Keighley owner says rugby league needs to get people like Rihanna involved to address real problem

Keighley Cougars were vocally against IMG’s proposals which were passed yesterday.

However, Keighley owner Kaue Garcia has stuck to his guns and believes the IMG proposals don’t even address the key area the sport needs to improve which marketing as he said the sport needs to get people like Rihanna involved in the showpiece events like the Challenge Cup Final and Grand Final.

He said: “The alternative that I said is that we should be sitting there today talking about how the RFL have created this marketing department with very talented staff that would drive attention to this sport.

“I know it’s a silly example but I always ask why are we not getting an A-list celebrity to perform at the Challenge Cup or Grand Final, like how they do with the Super Bowl in America with Rihanna.

“Just by doing that you’d fill all the seats there, you go to Wembley and it’s not a full stadium but perhaps with the attraction of a celebrity coming you’d fill those remaining seats and drive the attention to the sport. Everybody would be talking about it.”

He underlined that he believes the game needs to be marketed better:

“The solution is about marketing this sport, all throughout this you do not see one pillar about marketing. Have IMG produced a clear path on saying how they will attract fans or will they just keep saying that raising standards by some miracle will lead to more people coming. That is now the answer, the answer we should all be confusing on is marketing the sport and they are not talking about that.”