How much would Super League be valued at?

[The Rocket]

8 minutes ago, Dave T said:

Why do you think people should love the game over their clubs? It's a romanticised view. 

People in Warrington aren't RL fans because they just so happen to like the sport. Same in Wigan, or Bradford. It's the same reason why people in Leicester don't follow RL in the same numbers. 

The vast majority of fans fall in love with a club rather than the game. I'm not sure why that is seen as a bad thing.

The international game is where you will attract a larger proportion of people who can coldly make business decisions about the 'game'.

Yes most of us come to the game through a club and grow to passionately love the game. Plenty on here though, I have seen on the short time I have been on here, came to the game through a chance encounter on TV,  be it an international or a final where they supported neither club but were captivated by the game itself.

Either way when a game they love is on its knees and probably being reduced to a part-time or amateur status something has to give, personal sacrifice may have to be made and if things work out the code may come roaring back, bigger, better and something we can all celebrate.

 

 

[Dave T]

25 minutes ago, Pulga said:

And that will be the downfall of the game in England. I watch the game because of what it is. I don't particularly care for teams. I have ones I prefer above others but I'd watch my two most hated clubs play every day of the week.

The weird 1800's folk game attitude of England isn't relevant today. You need to adapt to a more global brand or die. 

 

It's not true though. We are not massively different from others. Those Toronto fans are not now RL fans in huge numbers, they fell in love with their team. 

I suspect it will be a very small percentage who carry on with RL despite all the claims that they are all about the love of the game. They are no different and loved their club, and are peed off with how their club was treated. No different to Fev fans and their grievances. 

[Dave T]

23 minutes ago, The Rocket said:

Yes most of us come to the game through a club and grow to passionately love the game. Plenty on here though, I have seen on the short time I have been on here, came to the game through a chance encounter on TV,  be it an international or a final where they supported neither club but were captivated by the game itself.

Either way when a game they love is on its knees and probably being reduced to a part-time or amateur status something has to give, personal sacrifice may have to be made and if things work out the code may come roaring back, bigger, better and something we can all celebrate.

 

 

But very many of them won't be there if their club goes. Sure, some will, most won't. People are not interested in personal sacrifice or the greater good in sufficient numbers, as I say, it is a romanticised view. 

Fans are not the issues here, they are customers, you need strong leadership who knows how to cultivate a customer base they want and that is sufficiently large to support the change required. 

[Damien]

1 hour ago, Dave T said:

Why do you think people should love the game over their clubs? It's a romanticised view. 

People in Warrington aren't RL fans because they just so happen to like the sport. Same in Wigan, or Bradford. It's the same reason why people in Leicester don't follow RL in the same numbers. 

The vast majority of fans fall in love with a club rather than the game. I'm not sure why that is seen as a bad thing.

The international game is where you will attract a larger proportion of people who can coldly make business decisions about the 'game'.

I'm not sure about this Dave. I don't blindly follow other Wigan teams from other sports just because I am from Wigan. If I don't like the sport I have no interest and as a kid I played the sports that I liked and followed the sports that I liked. At University I met scores of people from outside the heartlands that loved Rugby League but didn't have a team. So much so that they played the sport at University, which often was their first chance to do so.

[redjonn]

4 hours ago, Dave T said:

Indeed, at times like this, I rather wish those who always say they will end their association with the game are actually true to their word and we can all move on. 

That is a more general point than aimed at the posters on this thread to be fair. 

But the toxicity isn't good for anyone involved. 

Yep, I mean I stopped buying my favourite biscuits... namely Kit Kats because I didn't like the Nestle board decisions...

[The Rocket]

8 minutes ago, Dave T said:

But very many of them won't be there if their club goes. Sure, some will, most won't. People are not interested in personal sacrifice or the greater good in sufficient numbers, as I say, it is a romanticised view. 

Fans are not the issues here, they are customers, you need strong leadership who knows how to cultivate a customer base they want and that is sufficiently large to support the change required. 

