Tuesday 26th July 2005 a day that will go down in history! A day that the future of the London Broncos changed forever. A day that saw two arch enemies in previous years unite under one umbrella. A day that will never be forgotten.
Above are just some reasons why today is pretty special, but of course the fundamental reason that makes the day so special is because of the ‘unique’ partnership between the two codes of rugby. It will see play-off hopefuls London Broncos completely re-brand themselves so much so that from 2006 they will be known as Harlequins rugby league. We cannot also forget that they will be playing in the newly named Twickenham Stoop. In this article I will assess the good and bad points to such a move and whether the Broncos or should I say Quins can lay some foundations that will last a lot longer than the current ones.
Come 2006, the word London won’t automatically be associated with the Broncos, the only Super League team south of Sheffield. However, does that really matter? Yes the fans chant it, preach by it and follow it, but what’s stopping them from doing the same with Quins? At the end of the day, who cares what the team name is, providing there is a team. The same people will still be there- Rea, Marty, Hughesie and of course the new Chairman Ian Lenagan. They will make Quins RL as magical as they’ve made the Broncos in previous years.
However, London have been through many numerous name changes already, Fulham, Crusaders and Broncos to name a few all of which were seen as the best thing for the club, the thing to put rugby league in London on the map, yet at Griffin Park this season the Broncos attendances have been around 3,500 (Note: Only a ballpark figure), which surely doesn’t seem magical especially when you compare it to the likes of Wigan, Bradford and Leeds. Also you don’t need to know much about business to realise marketing and branding is the key to success. Through the development work done by the Super League club, when you say London Broncos to someone in the street they don’t go; ‘are they American?’ Peoples exact knowledge of the Broncos may not be at the same level of say football or even Union, but it was still building nonetheless. Now the name is being changed this will have to be done all over again, however maybe it’s not as easy as last time. The name Harlequins is renowned the world over, having the likes of Will Carling, Jason Leonard, Keith Wood and more recently Andrew Merthans don the famous four quarters shirt. The big issue being, it’s known for rugby union and not rugby league. The immediate thing that must come in to anyone’s head is it’s all good and well promoting the name Harlequins RL but even with those two additional letters will people still associate the Twickenham based club with union? Obviously a rhetorical question and luckily I am not the marketing genius that needs to work that out, I’ll leave it to Nick Melton and Chris Warren.
Of course a name such as Harlequins can be an added bonus, but it depends on peoples thinking, if it’s just rugby then the marketing job is a made easier because selling rugby all year round is easy to do.
The other benefit of forming the partnership is being able to use the Stoop. The Stoop must be one of the nicest grounds I’ve ever been too and going there today and seeing all the re-developments makes me love it even more. Back when the Broncos were tenants they were pushed around, and even now the Broncos have to move away from their current ground at Brentford due to re-seeding. It doesn’t help the cause especially when you’re trying to convert the unconverted. This new partnership should mean the Broncos have somewhere to call ‘home’ and will mean that fans can see continuous rugby league throughout the summer and not just a bit at the end and a bit in the beginning. Transport wise, Twickenham is lot better catered for than Brentford and so on a Sunday you may find many a fan travelling on the train instead of by car.
Of course to put it bluntly it’s another ground move for the Broncos. The Broncos are no strangers to moving and this will be there third ground since the turn of the millennium. Again, the problems associated with this are similar to the branding but the main issue being how do you move your core supporters to a new ground. Here the solution seems easy. Relatively speaking Brentford to Twickenham is short, compared to Charlton to Brentford, the previous move by the Broncos. Also there’s the added bonus that people may still remember the team from when they last played at the Stoop in 1999. That will bring more people through the turnstiles.
Maximising crowds, is one of the obvious reasons for this partnership. After all it now means that rugby lovers can if they choose to do so watch rugby all year round. As Dean Richards put it today you can play on Saturday and watch on Sunday. This has never really been the case, well not under the same umbrella anyway. This method of increasing gate receipts is kind of artificial but in the business world it’s just repositioning your product and that is what has been done.
You will lose some fans, you always do when you move grounds or you go under a big transition like has happened today, but I firmly believe that the benefits significantly outweigh the costs.
The Broncos especially has never really seen crowds of 8-9 thousand since the days of 1996, maybe now it’s time for that to change.
The final thing that makes the Broncos who they are, or the thing that people can identify fellow supporters with is the playing kit. Now the kit has changed over the years in both design and colour, and plans are for the Broncos kit in 2006 to be like that of Quins. Here is where I firmly disagree. I believe there needs to be some part of the Broncos that people can still associate with, they’ve lost the London name and their badge, so here I feel a compromise should be reached. I am firmly in favour of the kits to be similar to the Quins but maybe not the same colour. The favourite here must be to go back to the 4 quarter style kit with the red, blue and yellow. The cynics view is that this must be the case for both parties to make more money but then again the counter argument is that if you’re going to do it, you do it properly and that means everything that was London becomes a Quin. Yes this makes sense but could it turn away the die hard fan out of principle? In theory yes, but in practice no, because if they’re die hard they will support the team through whatever they wear.
My final point that I’d like to assess is the financial situation. The Broncos financial worries are all but plain to see, look what happened earlier this year. Forming any kind of partnership, even if the companies will remain separate will help the Broncos no end and should secure them financially for the future. Perhaps we’ve seen already the impact of the Broncos becoming the Quins. Last week, the Broncos found a new chairman in Ian Lenagan, he told me today he would’ve invested even without this new deal, but you can’t tell me knowing the Broncos can use the power of the Quins brand didn’t persuade him just a little. My point being is that the name Harlequins is so strong that it will immediately attract more investors just because of the name. This can only be good.
At this point I identify what I can see as the only real advantage to Harlequins as a rugby union outfit… the financial addition. There is no secret Harlequins need money, they couldn’t have asked for a worse case scenario last year, by being relegated whilst carrying out major work on the Stoop. However small the Broncos are they will still eject much needed cash in to the club, whether it be from sponsors, merchandise or just bums on seats. Harlequins CEO Mark Evans has stated this wasn’t his only motivation and that it was too good an opportunity to miss out on. Apart from possibly swapping ideas on the field (although even today Richards highlighted there is still a big gap between the two sports) and marketing expertise I fail too see any other motivation bar money, cynical I know.
Arguably this must be the last change the Broncos make, if they are to survive. This year showed, that if people don’t use the product the Broncos can’t function and whilst on the outset there may be some issues and that it is high risk, the fundamental question must be would the broncos have been successful carrying on as they are? In short the answer is no and so this partnership seems the next best thing.
The Broncos are back in rugby union heartlands what lays ahead of them is going to a tricky but ultimately exciting challenge to convert those heartlands to accommodate ‘rugby’.
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