RFL to scrap promotion and relegation

[GUBRATS]

39 minutes ago, whatmichaelsays said:

Who says I haven't been near a club?

But you know how clubs are currently trying to nickle and dime their players? They do that with their marketing and business development teams as well.

Excellent , so which club , maybe I can make a few quid betting on them 

[Padge]

2 minutes ago, GUBRATS said:

Fully understand , so who's ' fault ' is it ?

Stop looking for who to blame, start looking for who moves you forward.

 

[GUBRATS]

2 minutes ago, Padge said:

Stop looking for who to blame, start looking for who moves you forward.

 

No problem with that Padge , but it's the constant " it's this that holds the sport back " comments , like it's my fault , so what do they want ME to do ? , All I do is buy a ticket , go to the game , buy a beer or two , and the occasional shirt/polo , but apparently it's all MY fault that RL doesn't dominate world sport

[whatmichaelsays]

3 minutes ago, GUBRATS said:

Excellent , so which club , maybe I can make a few quid betting on them 

I see what you did fhsre. You missed the second bit in order to make a snide remark, didn't you?

RL clubs don't pay the going rate for skills. It's a good indication of why the game is in the state it is iin.

[Liverpool Rover]

On 07/07/2020 at 17:11, GUBRATS said:

Which then creates another problem , so do you only have P and R every 2/3 years ? , Do you condemn the relegated team to the lower tiers for that time , what damage might that do them ?

Whatever you do there is always an opposite 

I guess that it would be the lowest eligible team that would go down. It is far from perfect but I do think that something needs to change to give clubs like Leigh, Fev, London and Toulouse a chance.

[GUBRATS]

8 minutes ago, whatmichaelsays said:

I see what you did fhsre. You missed the second bit in order to make a snide remark, didn't you?

RL clubs don't pay the going rate for skills. It's a good indication of why the game is in the state it is iin.

So it's not MY fault then it's the club owners fault ? , All of them 

[GUBRATS]

So , to ' save ' RL the current club owners need to destroy their existing clubs and all start up new ones somewhere else , mostly in places where nobody is interested in RL ? 

Sounds like a plan

[DeadShotKeen]

6 hours ago, milpool said:

Why on earth would I want to watch Hull KR in a semi-pro league, whilst a merged Hull side that nobody in the City would want play New York, Toronto and Vladivostok Mules in some contrived 'elite' competition? 

Well, for one thing because the semi-pro Hull KR side would be made up mostly of local kids, as I say.

I see you swerved my question about how many local kids are in the 2 Hull sides currently. I'm a lapsed Hull KR fan who grew up in the city so I know well about the culture etc. but I'm very much out of touch with SL generally having bailed on it in 2013 so that's a genuine question.

How do you feel about the merger of the 2 academies and how that will shape the future player development in the area? In fact, how does the junior development in Hull generally look now about 5 years or so since that merger?

If you would genuinely rather watch a pro Hull KR that is in SL or has access to it but is made up mostly of journeymen Aussies and random English pros knowing full well that you are harming the development of local kids by doing so (as you must in light of the academy merger and the advertised reasons for it) then I think you are being selfish and ultimately placing your own interests above those of the sport as a whole. Ultimately it is rugby league in Hull that will suffer unless enough people in key positions realise it needs a pyramid structure as opposed to the weird (and unsustainable) inverted pyramid it currently has.

[Padge]

9 minutes ago, GUBRATS said:

No problem with that Padge , but it's the constant " it's this that holds the sport back " comments , like it's my fault , so what do they want ME to do ? , All I do is buy a ticket , go to the game , buy a beer or two , and the occasional shirt/polo , but apparently it's all MY fault that RL doesn't dominate world sport

The reason why the "this is what holds the game back" comment gets thrown about I believe is because people don't want to try something new or different to take the game forward and either want the status quo or to take the game back to a failed past.

It's a statement born of frustration. 

[Smudger06]

4 minutes ago, GUBRATS said:

So , to ' save ' RL the current club owners need to destroy their existing clubs and all start up new ones somewhere else , mostly in places where nobody is interested in RL ? 

Sounds like a plan

Naw, they just need to hire someone, at the going rate, to advise them to improve the matchday 'experience' by selling craft beer and whatnot....

And raise the ticket prices

[GUBRATS]

3 minutes ago, Padge said:

The reason why the "this is what holds the game back" comment gets thrown about I believe is because people don't want to try something new or different to take the game forward and either want the status quo or to take the game back to a failed past.

It's a statement born of frustration. 

Which people ? ,The fans like me ? , Do you really think I have that much power ? 

