whatmichaelsays

Leeds are doing it this week for the Salford game - it's their "Schools Out" game, nicely timed for the end of term - with all kids tickets £5.

FFS. Tactics without strategy again then.....

This info is from a request I put into CoPilot, so it may need some fact-checking, but it seems that nobody really wants to watch their team play Huddersfield.... Club Average Home Attendance Lowest Home Attendance (Opponent) Wigan Warriors 14,289 11,660 vs. London Broncos Leeds Rhinos 13,872 10,204 vs. Huddersfield Giants St Helens 12,931 9,876 vs. Castleford Tigers Hull KR 10,412 8,102 vs. London Broncos Warrington Wolves 9,981 7,654 vs. Huddersfield Giants Catalans Dragons 9,104 6,321 vs. London Broncos Leigh Leopards 8,213 6,002 vs. Huddersfield Giants Castleford Tigers 7,941 5,876 vs. London Broncos Hull FC 7,612 5,432 vs. London Broncos Salford Red Devils 6,812 4,998 vs. Huddersfield Giants Huddersfield Giants 5,151 3,902 vs. Salford Red Devils London Broncos 3,467 1,900 vs. Catalans Dragons

Oh no! Clubs being proactive and marketing their fixtures! How awful.... For what it's worth, Leeds are doing discounted kids tickets for their fixture next week against Salford. Because, you know, tactical offers can be a good way to encourage people to attend less attractive fixtures.

I'd agree. I think we're levelling down the standards, rather than levelling them up by moving to 14 without the relevant infrastructure in place, and using tactics like increased quotas as a sticking plaster. Like with so many things, it's tactics without strategy. You can make an argument that what has happened at Salford is something of an outlier but even then, we still have a couple of clubs that are well adrift of the rest of the competition. I would say that Sky's ultimatum goes beyond just having 12 competitive teams - that's a part of it - but I think Sky accept that in any sport, you're going to have mismatches and blowouts. I would read their remarks as a push for us to improve things like the visual presentation, access to players, the vibrancy around the competition, the size and diversity of the audience we reach across different touchpoints, and I think that is the thing that IMG have been tasked with driving, along with the clubs themselves, and I would argue they've shown early signs of success on that front.

There's a point where RL has to carry the blame for that though as well. I've long said that we haven't spent nearly enough investment (be it time or financial) in developing the product to provide more value for Sky. I think that most club owners have largely sat back and expected the TV contract to increase "just because". We've had remarks from both Sky and BBC that RL needs to work harder to provide more value and to drive viewing figures, and I think there is a lot of fairness and truth in those remarks. We're never likely to be a major subscription driver, but we are still in a position to be a much bigger part of Sky's TV real estate if we get the proposition right.

@Worzel has already covered it, but Sky just want the best quality product that we can provide them, and they want us to provide value for them. At the moment, most of the current 12 clubs - Catalans included - have shown that they are the most capable of doing that. But I also think it's reasonable to understand where we sit in the hierarchy of Sky's business model. There are lots of people in this forum who like to claim that there is a huge market of subscribers that would be unlocked by replacing Catalans with a UK heartland team, with scant evidence behind that claim. I'll ask again, how much latent demand do you genuinely believe their is for Sky subscriptions that would be unlocked by Catalans being replaced by Bradford, Hunslet or Featherstone?

How many Sky subscriptions do you think rely on rugby league? As in, how many subscribers would Sky lose if they dropped RL tomorrow, because they dropped RL? Given that Sky has survived the loss of domestic and European rugby union and Champions League football, I would put it to you that the subscriber loss from a lack of RL content wouldn't even register as a blip on a spreadsheet. So the idea therefore that dropping Catalans for, for argument's sake, Bradford Bulls would suddenly open up a huge volume of latent demand for satellite TV subscriptions in Bradford just doesn't stand up to scrutiny. There are certain sports that drive demand for Sky TV subscriptions - football and F1 are the big two, with the golf Majors and test cricket to a lesser extent. RL is not high on that list.

I think this point does get lost in this discussion. It's not as simple as "just focus more on your academy". The "big three" pretty much have first pick of the young talent from the amateur game. Whilst it is fair to say that they're more proactive than most in unearthing it, they also have a better proposition to prospective players and, crucially, their parents - the best facilities, good coaches, a strong record of introducing young players to the first team, development experiences and opportunities, good educational partnerships and the prestige of a big club. The rest of Super League, which either don't or can't offer those to the same extent even with more investment, is largely left to pick up what's left after the big three have had their fill. This shows itself in Scholarship grade results. Even a "rugby league hotbed" like Castleford will get pummelled by a Leeds team because Leeds can attract the better young players - including ones from Castleford and Wakefield district clubs. We can talk about how we need to bring more academies up to the levels of the big three, but you're talking about a very long process and a lot of investment that won't really make that much of an impact on the fact that the big three will always be more attractive options. The other way to respond to that issue is through tighter regulation of service area quotas, but that opens up a whole host of other problems that harm young talent.