Dave I can only go off what I witnessed here, Balmain Tigers and Western Suburbs Magpies being the best example. Both proud old clubs who were both withering away and in very real danger of ending up like Newtown, Glebe, Annandale, or any other number of small clubs that had died .

When the clubs merged there were many who said they would never support them again, they had lost their identity, however a bit of success early and a premiership in 2005 brought a lot of the old fans back and new ones over. They are now one of the highest rating clubs in the premiership despite their lack of success recently. They have this ridiculous merged identity name `Wests Tigers` with the Tiger emblem over the heart and the Magpie on the sleeve. But the fans don`t seem to care anymore , maybe a few old diehards , but for the new generation that`s all they`ve known. And importantly this is about the next generation, so they can enjoy what we have. I`m a passionate St.George supporter, I know about mergers.

Maybe the strong leadership you refer to needs to present this to the fans, they need to say this is the reality, we merge or we die , we rally together or it`s oblivion. If we don`t maybe those other two teams will, so we better get in first, there `s a fair bit at stake here.

[The Great Dane]

Funnily enough Brent Read reported yesterday that supposedly the NRL had contacted an investment firm to look into the potential of buying a stake in, or buying out, the Super League.

https://www.theaustralian.com.au/sport/nrl/peter-vlandys-secured-kate-jones-amid-interest-from-the-afl/news-story/90fe251f48b06a42932b018fe3007eb5

I'm not sure if it's a good idea or not, but it seems that the NRL aren't sure if it's a good idea either.

[JonM]

Mergers are a solution to a problem we don't have. There's one or two specific places where a merger might help to grow the sport and bring in a new audience (West Cumbria might be able to support a full-time professional club). A merger was necessary to bring about a successful Catalans club. Generally it doesn't help. Merging say Wigan and Leigh would not bring in a penny of extra revenue, it would be income lost to the game.

We need ways to grow the revenue of the big SL clubs - Wigan, Saints, Leeds, Wire, Catalans, Hull. We need ways to grow smaller SL clubs so that there isn't just a big four, five or six. We need a bigger pool of smaller clubs. We need more people playing. We need bigger tv audiences. We need better media coverage. We need a lot more people playing modified forms of the game, both adults and children. We need a lot more clubs like St. Pats or Hemel or whoever, with their own facilities and teams at all age groups. We need more international games to help bring about all of the above.

The Australian sports market is very different to ours. We've had plenty of administrators move back and forth between here and Australia. There's no magic wand.

[Dave T]

1 hour ago, Damien said:

I'm not sure about this Dave. I don't blindly follow other Wigan teams from other sports just because I am from Wigan. If I don't like the sport I have no interest and as a kid I played the sports that I liked and followed the sports that I liked. At University I met scores of people from outside the heartlands that loved Rugby League but didn't have a team. So much so that they played the sport at University, which often was their first chance to do so.

I think it is wise for us to accept that we are a niche bunch on here, there is much more focus on here around the business side of the game and in general it is far less parochial and club based than some other forums and social media sites out there. And of course there will be plenty of examples of people who are fans of the game not through a club, living in Edinburgh, there are a few people I know who like RL but have no affinity with a club. However, these people rarely watch RL and don't spend any money on it - I have lived in two towns, Warrington and Edinburgh - there is a reason that Warrington has tens of thousands of RL fans, and Edinburgh has tens. 

The customer-base we have is mainly club-focused imho, as I touched upon earlier, the way for us to shift that is more focus on internationals.

[Dave T]

1 hour ago, redjonn said:

Yep, I mean I stopped buying my favourite biscuits... namely Kit Kats because I didn't like the Nestle board decisions...

Interestingly (or not) Nestle have been pretty controversial over the years with regards to baby food and are boycotted by plenty.

[Tommygilf]

22 minutes ago, JonM said:

Mergers are a solution to a problem we don't have. There's one or two specific places where a merger might help to grow the sport and bring in a new audience (West Cumbria might be able to support a full-time professional club). A merger was necessary to bring about a successful Catalans club. Generally it doesn't help. Merging say Wigan and Leigh would not bring in a penny of extra revenue, it would be income lost to the game.

