Dave T

Looking at the RFL Board of 2021/22 from the Annual Report, it looked like this: Simon Johnson Chris Brindley Chris Hurst Rimla Akhtar Sandy Lindsay Ralph Rimmer Karen Moorhouse Fast forward to the board in 2024: Simon Johnson Tony Sutton Robert Hicks Sandy Lindsay Cherrie Daley Julia Newton. As we see, only 2 of them remained consistent. The criticisms of the board appear quite random.

Yes. My understanding was that the clubs were paying. But Martyn is stating that this bill was paid by sacking RFL staff.

So are the RFL paying this bill or the clubs?

Outbound telesales just ain't a cost effective sales channel for this kind of thing. Hospitality and sponsorship, sure, but not just standard ticket sales.

I'm mot sure we can actually say that tbh. There is little evidence that people aren't being held to account. Holding people to account doesn't always equal improved performance. But we have seen a number of new CEO's in the last decade or so at the RFL, plus we've seen major governance changes with the formation of RLCom and we saw a huge impact of Cobid which the RFL appear to have done OK through. Had there been no change over the last decade then its easy to suggest there was no accountability, however that isn't the case.

I broadly agree with this. We dont need to be misty-eyed about the old board when the RFL were seen as under-performing in many areas. However, I would say that the main dissatisfaction is how we have gone about things. There is no reason to not use an open and transparent process to recruit the new board members. On the performance of the board and the RFL overall, where I do have sympathy is around what their actual role is nowadays. I genuinely couldn't tell you what the RFL's remit is. It appears to me that they are the ones left to handle the ######. They do the dirty work, much of which is driven by reducing funds as SLE has overseen huge cuts from Sky. The game here doesn't appear to have any real leadership, we never hear from the RFL, or RLCom, or IMG or anyone really.

Weren't those people who expressed concern about this told to calm down, it's only a three month appointment?

1. Your criticism of Elstone is based around the PE move, fair enough. Although bringing his salary into it is unnecessary. 2. But what about the NED's? You summarise it as a cost with no apparent benefit. Again, I ask, what is that based on? As a writer, surely the onus is on you to explain that? 3. Your criticism of IMG is vague. Why aren't you doing the same with all of the RFL/SLE's third party providers? You just keep throwing rather vague criticisms around that don't mean anything. Don't be surprised when people ask you to clarify your points.

You seem very quick to dismiss everyone's involvement in the game as useless while going out of your way to sing Wood-s praises. Critical of the NED's, IMG, Elstone - what's all that based on? You appear to be far more tolerant of the likes of Beaumonts and Woods efforts.

Yeah, that seems a bit random. Not sure whether its for the main Sky games or not.

I expect they'll resolve any issues on a case by case basis and upgrade if needed to avoid that, but if they are doing this, it feels like such a waste of time and effort.

I'm talking about the main sections behind the sticks. Until a couple of days ago they had plenty seats for sale, now completely sold. I think the safe standing may be the back rows of those sections?

Wire have a run of games now that need to be won. Starting this weekend. Hopefully of a win, I dont often predict us, but I'll say an 8-10 point win.

I think in reality, they have loads of expensive seats left. I'm always cynical of sold out blocks that dont make sense. I expect premium seats are being held by hospitality providers in those blocks. Very little looks naturally sold out at all. I think they have been creative with the 30k number, knowing it will never come under challenge as we will sell more than that guaranteed. This push to release cheap seats can only be read as ticket sales are not where they want them to be.

RL in the UK has dropped off somewhat in its production, not sure if we now use a different company, but they are very slow at changing between angles when something is happening. Its as though football or cricket producers are used. That said, it can be just as bad in Oz, so maybe its just a challenge with the speed of the sport. I didn't see the first tackle today, but in the first match they ised the overhead camera from kick off and then changed angle meaning they completely lost the impact of the first tackle, which is always a good one to watch.

Sorry, yes, that's fair, I was talking more about the ticketing approach, which was mentioned in the post I replied to. But the only thing that's different really in approach was the pre-register sale, which they also did for the last World Cup and it flunked. They have admitted that the first two tests sold out with zero marketing. This goes back to my point on gigs somewhat, that an event can almost sell itself, and for some unknown reason this Ashes series caught the imagination of thousands up front.

Wembley has never been more expensive though. We have 90k seats to shift. Surely only having 19k to shift at Leeds should see those as being more expensive. I think people overstated the price of things in London. Its a demand thing - charge that for the West End, or NFL, or England RU tests etc. but RL matches dont fall into those categories. I was surprised the pricing was more expensive in London than Leeds. But irrespective of the above, bottling it and making things cheaper with 4m to go cannot be seen as a good thing. I hope we are reading it wrong and they are just going all out for a record crowd, but its odd.

I'm not sure i see anything better at all.

Yeah, its been mentioned a few times, but we dont really know in what way. He may simply be underwriting it financially and taking a cut for example.

That's the conclusion I've come to, its not natural for some whole blocks to be blanked and others hardly sold etc. I must admit, im not a fan of moving people if that's what they've done. People select seats based on various factors, but it could just be as simple that they like those seats.

There aren't any indications of that really. This is an RFL event and being sold via the RFL platform. We dont know what, if any involvement Moran has here. I do always think its quite a different market too. The magic Moran works is staging the right events, not necessarily marketing them well or getting ticketing well. The gig ticket market can be an absolute car crash full of dodgy practices and they can't be trusted not to gouge customers. It benefits from huge popular demand, not great marketing and ticket sales techniques.

I think that mistakes were made in the original ricing of Wembley. It's unusual for the Wembley/London match to be the most expensive game, yet that is what was set at the start. If we look at versus Everton, a marquee ground in the North. Sideline tickets - Everton £35-£60 vs Wembley £65-80 Behind the goals - Everton £30-35 vs Wembley £30-45 They appear to have realised this now, and have reduced the price of some £45 Wembley tickets, and have also added the new £20-30 tickets in that upper tier. But the pricing of the first 50k tickets at Wembley were far more expensive than the 50k on sale at Everton. Providing people don't lose out, I'm ok with them changing things based on where we are, but this is not a good sign.

It is odd that these blocks are pretty much completely unsold, I wonder if the only sales in these blocks were group or community sales or something. In fact, looking at the two central blocks behind the sticks they are largely sold out, I wonder if they've moved people into this block to recategorise.

These are 4 extra corner blocks reduced from £45 to £30.

Just imagine if we'd really built up our commercial operations to best in class over the years and with a regular high-quality international calendar tapping into TV rights and sponsorship at a much higher level than we currently do.