I have lurked about RL boards for a few years, read evey comment, but only recently started to post.

Grew up in N Ireland, mum worked in tesco, dad a prison officer, lived in a council house, passed my 11+, went to a grammar school which was big on rugby. Indeed a Irish international was in my class,! Fast forward 20 years I live in Manchester, actually last 3 in Salford.

Until I bought a house in Salford I really had no idea about RL, didn't understand it until 2 years ago I met a girl from Wigan, who took the time to explain the difference and eg what RL scrums where all about! I enjoyed a faster moving, in some ways simpler game. Far better as a spectator than RU, so why ( when I live 1 mile from AJ Bell) did I decide to buy a season ticket for Sale rather than a cheaper one for Salford Devils?

Simply put it is the fans! I am a council house boy who did good, but if I buy a padded seat for Salford I am looked down upon, indeed Salford CEO called people who like RU as posh. I am not posh, just lucky enough to have done all right and resent being labeled that way! RL is a better game and needs to attract people like me who sponsors like RBS\Avvia ( the RU schools cup in NI is sponsored by Danaske bank) want to target! Sadly while people like me are made feel unwelcome RL will get sponsors like Foxy Bingo and a small utility company rated by Which as 2nd from bottom for customer service.

Blame the RFL, BBC, media all you want, perhaps the problem is closer to home......

Edit: when I get the chance I will buy tickets to see RL teams that are close as I enjoy the game, but that is when I am a bothered on a night either Salford\ Leigh\ Warrington are at home.

In what way are you looked down upon?

No offence Kiyan, but your post makes no sense.

I'm confused - is this a rugby league issue, is it a "class" issue or is it just a social issue?

A lot of RL fans think our rugby league is one of the best sports to watch but what they grossly underestimate is its status as a global business sport.
Marketing, sponsors and media presence is probably "rock bottom" compared to football, union , cricket etc. League is not an attractive proposition to plough monies into because of its status, the gap will never be bridged between Union and League.
Maybe a lot of fans won't accept this and resort to a blinkered viewpoint.

So, we should stop all of our "unwelcoming" lower class fans from entering the stadium, so the "council house boy who did good" can enjoy the game in peace with his own kind and only then would we attract a higher class of investor/sponsor/advertiser. Kiyan sounds both a "snob" (in the very literal sense) and a troll/WUM to me.

Didn't understand a word of that and not sure what point you're trying to make.

Firstly, welcome to the forum. If you stick around you will enter the environment of "flat cappers" and inverse snobbery that constitutes a sizeable proportion of rlfans posters' world. Of course the failure of Rugby League to expand or improve its media profile cannot be due to anything you might suggest, you should be aware it is a conspiracy between the BBC, RFU, and the powers that be. In fact it's just not fair!
This is a great pity because Rugby League is usually a much better spectator sport than Rugby Union. But the negative attitude drives many people away, I'm afraid, including me.

None of the above. It's a Kiyan issue.

Rubbish.
I'm a privately educated university graduate. I have never, ever felt that this makes me unwelcome in an RL ground (who would know anyway?)
Though if I tried to buy a "padded seat" at Cas, I'd be told to bring a cushion.

Do you admit to your new 'good' friends that you are from a council estate?

I bet you wear pullovers over your shoulders with the sleeves tied in a knot at the front.

Ooh ooh do you go abroad on holiday? Not Spain or Mexico or ought common like that but to really posh places like the Maldives?

he is right. RL isn't a particularly welcoming game, it does treat strangers with suspicion. There is a large proportion of fans in the game who think if you didn't watch Widnes v Fax in 1902 in -20 weather from the side of a field with no protection from the elements and the 6 metres of snow that fell that day, you don't deserve a voice or you aren't a real fan. We denigrate other sports and the people who watch them, we denigrate those who maybe aren't prepared to make their whole life about RL, but would be interested in watching a game every so often.

The vast majority of people aren't going to pass these 'realness' tests we put on them. hundreds of thousands will watch on sky that a few thousand will attend. Most people aren't just mindlessly handing over money to a club they feel obliged to. In this country Most people who watch the FIFA world cup don't watch Premier League, football claims them as football fans. The fans and the sport claims them as 'one of us'. More people watched the RL World Cup than watch SL. We claimed none of them. We expect people to want to watch all RL from everywhere when in reality most people just want to go to 2 or 3 games a year and some of the bigger events and sit down on a Friday night with a few cans and watch the game on sky. One person doing that is possibly £500 a year for us, if its a family with two kids its probably closer to £1800. That's not only a lot of money for us to be looking down on, its a fan. By any measure that is a pretty committed RL fan