We need ways to grow the revenue of the big SL clubs - Wigan, Saints, Leeds, Wire, Catalans, Hull. We need ways to grow smaller SL clubs so that there isn't just a big four, five or six. We need a bigger pool of smaller clubs. We need more people playing. We need bigger tv audiences. We need better media coverage. We need a lot more people playing modified forms of the game, both adults and children. We need a lot more clubs like St. Pats or Hemel or whoever, with their own facilities and teams at all age groups. We need more international games to help bring about all of the above.

The Australian sports market is very different to ours. We've had plenty of administrators move back and forth between here and Australia. There's no magic wand.

I agree.

The solution to a lot of the historically proposed "merger options" is actually 1 of the multiple clubs simply outgrowing the others. It happened with Warrington and Widnes, Leeds and Hunslet and Bramley, more controversially it could be happening with FC and KR. The problem with that is that its hard to justify that from a central perspective and is equally hard to encourage organically. For example, just picking Workington, Wakefield and Doncaster isn't necessarily going to produce success.

[JonM]

16 minutes ago, Tommygilf said:

I agree.

The solution to a lot of the historically proposed "merger options" is actually 1 of the multiple clubs simply outgrowing the others. It happened with Warrington and Widnes, Leeds and Hunslet and Bramley, more controversially it could be happening with FC and KR. The problem with that is that its hard to justify that from a central perspective and is equally hard to encourage organically. For example, just picking Workington, Wakefield and Doncaster isn't necessarily going to produce success.

I might caveat my post by saying that Greater Manchester is potentially one very big market where mergers might be part of the solution. We've had six clubs in Greater Manchester for the last 60+ years, and five of them have been big clubs at some point in that time. Swinton & Oldham are now homeless, Rochdale appear to be slowly dying and Salford are a good bit smaller in terms of support than many Championship clubs - probably half the size of Leigh or Widnes. Obviously, Manchester United's annual revenue is higher than the NRL's, as is Manchester City's so we're always going to be somewhat niche, but there is an opportunity there, and it's one that Sale Rugby Union are going after.

Just merging some clubs and calling them Manchester won't do any good at all, but if the RFL had any kind of strategy, it should probably include a plan for Manchester/Salford.

[Tommygilf]

1 minute ago, JonM said:

I might caveat my post by saying that Greater Manchester is potentially one very big market where mergers might be part of the solution. We've had six clubs in Greater Manchester for the last 60+ years, and five of them have been big clubs at some point in that time. Swinton & Oldham are now homeless, Rochdale appear to be slowly dying and Salford are a good bit smaller in terms of support than many Championship clubs - probably half the size of Leigh or Widnes. Obviously, Manchester United's annual revenue is higher than the NRL's, as is Manchester City's so we're always going to be somewhat niche, but there is an opportunity there, and it's one that Sale Rugby Union are going after.

Just merging some clubs and calling them Manchester won't do any good at all, but if the RFL had any kind of strategy, it should probably include a plan for Manchester/Salford.

Agreed. We have Wigan who really ought to up their game regarding the rest of GM and the rest don't seem to be doing too much. Salford have potential and Swinton seem to be ever more slowly resigned to "Manchester". Oldham and Rochdale is a real tragedy for RL.

Sale is slightly different as they pitch themselves as the premier RU in the North West, which means they can attract fans from Preston to Macclesfield. They're a regional side basically.

I think the game needs a strategy for Greater Manchester. I think that includes Wigan taking "big games" to the city and stuff at the other end of the scale.

[JonM]

12 minutes ago, Tommygilf said:

Sale is slightly different as they pitch themselves as the premier RU in the North West, which means they can attract fans from Preston to Macclesfield. They're a regional side basically.