The clip here:

Because for Leeds (and the others), it entrenches their advantage and effectively lowers the cost of their playing budget. Big clubs get better value out of the salary cap than smaller ones. Not only through the various dispensations, but from the sheer fact that they are more attractive destinations for prospective players, and players will be prepared to sacrifice a few quid, a year off their contract (or both) to play for them. For what it's worth, I think the salary cap needs reforming. It's harmful to the players (it should, at a minimum, rise with average earning inflation) and it doesn't really achieve the objectives it's purportedly there to achieve. We still have clubs that aren't financially sustainable and it hasn't really levelled the playing field because, despite most clubs having some degree of success in the salary cap era, it entrenches those big club advantages. I'd much rather it move to an FFP-style system that is linked to club turnover (with limits on how much it considers owner cash injections) - that would encourage club growth and business development.

That's just asking for a discrimination case to be honest, and one we wouldn't win. Nationality is a protected characteristic (under the broader category of race) and whilst 'Non Fed Trained' is not a nationality, it could very easily be argued that certain nationalities are more likely to be adversely impacted by that definition and any rule that might adversely impact their employment rights or renumeration.

Exactly. I heard this "Asian's don't like football" for years, and yet every time I went up to the five-a-side centre, the place would be full of teams of young Asian lads, seemingly liking football. There's nothing inherent in your genes that make you like or dislike a sport, but people want to pretend otherwise because it excuses their inaction.

I'd also suggest that there's at least an equal body of evidence to suggest that rugby league hasn't really tried to engage these audiences in a particularly meaningful or effective way. Much like we don't seem particularly good at engaging various other audience segments that we could potentially reach (with enough people seeming to be more than willing to decry efforts by IMG to correct that). For a sport that prides itself on being a community sport, it seems particularly bad at reflecting those communities.

The top six still get the pick of the available talent and they get better value out of the salary cap than smaller clubs. All this is doing is increasing the pool and allowing them to attract players that are probably better than what they have in their academy sides, for not a particularly large cost. It's easy to frame this as a smaller club problem, but everyone is playing the same game here.

I'll echo what I said in the other thread; it's a short-sighted, non-strategic call that will flood the market with poor quality imports and drive down wage growth that has already been stagnant in RL for long enough. I'd be more than happy to accept an increased quota, or quota exemptions, where we felt it was strategically beneficial. I've long argued that I would exempt London from the overseas quota (or at least, offer a relaxed quota) due to the specific challenges that they face when recruiting domestic players - it's very difficult to encourage domestic players, most of whom live in a low cost-of-living area, to move to a high cost-of-living area. Being able to attract overseas talent with a "sell" of a couple of years in London where they can travel around Europe is a good way to get around that issue.

I'd much prefer any quota increases to be much more strategic than just a blanket increase, that will just seen a flood of players come over from the Queensland Cup. For example, if one of the 14 for next season is London, I'd be perfectly fine with them having a more relaxed quota than the established heartland clubs. We know that it is difficult for London clubs to attract players when most of our talent pool lives in a much lower cost-of-living part of the country, and attracting overseas talent with a "sell" of a couple of years in London where they can travel around Europe is a good way to get around that issue. But we won't be that pragmatic or sensible.

Are these the same Championship and L1 clubs that for years voted against allowing promotion and relegation from/to the Conference National Division? Asking for some friends from Bramley.

Respectfully, I disagree that they are entirely down to on-field success but alas, I don't think there's any merit in arguing that point. Hull KR's success doesn't happen in a vacuum. There is a whole host of things that have gone into their success - and on-field performances are just one (albeit a sizeable) part. Also, Michael is not that hard a name to spell. I've even written it in my username for you.

Yes Harry. That's my point. We've largely levelled the playing field in terms of media coverage and provided the traditionally less fashionable/successful clubs with a new and exciting opportunity for them to squander.

And if anything, it should be the fans of the less fashionable clubs lauding that as a success. One of the reasons Leeds can attract lucrative long-term sponsorships and partnerships is because they could say with some confidence that they would be one of the most heavily televised teams in the league year after year. Now that playing field has been levelled. And people still aren't happy.

I'm asking it because it because it's a complete dead cat. Toulouse has nothing to do with the suggestion that large commercial partners might not want to align themselves with a sport where the leadership acts with the sort of strategic vision, decorum, bad faith and professionalism that you'd expect from the committee at a working men's club.

What does Toulouse have to do with anything? Organisations want to associate themselves with trustworthy, reliable partners. They want to protect themselves from any brand risk and they want to work with partners that share their values. If you think that the circumstances around Wood's reintroduction and the relationship with IMG are evidence of RL delivering a positive image on those things, then I can't help you.

And in no time at all, we'll be wondering why we struggle to attract blue chip sponsors and partners. Who would seriously want to associate their brand with this bunch of clowns and it's leopard-skin clad ringmaster?

But I've been told that games against French clubs are bad because we can't sell tickets because no away fans, or something. Are you saying that it is possible to attract a good crowd against a French club by, perhaps, trying?