Or is it that ' they ' ( the ones who constantly tell me it's MY fault ) want me to stop watching my local team and start watching who ? , A ' Manchester ' team ? , Tell me when and where and I'll buy YOU a pint , I do assume you'll give up on Wigan and join me watching the new ' mega league ' club from Manchester ?

[Padge]

2 minutes ago, GUBRATS said:

Which people ? ,The fans like me ? , Do you really think I have that much power ? 

Or is it that ' they ' ( the ones who constantly tell me it's MY fault ) want me to stop watching my local team and start watching who ? , A ' Manchester ' team ? , Tell me when and where and I'll buy YOU a pint , I do assume you'll give up on Wigan and join me watching the new ' mega league ' club from Manchester ?

I want you to watch whichever team you want to, I don't care who you watch.

[GUBRATS]

3 minutes ago, Padge said:

I want you to watch whichever team you want to, I don't care who you watch.

And you , it's a free world ,or so they say , so hopefully nobody will be blaming me for RLs demise anymore 

I'm certainly not blaming anyone 

[Padge]

2 minutes ago, GUBRATS said:

And you , it's a free world ,or so they say , so hopefully nobody will be blaming me for RLs demise anymore 

I'm certainly not blaming anyone 

And equally you will not object to changes that try to move the game forward and accuse people of trying to kill clubs.

[GUBRATS]

5 minutes ago, Padge said:

And equally you will not object to changes that try to move the game forward and accuse people of trying to kill clubs.

I don't believe anybody genuinely want to kill clubs ( you mean mergers ) just that the suggestions put forward never work 

[Padge]

1 minute ago, GUBRATS said:

I don't believe anybody genuinely want to kill clubs ( you mean mergers ) just that the suggestions put forward never work 

If the suggestions put forward never get implemented then we don't know if they will have worked or not.

 

[GUBRATS]

1 minute ago, Padge said:

If the suggestions put forward never get implemented then we don't know if they will have worked or not.

 

True ,but maybe there's a reason they don't get implemented 

[Padge]

3 minutes ago, GUBRATS said:

True ,but maybe there's a reason they don't get implemented 

Because you personally block them.   

[GUBRATS]

3 minutes ago, Padge said:

Because you personally block them.   

The POWER , love it 

Never underestimate the might of the Vinoloovians

[TIWIT]

1 hour ago, GUBRATS said:

No problem with that Padge , but it's the constant " it's this that holds the sport back " comments , like it's my fault , so what do they want ME to do ? , All I do is buy a ticket , go to the game , buy a beer or two , and the occasional shirt/polo , but apparently it's all MY fault that RL doesn't dominate world sport

You give yourself far too much credit my friend.

[Smudger06]

5 hours ago, Hela Wigmen said:

Super League (twelve teams) - 23 games (11 H&A and a Magic Weekend), top 4/5 play-off and bottom relegated. 

Championship (ten teams) - 19 games (9 H&A and a Summer Bash), top 3/4 play-off, bottom relegated and the season ends in June/July. 

League One (fifteen teams) - three conferences of five, play each team in your conference home and away (8 game) and play the other conferences once (10 games, 18 overall). Top three teams qualify for the play-off’s with the best placed 2nd team. 

Super League plays fewer games because 29 is frankly absurd and too much of the same thing over and over. Also means we can have a proper international window in the season and stop throwing stones from our glass house at Australia, who do have mid-season internationals and play games. Also enough space in the calendar to try 9s if that’s where the game wants to go.

Championship and League One play fewer games to give the Championship winners time to adapt to Super League. The rest of the year can then see lower league teams focus turn to the 1895 Cup, giving teams a guaranteed number of home games and allowing them to have something to play for if they have a poor league season. 

Job’s a good’un. Vote Hela Wigmen as RFL/Super League supremo. 

Who is getting kicked out? Or are we not letting Ottawa in? 

[whatmichaelsays]

9 hours ago, GUBRATS said:

So it's not MY fault then it's the club owners fault ? , All of them 

I never said it was your fault. You've got me confused with someone else.

Look at the advertised salary for roles at SL / RFL / clubs over the years. That's why the club can't attract, as you put it, "marketing experts".

[whatmichaelsays]

10 hours ago, Smudger06 said:

Naw, they just need to hire someone, at the going rate, to advise them to improve the matchday 'experience' by selling craft beer and whatnot....

And raise the ticket prices

Matchday experience means different things to different people, but enhancing that reduces the reliance on the game on the field alone being good enough to get them to come back. This is simple variance management.

Let's assume, for example, that around 50% of RL games are good and 50% are pretty forgettable. Now take four new fans going to two games each.

Fan 1 sees two good games.

Fan 2 sees a good game and a bad game.

Fan 3 sees a bad game and a good game.

Fan 4 sees two bad games.

Fan 1 is fine - he's hooked. Equally, fan four is never coming back.

