The old addage, "charity begins at home", sums up the situation. The ARL ought to look after the long-serving fans from rural Australia. It needs them just as much as it needs its fans from urban Australian. A lot of most talented, marketable players to have ever played the game came from rural Australia.
The parents of children in rural Australia who do their best to keep Rugby League alive and well in it ought to be congratulated and commended. It's time for the ARL to get up of its backside and bond with its fans from rural Australia. Failure to do so could lead to the AFL and ARU succeeding in spreading their sport to rural Queensland.
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Extra information that is tangentially related to this thread.
Sadly, the NRL and ARL care more about appeasing the feminazis than they do about helping the fans. I experienced this when I went to the Australia Kangaroos v Great Britain Lions Test match at Suncorp Stadium in 2006. The ground announcer spoke about an anti-male, pro-femianzi campaign on violence against women. The campaign marginalised violence against men and deceived people into thinking that violence against women is worse than it really is.
The NRL and ARL ought to drop their "lets pander to the feminazis by demonising men and making women look virtuous" campaign. The absurd stance it has on violence against women is a weak attempt to appease the anti-male feminists who mock anything that is related to masculinity (IE. watching and playing contact sport). The information on the websites from the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) and the US's Bureau of Justice (BOJ) repudiates the notion that violence against women is more rampant than violence against men. Its information proves that the vast majority of persons who are victims of murder and interpersonal violence are men.
Very little help is given to the men who are victims of interpersonal violence and domestic violence. Police officers are trained to treat violence against women as being worse than violence against men. In the US, influential women such as Anne O'Dell used to tell police officers to make sure that women accounted for no more than a few percent of the people they arrested for domestic violence. She forced her feminazi view onto them when she trained them how to handle domestic violence situations.
Police officers have told me that they receive a lot of complaints from men who are victims of domestic violence. Help is usually denied to them.
The women who perpetrate vicious acts of genital mutilation are usually sentenced leniently. Male criminals tend to be given harsher sentences than female criminals.
Therefore, the NRL's stance on the issue is pointless. It does nothing for the sport of Rugby League, the fans of the sport, and men in general. It's why I was (and still am) very upset by the NRL/ARL's support of an anti-male, pro-feminazi campaign. It's why I haven't been to another Rugby League match since, and won't be going to this year's World Cup. I love the sport, but I won't go to an event that supports an evil agenda such as feminazism (feminism).
I have a wealth of data on my site to validate my accusations. If anyone wants the statistics, then feel free to ask me for it.
I apologise if my fulmination has diverted attention away from the discussion of Rugby League. The only reason I brought it up is because I wanted to confirm that lionsmum's plight is linked to the ARL/NRL's lack of concern for the common fan. The two parties feel as if they no longer need to do anything for the common fan. They kowtow to feminazis, the media and businessmen because they want to get on the right side of them.