British rugby league is and always has been in a shit state. There is no money in it, my club is now in the second tier (championship) as the third tier folded. we get central funding from the league which I'm not 100% on but i believe is about £100k (for the year)
The sport gets zero media attention, if you pick up a major national paper you may see a small column squeezed in about a big derby game hidden between the tennis and adverts for specsavers. Sky tv paid a decent deal in the 90s when Superleague was formed and for a while around the start of the millennium things were on the up. now? The superleague deal i think is lower than it was in the 90s. you cannot get radio coverage on a big network even for international or challenge cup games you have to hunt out the local radio.
It is not as simple as raising the profile because the people who make the decisions block it. until 1995 Rugby league was banned in the uk military because the officer class (all privately educated where they play union) have been brought up to hate league said there was no appetite for it. Those same private school boys are now the board members of companies that put up sponsorship money and run media outlets.
To give you an example of how bad the sponsorship situation is over here a in 2012 super league was sponsored by Eddie Stobart. Stobart's (were) a haulage company. the sponsorship deal involved Eddie Stobart paying ZERO! and having some of the players likenesses painted on the trucks. in 2013 they couldn't even secure a sponsor. for superleauge.
Its a joke its barely a step above being sponsored by mick the dodgy dealer flogging stolen dinnersets out of a van
