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Not another bluddy topic on this subject, I hear you say. No. Most threads about the future seem to have a narrow focus: Toronto, the amateur game, expansion, the USA, TV deals, four quarters, things were better in the past so let’s go back.

Of course, the motivation remains the same for most posters: how can our game survive, never mind thrive in this the 3rd decade of the 21st century, 125 years after the game's birth.

I think we now have an opportunity to look at the future with a much wider focus, a higher-level view, leaving the RFL and clubs with the short-term issues of restarting the game before it is forgotten. It goes without saying that as fans, we have no influence on the top-level pro game really. We turn up at the turnstile (except for internationals where we don't seem to do that), we pay our TV licences, Sky subscriptions etc but really that is about it.  At grass roots level and up to sub-league 1 level, we may have more influence - not really my area.

I'm not talking about changing the rules of play, though that might be part of it.

 I'm talking about making the game appealing to the many millions who are not currently fans, maybe those who see RL as just another branch of rugby, or those who don't even know it exists.

Unless there are major changes in the way that the game works and is presented to the public, then we will never see crowds growing, never see TV contracts increasing, never see decent media coverage. Doing the same things repeatedly and expecting different outcomes might be an indicator of madness, but it is also an indicator of experience in that we can see what does not work.

My first suggestion is to look at other sports and see what they have done to survive and grow.  I'd start with baseball to see if there are any lessons. It is unique, not like any other top-level sport. Forget rounders, forget softball. just watch some baseball.  It is fast, it is physical, a game is an event and after a long fight, it is now truly inclusive.

 The death of baseball has been foretold by miserable fans ever since its birth. Ring a bell?

Despite that, Alex Rodriguez is still MLB's career leader in earnings with over $450 million and Mike Trout is already guaranteed to make at least $507 million in his career thanks to his latest contract.  Many leading players can expect to earn $150 million each in their careers. There's real money in them there bases! Enough for kids to really want to play the game. And that's in a dying game, remember.

I was trying to understand how baseball had started to die. See, I’d heard that baseball was dying. I’d heard this for my entire life. This is true for my father and his entire life, and his father and his entire life, and his father and his entire life—because it’s forever been true for baseball. It’s been declared at risk of death since it was born. Of course, the precise causes of death vary by decade and person and context. (Lately, you’ve probably heard about problems with attendance, with home runs, with pace of play, and, obviously, with millennials.) Some are far more credible than others. But the core is the same. There’s someone who believes baseball is dying.  https://www.si.com/mlb/2019/08/29/baseball-is-dying-history

I'd start by unifying the game under the banner of NRL, so the game is the same worldwide and gives us a de facto name that does not mention rugby up front, ( yes I know what the R in NRL stands for, but fronting up with the word rugby invites immediate comparison and confusion in potential new fans, whereas hiding it avoids that. 

Then I'd make it more TV friendly and that where three thirds or four quarters and other possible innovations come in.

For those of you with the stamina to have read this far, remember here that I'm not talking about winning old fans back. I think that opportunity has in any meaningful way - thousands not hundreds - long passed us by, though if the game were to advance in the way I'm suggesting, I think there could be thousands of new fans through the turnstiles.

 

 

 

 

 

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No game has a right to exist. You're right that someone has always been saying that baseball is about to die. But in the lifetime that I've been on this board (so, since 2003), baseball has died. That would be British Baseball. A cricket/rounders hybrid that folk like @Wolford6would recognise that was pretty popular in Newport/Cardiff/Vale of Glamorgan and also Liverpool - an annual England v Wales match was played. I think it's now three years since there was regular men's league fixture and there are not really any clubs extent any more. Watching from a distance it took less than ten years to go from popular in its communities to moribund.

So, with that out of the way ...

... the one thing that I really think rugby league needs to do is to stop having so many people trying to run it. How can one sport played in only a handful of locations have so many controlling bodies. So whilst I'm not 100% convinced that it should be the NRL that takes over the global club game, I'm also absolutely sure that a unified body for all professional clubs, wherever they are in the world, is likely to be a necessary evil. Just because it was messed up 25 years ago with Super League doesn't mean it's a permanently bad idea. 

