A Few Fucking Billboards

Geez Rugby League fans are a fickle bunch.

This week on the “How the NRL are doing a bad job” show, we have reason #8261 for how the NRL are wasting money that should be invested elsewhere.

A few fucking billboards.

Yep that’s right. NRL naysayers went wild on social media after their panties were twisted when the NRL erected a few billboards in Atlanta last week during the biggest 2 weeks on the American sporting calendar, The NFL SuperBowl.

The billboards had current NRL premiers The Sydney Roosters with the slogan “World Champions….of Football”

Fans were triggered by a few things.

The fact that it had the Roosters on it, despite them having yet to play the World Club Challenge against Wigan. Some even saying that the Storm deserved to be on it as they were the current World Club Challenge holders.

Actually the Storm are the World Champions

— James Cheeseman (@shaggy84329) January 30, 2019

It was a cheeky jab at the “World Champions” tag that American sports leagues label their champions with. But the fact that 90% of the outrage of this missed the fact that the Kangaroos are the current Rugby League World Champions since they actually won a World Cup, is the funniest part.

The second thing they were triggered at was the cost. The old line of “This money could have been better spent on grassroots footy” was trudged out.

How many junior clubs could have used that money @Todd_Greenberg @SmartState1

— Hristos_K (@chiefk71) January 30, 2019

I’m no marketing genius. I am a high school dropout. But it’s a pretty simple concept that if you have a product, you need to market it. From there you gain sponsorship money. You can then use that sponsorship money to spend on things like booze, hookers, fake Oakley sunglasses from Thailand, and of course…funding grassroots footy.

It ended up being a promo for the start of the NRL season, as they sent a cameraman and a miniature John Oliver over to ask the people of Atlanta what they thought, to use on the NRL social media channels.

This campaign got international media attention. Australia, New Zealand, and the UK. Maybe more, meaning it did exactly what a good marketing promotion should.

All from a few fucking billboards