whatmichaelsays

Was it? I don't believe for a second that anyone with sense would think that an agency the size of IMG would work exclusively on contingency - there's no way that would take on that sort of risk and hassle without a baseline fee and margin. That's not how good marketing agency partnerships work as it almost exclusively leads to the sort of short-term thinking that IMG were brought in to move us away from. IIRC, the % profit share element was a bonus element to the partnership to demonstrate that IMG had skin in the game, rather than a "cash the cheque and run" type of partnership.

It's because we're now free from those pesky EU laws.....

No, the statement is the stick that people are beating Batley with, and the image it portrays. If the most interesting thing you have to say about a meeting that is supposedly discussing the future of the sport (whatever the level of influence) is the lunch option, then frankly don't say anything. You don't need to be a communications specialist to understand how this looks to the wider world, especially when there is a very loud and heated discussion being had within the sport that splits between the well-established lines of whatever terms you might use to describe the more "progressive" and "traditional" sections of RL stakeholders and supporters - flames that the Batley chairman himself has fanned in recent weeks.

And? There's nothing wrong with there being a market for that sort of thing - you'll find "casual" hospitality packages at Wembley and Twickenham (where they also do a "pie and pea" style option - and the pies are very nice). But the critique of this press release comes down to the image that it portrays. There is a huge information and communication vacuum that has developed around recent events, with all manner of rumour and theory being put out there and some very valid questions about the motives of the main protagonists - what this didn't need was for one of those protagonists to portray an image of a committee meeting at the Phoenix Club. The criticism isn't about the lunch options at the meeting. The criticism is about how tone-deaf the statement is to the concerns that many supporters have around the direction the game appears to be turning, and how it portrays a sport that struggles for credibility and positive attention at the best of times. Saying nothing would have been better than saying this.

Who all seem to have ideas on what the elite level of this sport should look like and how it should be run. Again, to my earlier point, the image that you project to the wider world matters.

Indeed. And lunch was anything the Sky execs wanted out of the vending machine.

I'm not really seeing the criticism of that statement as particularly aimed at the clubs / towns themselves, but at the actual statement and what it projects. The statement is awful. We're led to believe that this is was a high-level meeting of minds to discuss the future direction of a multi-million pound sport, and the statement mentions nothing of that and goes on to thank Tracey for her lovely pies. It's nothing against Batley, Tracey or her pies to criticise the image that such a statement projects in the context of what was being discussed. This was a discussion about an elite level sport, discussed publicly as if it was a committee meeting at the local miners club. That's what I think people are, quite fairly, mocking. Image matters, how things are perceived by the wider world matters - it seems like the only people who understand that are the very agency that the game seems keen to get rid of.

And there I was, thinking we'd peaked at this....

Who won the meat raffle?

The quota isn't based on nationality and hasn't been for years, so EU status isn't relevant.

Which is something that Catalans has done, even under the current quota. They currently have 16 French players listed in their squad of 27, and the number of French players in SL has grown significantly since their introduction. The issue I have is that this achievement is too often framed against the context of the performances of the French national team - which is a ridiculous and impossible yardstick. The Catalans are no more responsible for the performances of the French national team than Castleford are responsible for the fact we don't haven't had a world-class halfback that can beat Australia. Again, if we want to go looking for areas where the Catalans have been underperforming, the development of French talent isn't a particularly good place to start.

Gary Carter has told sections of the supporter base what they want to hear, and I get it. As a fan in this situation, you want something to cling onto. The level of vitriol directed at people like Matt Shaw has been excessive and needless in my view. He (amongst others) has questioned the information coming (or not coming) out of Salford and the Salford supporters have needlessly piled on. That said, I don't necessarily think Shaw's (and I'm not picking on him, but he's an easy example) style of online journalism is necessarily suited to this sort of story and it does expose the lack of journalistic skill / knowledge for this sort of thing in RL. RL journalists are good at transfer stories, but not particularly strong at deeper-dive investigative trawls through company finances - that's David Conn or Kieran Maguire territory, and we don't have those sorts of people covering RL. I suspect that's largely down to an online content business model around RL (the sort that keeps the like of Callum Walker in gainful employment), as well as the fact that quality of journalist probably doesn't need to trouble themselves with covering RL.

This is how I've seen it as well. The way that certain sections of the supporter base have gone after particular members of the press when this story has been covered has been far from rational or dignified. I can completely understand why Salford fans have been defensive about critique of their club, but I don't think it's fair for them to be offended at the "RL Family™" when that family starts thinking "not this again?". I think even the most staunch SRD supporter would have to admit that the club, and certain people in its hierarchy, have not conducted themselves brilliantly in what is a saga that goes back much further than this winter/spring.