Build a man a fire, and he'll be warm for a day. Set a man on fire, and he'll be warm for the rest of his life. (Terry Pratchett)

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It's a huge amount of change to get the game going in the direction mentioned above and will take investment, in terms of personnel and finance, something we've never been good at. It would be bigger change than the game has ever seen and i just don't see the appetite for that kind of change with the current people involved who are running our game, at administration and club level. Though i whole heartedly agree radical change is needed to have a genuine chance of achieving our potential.

As far as the game itself is concerned i don't think it needs too much tinkering with, just a bit of clarity here and there and a complete alignment across all countries. I know NFL in the past (not sure about now) has adverts running across the top/bottom of the screen while games were being played, and i'm pretty sure the NRL coverage on occasion has this also, albeit usually upcoming TV shows on Fox/Channel 9, so for this reason i'd (personally) want to avoid the 4 quarters idea, if that was the main motivation, giving TV greater room to advertise.

A unified approach to the game across the world would be great, but the appetite for that to happen currently just sits with the fans. The NRL and RFL aren't interested in that. The NRL would never agree to anyone other than themselves governing their game, and you can understand why given the sh*t show we have had over here for god knows how many years. Just look at the International board for a further example of that.

Newham Dockers - Champions 2013. Rugby League For East London. 100% Cockney Rugby League!

Twitter: @NewhamDockersRL - Get following!

www.newhamdockers.co.uk

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The game can be more TV-friendly without moving to thirds or quarters by one simple means which is used in Australian Rules football and all the traditional North American sports: stop the clock in dead ball situations and leave it stopped until play resumes.  Those clock stoppages would allow for more TV ad breaks, e.g. after points have been scored.  Another benefit would be that both the spectators at the stadium and the viewers watching on TV would all get a full 40 minutes of play per half, and (crucially for attracting new fans to the game) the viewers wouldn't miss any of the action.

Any concerns about whether the players could cope with a higher work rate would be offset by the breaks in play when time is off and the number of discretionary substitutions allowed per match.

The sport probably does need a new body within it which has a broader focus than the NRL or RFL do now, but neither of those is suited to such a role.  Both the NRL and RFL are focused (one might even say fixated) on protecting what they have in their traditional areas, as the NRL's resistance to reducing the number of clubs in Sydney and the RFL's history of ditching expansion efforts to protect traditional clubs whenever the going got tough illustrate.  The sport needs a game changer, and neither the NRL nor the RFL have shown the ability to be that for the game.

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19 minutes ago, Oxford said:

TV friendly neans space for advertising so quarters would provide that.

Not nearly as well as what I described would though.

15 minutes ago, Hela Wigmen said:

Aren’t the NRL, much like us, about to enter a period for negotiating their next rights deal? Leading into that could be the optimum time for unification.

How exactly is unification of two organizations so focused (or maybe fixated is a better word for it) on protecting what they have in their corners of their respective countries supposed to help?

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And Terry Holmes too! League was rife with "British Baseball" stars by the looks of it. Terry Holmes was interviewed in one of the videos in the "Rugby League Classics on Youtube" thread that I watched the other day. Think it was Hull KR v Fev.

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1 minute ago, thebrewxi said:

Jim Sullivan was very good at "British" or Welsh Baseball, apparently! 

I only cited baseball because its not related to soccer, not related to rugby of either code, has died and recovered several times, is a fast and physical game. Could have chosen basketball or ice hockey for the comparison. 

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Any kind of global coming together would have to come from the UK, as such a thing would not even register on the NRL radar. Either that or through a broadcaster, like SKY, who (i think) are still owned by Fox.

"Heres £'X' million for us (SKY/FOX) to show both the NRL and SL, BUT both comps have to come under one over arching board that overseas the running of the game globally. You sort that out and we'll break open the cheque book." 

Each would have a general manager who report into the governing body. 

Robert Elstone is a big admirer of the NRL, so wouldn't be at all surprised if it was something that had been mentioned internally within SL. Albeit only in passing.

Newham Dockers - Champions 2013. Rugby League For East London. 100% Cockney Rugby League!

Twitter: @NewhamDockersRL - Get following!

www.newhamdockers.co.uk

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49 minutes ago, JohnM said:

I only cited baseball because its not related to soccer, not related to rugby of either code, has died and recovered several times, is a fast and physical game. Could have chosen basketball or ice hockey for the comparison. 

It was a good comparison because baseball writers and fans obsess about the upcoming death of baseball.

