Super League clubs to compete with Rugby Union

[ELBOWSEYE]

3 hours ago, Marauder said:

80's & 90's wasn't even a drop in the ocean when you consider the development that was being done before the plug was  pulled, in my area (Doncaster population around 300,000) alone where they had every school but two playing the game, that's a lot of kids tasting rugby league for the first time. yes the age when juniors move to open-age is a problem age but that would be more down to natural wastage (Wine , women and song) many do find themselves back into the game at a later age, we also know many don't.

The reply to your post was about the statement you wrote about no clubs fully utilising their areas in the development of junior and schools rugby. I pointed out that you are wrong, I have seen first hand the improvement in what top level clubs do and I am sure others as well as Warrington do, I know Wigan, saints and Leeds work hard with junior rugby and probably others as well. there will be areas such as you show in Doncaster but that is a RFL problem not other SL clubs. 

[iangidds]

14 hours ago, Cowardly Fan said:

They had a massive drop in funding from Sport England.  Where would you have cut funding from instead?

When you have a drop in funding do you pay yourself more and get rid of the footsoilders? That’s what Woods did; the development officers drive up participation and in turn the grants are higher.

[dhw]

4 minutes ago, iangidds said:

When you have a drop in funding do you pay yourself more and get rid of the footsoilders? That’s what Woods did; the development officers drive up participation and in turn the grants are higher.

Regarding development officers and increase in participation. That is not what happened , based off of SportEngland's statistics. Increase in development officers coincided with falling participation, so clearly simply decreasing the number of development officers cannot be blamed solely for reduced participation.  

[Dave T]

43 minutes ago, iangidds said:

When you have a drop in funding do you pay yourself more and get rid of the footsoilders? That’s what Woods did; the development officers drive up participation and in turn the grants are higher.

The problem is, if you are awarded say, £10m and then use that to employ Dev officers, and then that £10m is taken away - what do you do?

The additional pay for Wood is a red herring.

[iangidds]

I suppose I have put 2 and 2 together... but Woods pay increased whilst participation levels and development officers fell; that does not look good to me.

[Marauder]

4 hours ago, dhw said:

Regarding development officers and increase in participation. That is not what happened , based off of SportEngland's statistics. Increase in development officers coincided with falling participation, so clearly simply decreasing the number of development officers cannot be blamed solely for reduced participation.  

No the RFL got caught fiddling the numbers book hence the drop in funding, lets not go into why some feel one of the reasons is why numbers have dropped and the development officers work only lasted short term so we never got the chance to see it's benefits.

[The Future is League]

Stating the obvious, but i think we all agree that we need to augment the number of juniors playing the game.

Different people have different views how we achieve that but its a must do.

The bigger junior playing base we have the better the chance we have of finding them diamonds which are out there.

The bigger playing base we have the more we can expand

[Marauder]

3 hours ago, Dave T said:

The problem is, if you are awarded say, £10m and then use that to employ Dev officers, and then that £10m is taken away - what do you do?

The additional pay for Wood is a red herring.

The beast needs feeding from the top of the funnel and people are getting paid a large amount of money to come up with the answers, block the top and the flow becomes a drip.

[Marauder]

6 minutes ago, The Future is League said:

Stating the obvious, but i think we all agree that we need to augment the number of juniors playing the game.

Different people have different views how we achieve that but its a must do.

The bigger junior playing base we have the better the chance we have of finding them diamonds which are out there.

The bigger playing base we have the more we can expand

Totally agree and my only worry about expansion is where are the players coming from of a standard to maintain the standard we have within the professional ranks - I don't want to see amateur clubs  raped of their players just so they  can be stocking fillers for the professional clubs just in case they get an injury crisis.

[Mumby Magic]

Quote

 

It could be very dangerous. Plus why are 12 teams trying to control RL?

[ojx]

6 minutes ago, Mumby Magic said:

It could be very dangerous. Plus why are 12 teams trying to control RL?

