2019 season. Instead it invited only three specific journalists to a sponsor’s event, shunning all others.
This is a club that struggles to attract crowds and posted losses of thousands of pounds last year. Another Super League side in the past few years – Leigh Centurions – didn’t even hold a weekly media conference, because of the lack of interest it faced.
Super League and its clubs need to break the mould of gaining publicity and getting attention. They need to go out of their way and do everything they can to get the media, and therefore more people, engaged and excited.
Access needs to be improved. Generally access in the sport is good, but it can be better. They should look to the NFL and NBA for inspiration.
Debate and constructive criticism needs to be encouraged, not stiflled. Banning journalists should be the action of dictatorships, not rugby league clubs.
Can Elstone actually enforce a cultural change in the way clubs and players talk, act and speak with journalists, writers and reporters? Can he get the editors, producers and decision makers in the media interested in the competition?
Can he open the doors to make some players, coaches and clubs more approachable and less insular? If he can’t, then Super League’s profile will remain niche and mostly hidden away.
Robert Elstone’s job is bigger than some people realize. Maybe even himself. It may be mission impossible after all, only time will tell.
But the ex-Everton boss will need to have a touch of PT Barnum, a dash of Don Draper and a slice of Mahatma Gandhi to achieve all his goals for Super League in the weeks and months ahead.