Build a man a fire, and he'll be warm for a day. Set a man on fire, and he'll be warm for the rest of his life. (Terry Pratchett)

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49 minutes ago, EastLondonMike said:

Any kind of global coming together would have to come from the UK, as such a thing would not even register on the NRL radar. Either that or through a broadcaster, like SKY, who (i think) are still owned by Fox.

"Heres £'X' million for us (SKY/FOX) to show both the NRL and SL, BUT both comps have to come under one over arching board that overseas the running of the game globally. You sort that out and we'll break open the cheque book." 

Each would have a general manager who report into the governing body. 

Robert Elstone is a big admirer of the NRL, so wouldn't be at all surprised if it was something that had been mentioned internally within SL. Albeit only in passing.

What would 'running the game globally' achieve? I don't think there's any appetite for a globalised club competition, either here or in Oz. We could play a few more internationals, maybe, but the big 3 play each other enough if the current calendar is stuck to. 

The future success or otherwise of rugby league is going to be down to carving out bigger shares of the main existing national markets, and only then maybe using a bit of that to leverage investment in new territories. But all of that can be done under the existing national structures, if the will is there. 

A bureaucratic global governance rejig doesn't seem necessary. 

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4 minutes ago, Toby Chopra said:

What would 'running the game globally' achieve? I don't think there's any appetite for a globalised club competition, either here or in Oz. We could play a few more internationals, maybe, but the big 3 play each other enough if the current calendar is stuck to. 

The future success or otherwise of rugby league is going to be down to carving out bigger shares of the main existing national markets, and only then maybe using a bit of that to leverage investment in new territories. But all of that can be done under the existing national structures, if the will is there. 

A bureaucratic global governance rejig doesn't seem necessary. 

I meant a governing body who over see the running of both comps. Not a globalised competition involving all SL and NRL clubs.

Newham Dockers - Champions 2013. Rugby League For East London. 100% Cockney Rugby League!

Twitter: @NewhamDockersRL - Get following!

www.newhamdockers.co.uk

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26 minutes ago, EastLondonMike said:

I meant a governing body who over see the running of both comps. Not a globalised competition involving all SL and NRL clubs.

What would that achieve?

(Genuine question, I just don't see lack of coordination or alignment between NRL and SL being much of an issue - far bigger problems out there) 

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I think ideally ALL rugby league professional,semi professional and Amateur/Conference etc etc in this country should come under one governing body.

That Governing body should be the RFL or some sort of reformed RFL.In fact reform there is what is needed.

I think the individual divisions such as Super League,Championship(merger of Championship and Championship 1)and any Conference divisions should have it’s own”devolved”Chief Executive/General Manager to overlook the divisions and make decisions for and on behalf of the clubs regarding things like it’s structure,TV deals etc etc.After all the clubs themselves know(or should do)what works for them.

The way of thinking we currently have in my opinion doesn’t work.

We need to change the way of thinking.

 

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6 minutes ago, scotchy1 said:

I disagree that there isnt appetite for a global comp, there are two major RL markets and 2 major RL products. Neither are worth anything in the other market.

But even if there werent, some benefits would be a worldwide sponsorship opportunity. Qantas fly from Sydney to London but also London to sydney. 

Scheduling. You could easy schedule 3 or 4 nrl games and 3 or 4 SL games on a Saturday and sell that as one package

Having the same laws

Marketing and branding 

Scheduling internationals 

We can schedule more internationals now if we want to. 

As for the rest, sports fans are largely parochial, and not just in rugby league. The strongest sports leagues are those with a clear national identity, even if they have a small foreign presence.

Yes, fans like internationals and champions league-style tournaments, but only in limited amounts, and only as cherries on top of the core national leagues. It's why there will never be a breakaway European super league in soccer. 

Multinational comps like Super Rugby are struggling because people don't connect in sufficient numbers to the multinational identity. 

I wish SL was stronger and we could have a meaningful World Club challenge - that would be worth working towards, but not at the expense of the core leagues. 

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14 minutes ago, Toby Chopra said:

What would that achieve?

(Genuine question, I just don't see lack of coordination or alignment between NRL and SL being much of an issue - far bigger problems out there) 

A greater ability to govern the game would be something.

Newham Dockers - Champions 2013. Rugby League For East London. 100% Cockney Rugby League!