The original SL venture has failed (merged clubs, quality facilities and expanded markets), now with a decreased SKY deal on the horizon, the current members are desperate to keep everything that is left for themselves.

[Padge]

24 minutes ago, scotchy1 said:

The original SL venture was never tried, more money than ever in the history of the game has been given to the lower leagues this year and the current tv deal has 3 years to run.

The bit in bold is absolutely correct, also a reason Super League as envisaged by Murdoch never got off the ground because of the split in the game in Oz at the time.

We went half-@rsed at it and the Aussies split over it. Murdoch expected the Aussies to roll over, they didn't.

[ojx]

59 minutes ago, scotchy1 said:

The original SL venture was never tried, more money than ever in the history of the game has been given to the lower leagues this year and the current tv deal has 3 years to run.

Three years left to try and get their act together, that not long at all. Apparently Sky has already let it be known that the next contract will be lower (according to Phil Caplan). This could be the last throw of the dice to increase the value of the product before the sport has to make some hard decisions. If these 12 SL chairmen have an actual vision, other than to "do better marketing", I would be surprised. It seems more like a takeover power play, like the League Express Headline, will it lead to a "Civil War"?

[Mattrhino]

27 minutes ago, scotchy1 said:

I doubt Sky have said anything of the sort. It would be nonsense for many reasons. First one being we arent negotiating at the moment, the Second one being we arent bound to Sky, we can sell out contract to anyone, thirdly Sky arent in any sort of position to know where they will be next year, they could lose all their Premier League rights and be desperate for any sport whilst the new competitors are out there prepared to throw money at getting them. 

It seems an awful lot of speculation based on nothing. We dont know what format the new structure will take, how successful it will be, the media rights environment. There is being proactive and future planning and theres putting the cart before the horse has even been born. 

They will more than likely lose F1 also, as the new owners Liberty Media want it to go back to FTA. Sky could find themselves with very little.

[Gerrumonside ref]

7 minutes ago, Mattrhino said:

They will more than likely lose F1 also, as the new owners Liberty Media want it to go back to FTA. Sky could find themselves with very little.

Pity that going fully FTA isn’t possible for our sport.

 

 

[jpmc]

Im surprised how quiet the championship clubs are, unless they're all still in shock with what they have been told

[Padge]

1 minute ago, jpmc said:

Im surprised how quiet the championship clubs are, unless they're all still in shock with what they have been told

They have never had a say in SL, it is not something they need to bother themselves with.

[jpmc]

1 minute ago, Padge said:

They have never had a say in SL, it is not something they need to bother themselves with.

It is if sl want to start controlling the rfl and how the champ clubs will be used for there own ends like dual reg

[Padge]

1 minute ago, jpmc said:

It is if sl want to start controlling the rfl and how the champ clubs will be used for there own ends like dual reg

SL don't want to control the RFL, once again we are having massive, speculative conclusion jumping. The SL clubs are taking back full control of SL after they relinquished some functions to the RFL, the reults of which the clubs are obviously far from impressed with.

[Dave T]

17 minutes ago, Padge said:

SL don't want to control the RFL, once again we are having massive, speculative conclusion jumping. The SL clubs are taking back full control of SL after they relinquished some functions to the RFL, the reults of which the clubs are obviously far from impressed with.

Padge which things in particular? Have SLE ever negotiated their own sponsors or tv deals for example?

[Futtocks]

1 hour ago, scotchy1 said:

Im surprised at the lack of leaks, things very rarely stay quiet in RL but it sseems like major changes are about to take place, if you believe Pearson changes as big as anything since 96' they seem to be confident they are in the end game yet no--one seems to know anything.

A lot of things that are initially flagged up as "RFL leaks" end up turning out to be the demented cheese-dreams of some foil-hatted loon who believes that everybody's out to get their club for some nebulous reason that is never* coherently explained.

This kinda muddies the apparent transparency of the sport.

 

*for obvious reasons.