Fans 3 and 4 are less certain. They might come back, they night not. Fan 3 many not come back after his first game, whilst fan two may have lost interest at game two. Of the four fans you've spent money to attract, you've lost three of them.

That's why it's important to serve those fans more than a game and deliver an experience, because the experience can mitigate the bad game. It disarms the objection of "I won't bother going, it might be rubbish" and turns it into "yeah, go on then, I had a decent laugh last time". 

That's what Toronto "get", and it's why people who to "the crowds will vanish when they start losing" really don't understand how this works.

If you're like Grubrats and only want to go for the game, that's fine, but it means the game needs to find a lot more of people like Grubrats and, with respect, I doubt there are many out there that we haven't already found.

This isn't made up guff - this is what successful hospitality businesses do. Nobody goes to McDonalds because it is any good - they go there because you never have a bad McDonalds.

As for pricing, there's a body of evidence out there that raising prices, in the right contexts, can actually increase sales. I've done it with clients, despite their own natural instincts.

What we do in RL is tell people "this is a great sport" and then sell it at a rock bottom price. It's very hard to convince someone what we're a great sport when you do that because people know that great sport costs more than £18-20. In the same sense, if you tried selling a brand new BMW for £10k, people would think something was wrong with it.

Either we need to change the message, or sell the tickets more confidently.

It's easier to sell a ticket to an event  worth £30 for £30 than it is to say "it's a £30 event but you can have it for £15", because people will assume something is wrong with it and you can't sell it.

Similarly, it's easier to sell a night out at an elite sporting event  at £30 than it is for a tenner because, at a tenner, people think that the event can't be that good so it isn't worth the effort of going out when there is something good on Netflix.

But yeah, bother with any of that? It sounds like hard work and it's easier to just blame the RFL, right?

[Gooleboy]

9 hours ago, Padge said:

The reason why the "this is what holds the game back" comment gets thrown about I believe is because people don't want to try something new or different to take the game forward and either want the status quo or to take the game back to a failed past.

It's a statement born of frustration. 

But it isn't Supporters like Gubrats and others on here who attend games, myself included, and spend their money who hold the game back, it is the people who are responsible for running the game at the RFL and SL Administrators and Club Owners are the ones with the power who can make the decisions, regarding Expansion, Sponsorship, TV Contracts, the Welfare of the game etc. Debating on here can be enjoyable or frustrating, but they are only opinions of people showing an interest in the game, it doesn't effect what the powers that be decide to do.

[Smudger06]

3 minutes ago, whatmichaelsays said:

Matchday experience means different things to different people, but enhancing that reduces the reliance on the game on the field alone being good enough to get them to come back. This is simple variance management.

Let's assume, for example, that around 50% of RL are good and 50% are pretty forgettable. Now take four new fans going to two games each.

Fan 1 sees two good games.

Fan 2 sees a good game and a bad game.

Fan 3 sees a bad game and a good game.

Fan 4 sees two bad games.

Fan 1 is fine - he's hooked. Equally, fan four is never coming back.

Fans 3 and 4 are less certain. They might come back, they night not. Fan 3 many not come back after his first game, whilst fan two may have lost interest at game two. Of the four fans you've spent money to attract, you've lost three of them.

That's why it's important to serve those fans more than a game and deliver an experience, because the experience can mitigate the bad game. It disarms the objection of "I won't bother going, it might be rubbish" and turns it into "yeah, go on then, I had a decent laugh last time". 

If you're like Grubrats and only want to go for the game, that's fine, but it means the game needs to find a lot more of people like Grubrats.

This isn't made up guff - this is what successful hospitality businesses do. Nobody goes to McDonalds because it is any good - they go there because you never have a bad McDonalds.

As for pricing, there's a body of evidence out there that raising prices, in the right contexts, can actually increase sales. I've done it with clients, despite their own natural instincts.

What we do in RL is tell people "this is a great sport" and then sell it at a rock bottom price. It's very hard to convince someone what we're a great sport when you do that because people know that great sport costs more than £18-20. In the same sense, if you tried selling a brand new BMW for £10k, people would think something was wrong with it.

Either we need to change the message, or sell the tickets more confidently.

It's easier to sell a ticket to an event  worth £30 for £30 than it is to say "it's a £30 event but you can have it for £15", because people will assume something is wrong with it and you can't sell it.

Similarly, it's easier to sell a night out at an elite sporting event  at £30 than it is for a tenner because, at a tenner, people think that the event can't be that good so it isn't worth the effort of going out when there is something good on Netflix.

But yeah, bother with any of that? It sounds like hard work and it's easier to just blame the RFL, right?

Discounted tickets, yes I agree.

Raising ticket prices in half empty stadiums is not clever.