Twitter: @NewhamDockersRL - Get following!

www.newhamdockers.co.uk

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I have no solutions. I'm just a poster on a forum, like the rest of us. Over the 60 + years I've been watching the game ( including a few short years as a useless player) I've seen the game stagger from one crisis to another, with interim periods of hope and renewal, culminating for me in the early years of SL and the reign of Richard Lewis.

I do feel (and it is only one opinion of course) that unless we do something, the new generation of potential fans will pass us by and as us older fans die off, the game will wither and that is something that does not deserve to happen.

A progressive re-branding differentiating us from rugby union, the wholesale embracing of streaming and other electronic capabilities,  and more, generating some excitement around the game, might/could/should be a place to start. 

After all, crikit  seems to have been dying on its knees here ( and county crikit probably is - not my sport) but look at it now!

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3 minutes ago, JohnM said:

culminating for me in the early years of SL and the reign of Richard Lewis.

To truly refresh the game, and set it on a new course, we NEED a new administrator like Lewis (He did a phenomenal job) after this period.

With all due respect to Ralph Rimmer...the only language I ever hear from interviews is about 'due diligence' its right to do that, but its the only rhetorical speak I hear from our games leader(s) at the RFL. 

We need a truly gifted outside of our sport leader to push us into the next season. Not a dyed in the wool rugby league person. Just my opinion.

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I am responding to the OP and in particular the comment ‘How can we attract the many millions that are not fans’.

Here is a crazy idea .... why don’t we ask these people what makes them watch or attend certain events?

It’s no use us on here trying to answer this question as we are ‘too involved’ in already supporting the game.

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28 minutes ago, Adelaide Tiger said:

I am responding to the OP and in particular the comment ‘How can we attract the many millions that are not fans’.

Here is a crazy idea .... why don’t we ask these people what makes them watch or attend certain events?

It’s no use us on here trying to answer this question as we are ‘too involved’ in already supporting the game.

How dare you come on here with your sensible points and questions! ?

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19 hours ago, JohnM said:

Not another bluddy topic on this subject, I hear you say. No. Most threads about the future seem to have a narrow focus: Toronto, the amateur game, expansion, the USA, TV deals, four quarters, things were better in the past so let’s go back.

 

Of course, the motivation remains the same for most posters: how can our game survive, never mind thrive in this the 3rd decade of the 21st century, 125 years after the game's birth.

 

I think we now have an opportunity to look at the future with a much wider focus, a higher-level view, leaving the RFL and clubs with the short-term issues of restarting the game before it is forgotten. It goes without saying that as fans, we have no influence on the top-level pro game really. We turn up at the turnstile (except for internationals where we don't seem to do that), we pay our TV licences, Sky subscriptions etc but really that is about it.  At grass roots level and up to sub-league 1 level, we may have more influence - not really my area.

 

I'm not talking about changing the rules of play, though that might be part of it.

 

 I'm talking about making the game appealing to the many millions who are not currently fans, maybe those who see RL as just another branch of rugby, or those who don't even know it exists.

 

Unless there are major changes in the way that the game works and is presented to the public, then we will never see crowds growing, never see TV contracts increasing, never see decent media coverage. Doing the same things repeatedly and expecting different outcomes might be an indicator of madness, but it is also an indicator of experience in that we can see what does not work.

 

My first suggestion is to look at other sports and see what they have done to survive and grow.  I'd start with baseball to see if there are any lessons. It is unique, not like any other top-level sport. Forget rounders, forget softball. just watch some baseball.  It is fast, it is physical, a game is an event and after a long fight, it is now truly inclusive.

 The death of baseball has been foretold by miserable fans ever since its birth. Ring a bell?

 

Despite that, Alex Rodriguez is still MLB's career leader in earnings with over $450 million and Mike Trout is already guaranteed to make at least $507 million in his career thanks to his latest contract.  Many leading players can expect to earn $150 million each in their careers. There's real money in them there bases! Enough for kids to really want to play the game. And that's in a dying game, remember.

 

I was trying to understand how baseball had started to die. See, I’d heard that baseball was dying. I’d heard this for my entire life. This is true for my father and his entire life, and his father and his entire life, and his father and his entire life—because it’s forever been true for baseball. It’s been declared at risk of death since it was born. Of course, the precise causes of death vary by decade and person and context. (Lately, you’ve probably heard about problems with attendance, with home runs, with pace of play, and, obviously, with millennials.) Some are far more credible than others. But the core is the same. There’s someone who believes baseball is dying.  https://www.si.com/mlb/2019/08/29/baseball-is-dying-history

 

I'd start by unifying the game under the banner of NRL, so the game is the same worldwide and gives us a de facto name that does not mention rugby up front, ( yes I know what the R in NRL stands for, but fronting up with the word rugby invites immediate comparison and confusion in potential new fans, whereas hiding it avoids that. 