[Padge]

1 hour ago, Dave T said:

Padge which things in particular? Have SLE ever negotiated their own sponsors or tv deals for example?

Its a bit complicated, what in RL never is.

SL used to have its own board CEO departments like marketing, that meant that SL had the last say in things in SL and they could decide where to use their funding that didn't go to the clubs.

I think it was in 2004 that SL negotiated something like a £52m pound deal with Sky but because the RFL wouldn't sell Sky the rights to the CC and Internationals, giving them exclusivity on the whole game, they cut the SL deal to £46m. So although SL had their "price" the RFL could always trip up an SL deal. This meant that negotiations with Sky always from then had to be two handed.

I believe the first sponsors of SL were just a continuation of the previous first division sponsors and the next two were negotiated by SL. Again in 2004 things started to change and a joint approach was deemed better.

Eventually this led to the almost disbandment of SL as an individual entity (but not completely), but they had secured voting rights within the RFL that meant it was difficult to overturn the wishes of SL clubs regarding the things that affected SL. 

When Woods was given the CEO role at SL and the change in voting, it skewed the voting so that the RFL got the last say in a deadlocked SL (6-6), I think Woods voting to push through his agenda put noses out of joint with a few SL clubs, probably 6, who decided to bide their time and wait for at least one club to decide this was not good.

 

Note, a lot done from memory, so numbers dates may be not absolute, but that's the jist.

 

[Padge]

11 minutes ago, scotchy1 said:

No doubt, but its rarely a surprise either. Seems there is only one rumour at the moment, a return to franchising with either 13 or 14 sides. Either thats set in stone or we are all going to be surprised. 

Leaks tend to happen when somebody in "the group" isn't happy with what is being proposed, if everyone agrees there is no need to leak stuff to be disruptive or rally your troops against it. The other leak is a ###### chairman spouting on twitter after too many sherry's.

 

[Dave T]

1 hour ago, Padge said:

Its a bit complicated, what in RL never is.

SL used to have its own board CEO departments like marketing, that meant that SL had the last say in things in SL and they could decide where to use their funding that didn't go to the clubs.

I think it was in 2004 that SL negotiated something like a £52m pound deal with Sky but because the RFL wouldn't sell Sky the rights to the CC and Internationals, giving them exclusivity on the whole game, they cut the SL deal to £46m. So although SL had their "price" the RFL could always trip up an SL deal. This meant that negotiations with Sky always from then had to be two handed.

I believe the first sponsors of SL were just a continuation of the previous first division sponsors and the next two were negotiated by SL. Again in 2004 things started to change and a joint approach was deemed better.

Eventually this led to the almost disbandment of SL as an individual entity (but not completely), but they had secured voting rights within the RFL that meant it was difficult to overturn the wishes of SL clubs regarding the things that affected SL. 

When Woods was given the CEO role at SL and the change in voting, it skewed the voting so that the RFL got the last say in a deadlocked SL (6-6), I think Woods voting to push through his agenda put noses out of joint with a few SL clubs, probably 6, who decided to bide their time and wait for at least one club to decide this was not good.

 

Note, a lot done from memory, so numbers dates may be not absolute, but that's the jist.

 

Thanks. Have had a read of the Watkina Review which gave some clarity around dates.

It looks like the one TV deal was via SLE (the initial renegotiation) and subsequent deals saw the packages marketed together with other assets, and IMG employed.

Quite interesting reading the report in why they moved away from the 12 Club Directors structure for SLE (conflicts of interest), and now they have exercised the option to return to that structure it will be interesting to see if these 12 Club Directors can do better than the last ones.

[The Future is League]

6 hours ago, Marauder said:

Totally agree and my only worry about expansion is where are the players coming from of a standard to maintain the standard we have within the professional ranks - I don't want to see amateur clubs  raped of their players just so they  can be stocking fillers for the professional clubs just in case they get an injury crisis.

Hence, that's why we have to augment the junior playing base, and then things will fall into place in time.