Spoken like a true Wire fan

And yet, Neil Hudgell was more than willing to walk away from "his club" and no longer increase his profile in 2020. And your beloved Derek was prepared to walk away from "his club" Leigh in 2018 and forego the profile increase that the club presumable affords him. Something since has changed, and those individuals appear to be contributing more into their respective clubs. I'm not for a second suggesting that IMG is the sole reason for that, but I am suggesting that the work they have done may be a contributing factor. At the start of the season, Leigh supporters on here were trying to convince us that the club had signed the most amazing sponsorship deal ever with Je2 - do you think that happens without, for example, every Leigh game being televised and the much improved digital content that clubs have been encouraged to invest in? Oh, and Caddick had absolutely no prior interest in the Rhinos, or rugby league for that matter, before he got involved with the club.

What difference does it make that they're fans? They're investing more in their clubs because they feel that is a worthwhile investment. We've seen before that two of the three you mention have been more than happy to pull (or threaten to pull) their investment and involvement when they don't feel the circumstances are worth their while - both of those men are now investing more and I don't think you can disregard the environment they're working in and claim that it is all down to their brilliant intuition. Are IMG entirely responsible for those circumstances? No. But I do think they are a significant contributing factor. I do think that the initiatives they have driven are contributing to an environment that makes RL more investable.

I'm not sure you can reasonably argue that new owners at 25% of the top tier clubs is "spinning" a narrative around progress and inward investment. Similarly, existing owners at other clubs are putting more investment into their businesses. Hull KR has invested heavily in infrastructure and product. Leeds has invested heavily in infrastructure and its Foundation projects. Your own club, Leigh, has invested heavily in brand and product - that's now six clubs we're talking about making significant investments. These sorts of things happen because there is an environment where those clubs are confident of a return on those investments.

One of the big issues that is related to this is that RL has really not adapted well to younger generations becoming more geographically, socially and economically mobile. RL lives in a part of the country where young people might once have bought a house next to the factory / industry in their home town where they would spend their working lives, but that doesn't happen now. Today, RL lives in a part of the country where young people tend to leave for education or career prospects. I was one of the first of Tony Blair's "50% of kids should go to university" generation and that is what more and more young people did - they moved away, at least from their home town, and often from RL land entirely. Some might come back, but many don't. Until IMG, it was difficult to follow and "buy" RL in any meaningful way if you didn't live close to the heartlands. More than 50% of our fixtures most weeks weren't televised, those that were sat behind a bundled paywall, digital content was sparse and that left you with whatever BBC Radio coverage you could get. Now, what should have happened (because this generational trend was obvious to anyone who was paying attention) was greater investment in things like student rugby, because that is a brilliant way to keep people from RL land engaged with the sport when they move away, and it brings people not from RL land into the sport. Not only that, but if you work on the basis that most of the country's future business decision makers or political leaders are university graduates, it increases the sport's changes of breaking down historical issues of "old school ties" and the challenges we have being taken seriously at those levels. But the sport didn't do enough of it, or didn't do it well enough. And I think that's why your point about Leeds is fair. The student population of Leeds is around 80,000 - that's close to the population of Castleford and Leigh combined. It's a major untapped market. Leeds has a very competitive leisure market and I think it does OK to get the market share that it does, but there are bigger issues around why RL doesn't have as much appeal in the 16-25 sort of demographic that I think it arguably should.

I think this is where Headingley does make some sense. There's a good chance that by the time tickets go on general sale, and even by this afternoon, one of the three venues has gone. That's great both from a message of "this is an event people are fighting to see" but also from a message of "if you want to see it, this is where you need to go". A sold out Headingley helps sell Wembley.

Got our groups for all three. From the sounds of it, South Stand terracing is close to sold out.

There has never been any forced segregation at Leeds and I don't believe for a second that anyone ever thought there was. You're free to buy a ticket in whichever part of the ground you choose, subject to availability.

I've got no issue with try music, although the playing of Tom Hark should be an automatic deduction of 10 IMG points.

Depending on the club you support, football has a "use it or lose it" element that encourages fans to keep buying / attending as demand often outweighs supply for tickets. A Leeds fan wanting a ticket for their trip to Sunderland this season needed to have attended 12 away games in the previous season to have a chance of getting a ticket. On the other hand, I'll have no problem paying cash to the Leeds end at Salford next Thursday.

The "least bad" option here would be to use what is left of Salford's central funding share to run a skeleton side until the end of the season, and provide cap and quota dispensations for current Salford players so that the club has a fighting chance of raising some capital / cutting costs through player sales. Realistically, all of this should have been sorted months ago, but that's spilt milk now. The competition and RLC are in too deep with the competition and events such as Magic to lose Salford at this stage.

They will, but I don't know to what extent. For what it's worth, a group sale is classed as 10+ tickets per game.