 

Then I'd make it more TV friendly and that where three thirds or four quarters and other possible innovations come in.

 

For those of you with the stamina to have read this far, remember here that I'm not talking about winning old fans back. I think that opportunity has in any meaningful way - thousands not hundreds - long passed us by, though if the game were to advance in the way I'm suggesting, I think there could be thousands of new fans through the turnstiles.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

19 hours ago, gingerjon said:

No game has a right to exist. You're right that someone has always been saying that baseball is about to die. But in the lifetime that I've been on this board (so, since 2003), baseball has died. That would be British Baseball. A cricket/rounders hybrid that folk like @Wolford6would recognise that was pretty popular in Newport/Cardiff/Vale of Glamorgan and also Liverpool - an annual England v Wales match was played. I think it's now three years since there was regular men's league fixture and there are not really any clubs extent any more. Watching from a distance it took less than ten years to go from popular in its communities to moribund.

So, with that out of the way ...

... the one thing that I really think rugby league needs to do is to stop having so many people trying to run it. How can one sport played in only a handful of locations have so many controlling bodies. So whilst I'm not 100% convinced that it should be the NRL that takes over the global club game, I'm also absolutely sure that a unified body for all professional clubs, wherever they are in the world, is likely to be a necessary evil. Just because it was messed up 25 years ago with Super League doesn't mean it's a permanently bad idea. 

I think in situations like this, the future hurries up and arrives a little sooner. Perhaps "a future" rather than "the future" and it is not a nice experience.

The amateur game relies on there being a critical mass of players that mean that two full teams can come together without an excessive distance between them, and also that there are enough rubbish players that more feel welcome. As soon as the player number decreases, that critical mass starts to drip away.

I do not know how to reverse this. I fear the game needs to be reinvogouraged from the top, as I do not see how a big enough change can be made from the bottom. That probably reflects my history in the game, where I have seen well thought out successful initiatves work and then be sacrificed by people who want it to be like when they were kids.

At the top level, the financing model is based on selling satillite dishes to a national market in the 1990's. To a certain extent, Super Leagues worst ideas were ahead of their time and a good idea ahead of its time is a bad idea. I am sure the problem here is clear. Whether it is good or bad, the game at the top will need an updated model and as there will be less money and possibly fewer clubs, the clubs that have cash will be the ones that control it.

 

"You clearly have never met Bob8 then, he's like a veritable Bryan Ferry of RL." - Johnoco 19 Jul 2014

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43 minutes ago, Adelaide Tiger said:

I am responding to the OP and in particular the comment ‘How can we attract the many millions that are not fans’.

Here is a crazy idea .... why don’t we ask these people what makes them watch or attend certain events?

It’s no use us on here trying to answer this question as we are ‘too involved’ in already supporting the game.

There are two thoughts here.

One is that people support rugby league because of the beauty of the sport. They will all have an indepth knowledge and appreciate the game fully.

The other is that most sports fans barely understand the sport they align with, it is more about social identity.

The first one is clearly nonsense, but is firmly held by many fans as it is nicer. If we go with that, then it makes sense that the best people to target are existing sports fans as rugby league is better. Unfortunately, that is not true.

So, we have to target non-sports fans.

"You clearly have never met Bob8 then, he's like a veritable Bryan Ferry of RL." - Johnoco 19 Jul 2014

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11 minutes ago, scotchy1 said:

A big question we need to ask ourselves is how a fan in a new area can actually be a fan. 

Right now, if  someone in say Nottingham see a game on the BBC in the challenge cup, they like. Realistically how can they become a fan? How does the game monetise their support? How do we grow it?

In pretty much all aspects the game is not set up for it to work. Even if we figure out how to get people interested in the game, we have no way of keeping them and monetizing them 

Reverse it. What will people pay large amounts of money for and how can rugby league provide that. 

"You clearly have never met Bob8 then, he's like a veritable Bryan Ferry of RL." - Johnoco 19 Jul 2014

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