Big Picture

If I can find a way into the offices of the sort of rich men who might otherwise buy into one of the established major pro leagues, my solution can then come to pass. That can happen then because I can show them how they can make money on their investment just as happens in North American major and minor pro leagues alike, because I can show them how the prospective broadcast partners can all make money by showing the matches on TV. The latter is the key to having broadcasters willing to pay for rights and happy to renew (and pay more for the privilege) when the time rolls around. And through the unique broadcast rights strategy which I've conceived, if all the broadcast partners I envisage should come on board at the price points I have in mind they could all make good money on the deal and the League would be on a solid financial foundation from day 1. I agree that the big cities in Britain won't take to a small, regional game, but that's not what my League would be offering them. What they would get is something so unique and outside the box that there would be no mistaking it for a small, regional game.

No they aren't. The money is from Sky, not C4, and Sky's SL telecasts reach a much smaller audience. Low ratings are the reason why SL lost the Saturday night timeslot it had originally, and why Sky has reduced their offer at the times when they've done so. C4 couldn't afford even the reduced money Sky pays now because C4 depends on ad revenue and RL isn't TV-friendly enough for them to recoup even as much as that from ad revenue alone, they'd need a lot more ad minutes to sell but without making their audience miss any of the action for that. The plain truth as that the regional M62 league with most times one and occasionally two add-ons further afield doesn't rate well enough to be offered more than it's getting now and unless Sky decides that it's proven its value might get either a renewal for even less later this year or no offer at all.

The sort of knee-jerk decisions to abandon something because it didn't work in a short timeframe are the result of the chronic lack of money in the game. Quite simply, waiting things out for a longer timeframe was a luxury the game couldn't afford due to the financial pressures it's always been under. I think you're mistaken that IMG can deliver the expansion and growth which has eluded the game before. Their critics are essentially correct when they say that IMG's proposals are just a variation on things tried before, and therein lies the problem. IMG seems to think that clubs based in smallish, economically deprived towns can solve the severe problems which they face if only someone would drive them do so. That approach ignores the facts that (1) the sort of money needed to solve those problems is nowhere to be found in those towns and (2) due to the unfashionable nature of their locations those clubs simply don't have the appeal to expand their audience reach more broadly. I note when forum critics of IMG asked what material difference exists between the "big clubs" in SL and the smaller clubs in the Championship they didn't get an answer to that question. With the new season underway we have data about this in the form of Channel 4's audience numbers so far this season compared to the same period last season, and as you can see below the numbers are not what we might wish for: they're significantly down from last year. As I've suggested before, the unpalatable truth as that the so-called "Super League" doesn't have the reach required to attract the new audience the game needs if its decline is to be turned around and I suggest that the audience data for the Channel 4 telecasts supports this view.

In fact the figures for C4 are a cause for concern because they're down on this time last year, and down significantly. For their first match of the season the average was down from 531,000 a year ago to 306,000 and the peak down from 750,000 to 495,000. For their second match of the season the average was down from 515,000 a year ago to 286,000 and the peak down from 624,000 to 396,000.

Callum Walker reports on Three rugby league clubs that could benefit most from IMG plans — London Broncos, York Knights and Newcastle.

Excellent news!

There could have been a successful pro club in South Wales when SL began, complete with established Welsh pro players to draw crowds, but that would have needed it to be in SL and have other clubs release the established Welsh pro players for them. We all know that would never have flown and they'd have been made to build from the bottom up without much help from the League.

The problem is that with its base in smallish unfashionable northern towns, the game doesn't have a way to bring in the sort of money needed for those expansion clubs to break even and then become profitable. The result of that is that their backers eventually run out of money to keep putting in to bridge the gap between income and expenses and they go belly up. Until a solution to the game's lack of money is found, the same poor outcome can be expected sooner or later. As Salford's experience with Marwan Koukash shows, the same basic problem faces traditional clubs too.

You said that those persons you know used to follow RL but now they think it's a joke. I was asking why they came to think that?

Out of interest, why did they start to think it's a joke?

You think a country which is all in one time zone is a vast country? Seriously???

And with it being played in a little town like Featherstone, no one outside Yorkshire or Lancashire will pay it any attention either, assuming they even hear about it that is.

The 1989 promotional match between Wigan and Warrington in Milwaukee organized by Mike Mayer. I don't know how to get the Youtube image to display though.

Personally I always liked the ideas of the teams playing an extra 10 minutes each way, like Australia and NZ did in the 1995 World Cup Semi-Final. It could go to sudden death after that, but going to sudden death immediately seems wrong to me. At present it's theoretically possible a team could lose in the extra period without ever getting to play the ball, though I don't know if it's happened in the NRL yet.

Odd, is he forgetting about the French RL's Lord Derby Cup?

How are they a moneyspinner for clubs when they're usually in a different set of colours than the club's own ones? I'd have zero interest in buying a jersey in different colours, I think a variation of the club's colours would be far more appealing.

The simple answer is to have teams cross over in the third week to avoid any repeat matchups prior to the Grand Final, like the AFL does: Week 1 A 1 vs. 4 B 5 vs. 8 C 2 vs. 3 D 6 vs. 7 Week 2 E Loser A vs. Winner B F Loser C vs. Winner D Week 3 G Winner A vs. Winner F H Winner D vs. Winner E Week 4 I Winner G vs. Winner H It's hardly rocket science.

They shouldn't be able to, there should be clear rules on eligibility and every country should live with them. However if that were the case I doubt either Williams or Uate would have played last year, they'd have waited for a shot at Australia.

No I don't believe that, I don't like seeing players which allegiance any more than you. I'd like to see them bring in a rule that players who've appeared in the World Cup can't ever switch after that. I can well understand your frustration with the ARL, they seem very self-centered in this. That doesn't change the fact that Williams was born there and naturally wants to play for Australia. However much we might like to see players to stick with Fiji, Tonga or Samoa I don't know how they'll ever get them to.

Given how small and poor they are, how good would they ever be without heritage players who grew up in Australia or NZ?

Yes Uate rings a bell, I know he was born in Fiji but no bio I can find says where he grew up so it may have been in Australia for all I know. It is catch 22 for the PI nations though, they're too small ever to develop into any kind of force in the game and I can't ever see that changing. They'll never standalone Internationals before big crowds, they're too small and too poor for that.

It's understandable that players born in Australia want to play for the Kangaroos and see playing for a Pacific island nation based on heritage as a fallback plan. RL needs either a way to get them to stick with their heritage country (realistically not likely to happen) or more countries able to compete with only a few heritage players.

Why should they be interested when the game's so regional?