IMG are set to re-imagine rugby league in the coming years but some of the most important people in what ever they have planned is the players.
Something suggested frequently is the need to turn players into stars and build on their individuality and personality to attract more fans to the game.
This is especially important with young players such as Huddersfield Giants’ Owen Trout who spoke on the brilliant Show Me The Money TV about IMG:
“From IMG themselves I haven’t heard a peep, we don’t really know what the plan is. What are they going to bring in that’s changing it. Obviously we need change, everyone knows something needs to change. We heard about this IMG contract coming in and the big plan but from a player’s perspective I don’t really know anyone that knows their plan.”
Speaking about the need to maximise individuality, Trout told an interesting story about his time at Leeds and being told he wouldn’t play with a certain look.
“I feel like I’m quite an out-there person,” Trout began, “I express myself in my fashion and stuff like that. When I was about 19, not too long after I made my debut, I went to the barbers and gone for bleached hair.
“I had it done on the Friday, rock up to training on Saturday for captain’s run because we had a game on Sunday. The coaching staff look at me and double look so I get brought into the office and asked about my hair.
“I was told, ‘it’s bang out order and someone spoke to me as you were walking in that I should send you home’.”
Whilst Trout wasn’t actually sent home in the end, he expressed confusion over the incident before revealing further details of the following week.
“We played the game, it came to Monday or Tuesday and I’m doing my recovery gym and stuff because we played for the academy. All of a sudden I feel a presence at the side of me and they said, ‘you’re lucky I didn’t see it before you played on the weekend for the academy … put it this way, as long as you have that hair you’re never going to play for the first team.”
Trout arranged for a grade three trim courtesy of his mum upon leaving training that day, and then went on to play against Warrington the week later.
