Dave T

This is a reasonable idea.

If that's what you want to take from it, sure.

If it means I don't have to pay for Carlsberg I'll pay it!

I don't think they have, there was nothing on Sat, but there was plenty missing.

Cans of brewdog* are as easy to stock as bottles of Carlsberg that many grounds do. *insert your own overpriced pretentious hipster beer here. I like them all

Yep, Warrington have sold draught stuff through these portable bars that are no more than a keg hidden behind a trolley kind of thing. Every brewery will have these offerings.

Coffee and a cake/muffin would have set me back £8 or £9 and I'd happily have spent that and sat in the ground instead of a supermarket.

But this post just reads as do little, carry on as we are and what will be will be. I know yiu don't think that, so why poatbthat?

Spot on. I was early the other day, there was nothing for me to do. I sat in tesco cafe for a coffee. Quality coffee costs a bomb now, I'm stunned they don't do it in grounds.

But this is exactly the discussion, games like this will always just be for the purist and when we all die off the grounds are empty as we didn't captivate the kids that were in the ground, leaving in droves just after half time. England play Greece this year in a 30k+ stadium. That's a tough sell, we can't just accept that these games are for the purists.

I do genuinely think that there are a lot of mediocre halves that have come from the NRL who are decent at the technical stuff, can move the ball, can kick well, make their tackles etc. but the ones we are picking up are not the match winners. I'm thinking the likes of Tyrone Roberts. Technically solid is not what we should be aiming for in our comp.

You genuinely think that hiring Spandau Ballet sent them bust?

The Bullmania stuff is probably a bit of a red herring here, it was of its time and was a bit of an OTT garish extreme example of sporting entertainment. Let's take my team Wire as an example - we are losing plenty at the moment, but that shouldn't mean that the afternoon/evening at the match should be less enjoyable. I should still be able to get nice food and drink, my daughter should still be entertained, she should still be able to get her photo with Wolfie - we can be depressed once we kick off. This thread wasn't about advocating a return to Bullmania - it was of its time and I don't think it's a case study of how you would do things.

Did the Bulls continue Bullmania when the sht hit the fan? My recollection is that they didnt, certainly not to the levels of early SL, that ship had sailed somewhat. But if they did, maybe it would explain why they averaged 8k, 12.8k, 11.1k, 8.6k and finally 6.2k before leaving. All still far higher than that 1981 average. So even with a losing team, the Bulls delivered good crowds.

The flaw in the thinking is that it really shouldn't be either/or. Clubs should be trying to put a strong team out and win games because its a sporting competition. But they should also be making all the other parts really enjoyable too.

I took Harry's comment to be reference to Wire and not enjoying it despite winning. And that is sort of my point. It can't all be about the on field stuff. The window dressing is part of the product imho.

Bradford won the league in 1981. They averaged 5.9k. The next time they won the league was 1997. They averaged 14.3k.

I suggest nobody can come up with similar increases solely due to on-field success. In fact, some teams have seen winning teams deliver next to no uplift. Do you know what Bradford's crowds increased to when they won the league prior to SL?

Are you leading us to a place where we just have 30 England v Aus games a year?

It is clear you are unable to think of anythibg other than the sport. This thread isn't about the sport. The non-sporting experience in the ground is never, ever meant to be frustrating, so tbh, your posts make literally no sense as you are talking about something not relevant here.

But surely when they stopped it, and crowds were higher they just became a financial success, no? Or maybe its far more nuanced than that.

I've only ever watched two women's games of RL in person and they have been the England double headers over the last 12m. I've enjoyed them both a great deal and an really looking forward to attending the RLWC to see more this winter. My wife and daughter loved it at the weekend and it was clear that the young fans really responded to the women, treating them like real stars, mobbing them for photos and autographs. It was really positive to see. And here's the but... As the women were about to be presented with the trophy, the mens trainers had already mobbed the pitch with equipment, some England players were out and literally as the trophy was handed over the All Stars walked out of the tunnel onto the pitch. This completely stole the attention from the women's event and made it absolutely clear that they were no more than pre-match entertainment for the men. We need to be better than that, and we need to allow the women to have their moment. Somebody should have been blocking the tunnel. But it does bring us onto the subject of double headers overall, are they good for the women's game? Part of me thinks they have their uses at the moment, a lot of people were exposed to the game the other day who maybe wouldn't have been, but it does treat them as 2nd class players. I then noticed that at the RLWC every single women's event is a double header - including the final which means 4 to 5hrs outside in November. Is the double header for women approach the right one? What should we be doing?

I can't speak for the club, but I expect it is a cost cutting measure. It is really noticeable how much they have cut back on. I don't know whether our owners' businesses have taken a huge hit during the last couple of years, but there has been a real streamlining of effort.

I'm not entirely sure of the point you are making. Whether something is a one-off or a weekly event it doesn't change whether you want to enjoy it or not and have fun. People who appear resistent seem to worry that it will affect the game or it is a slur that RL is not entertaining, that's not the point at all. I was with 8 people at the game the other day - all have been to RL before. 5 left after the dancing and 2 left bored. It was an event for the purists, as per my opening post. That's fine for you and I, but we are a dying breed.

Funnily enough, RL and Sky has had some quite nice touches over the year that are now part of other sports and embraced well. Margin metre is effectively part of football in their xG star and their fans haven't hounded it out of the game. It is also a principle used in cricket with win likelihoods etc. It probably needed tweaking and a better presenter than Clarke, but it was a well thought out initiative. We used to have graphics that showed where teams scored their tries - it wasn't perfect, and maybe heat maps would have been better, but again, gone, when we see graphics like this in other sports now. We also used to have a lot of 'futuristic' graphics on the screen, which looks dated now, but more sports are filling their screen with garish graphics as ours has been stripped back and maybe looks done on the cheap. I would go as far as to say we were ahead of our time, we were almost the testing ground for many things (as well as nicknames, dancers, music after scores etc) in the UK, and others have run with them far better than we have and we now look like a cheap version.