But that's part of the problem. We don't have any regional sides. Leeds Utd are a regional side. Even Cambridge Utd are a regional side, in tier 4 or 5 of soccer. Leeds Rhinos aren't. Wigan & Widnes in the 1980s were able to attract supporters from a wider area. There's no reason why Sale can draw support from the whole NW but SL clubs can't.

[Big Picture]

5 hours ago, Damien said:

The £50 million figure for a 51% stake just seems nonsense to me and I would seriously consider following this great game if we sell out to PE. It is such a low figure that it is pretty pointless and will cripple the game going forward. Clubs are struggling with getting 100% income as is.

How is that a low figure?  Realistically the total value would be the sum of the values of the currently 11 (but soon enough to be 12) SL clubs and unless I'm mistaken very little money is ever paid when someone new takes over a top English RL club.  On that basis 50 million £ is probably too high.

[Tommygilf]

3 minutes ago, JonM said:

But that's part of the problem. We don't have any regional sides. Leeds Utd are a regional side. Even Cambridge Utd are a regional side, in tier 4 or 5 of soccer. Leeds Rhinos aren't. Wigan & Widnes in the 1980s were able to attract supporters from a wider area. There's no reason why Sale can draw support from the whole NW but SL clubs can't.

Tbf Leeds have grown to north of the city but are stuck either other way in West Yorks (there are 10 other clubs and 3 to 4 other Super League clubs among those at any one time). That said Leeds have grown into Wakefield etc.

I think that's more to do with a density of clubs in West Yorkshire. I hope Wigan, Warrington and St Helens can grow into that regional side for Greater Manchester, Cheshire and Merseyside respectively. 

You have to bear in mind that Sale have literally no RU competition in the entire North West 

[redjonn]

1 hour ago, Dave T said:

Interestingly (or not) Nestle have been pretty controversial over the years with regards to baby food and are boycotted by plenty.

chuckle... I actually didn't know that.

I'll still eat kit kats...

[Damien]

16 minutes ago, Big Picture said:

How is that a low figure?  Realistically the total value would be the sum of the values of the currently 11 (but soon enough to be 12) SL clubs and unless I'm mistaken very little money is ever paid when someone new takes over a top English RL club.  On that basis 50 million £ is probably too high.

They wouldn't be buying the clubs. The last TV deal was £40 million a year alone.

[Big Picture]

3 minutes ago, Damien said:

They wouldn't be buying the clubs. The last TV deal was £40 million a year alone.

True, they'd be buying part ownership of a league whose only assets are those clubs which are its members.  Other than the clubs what other assets does it have?

[Damien]

23 minutes ago, JonM said:

But that's part of the problem. We don't have any regional sides. Leeds Utd are a regional side. Even Cambridge Utd are a regional side, in tier 4 or 5 of soccer. Leeds Rhinos aren't. Wigan & Widnes in the 1980s were able to attract supporters from a wider area. There's no reason why Sale can draw support from the whole NW but SL clubs can't.

Wigan have always attracted fans from other parts of Lancashire, its not really true to say they don't from the wider area.

[JonM]

Just now, Damien said:

Wigan have always attracted fans from other parts of Lancashire, its not really true to say they don't from the wider area.

Yep, I think Wigan do better on this than any other club.

[Damien]

Just now, Big Picture said:

True, they'd be buying part ownership of a league whose only assets are those clubs which are its members.  Other than the clubs what other assets does it have?

The same as any other league that PE has bought into. You can literally apply the exact same logic to the recent RU deals.

Using the last TV deal as a measure, if PE had bought into Super League prior to then and took 51% of income then they'd have had their money back within 3 years.

[Rupert Prince]

41 minutes ago, Tommygilf said:

Agreed. We have Wigan who really ought to up their game regarding the rest of GM and the rest don't seem to be doing too much. Salford have potential and Swinton seem to be ever more slowly resigned to "Manchester". Oldham and Rochdale is a real tragedy for RL.

Sale is slightly different as they pitch themselves as the premier RU in the North West, which means they can attract fans from Preston to Macclesfield. They're a regional side basically.

I think the game needs a strategy for Greater Manchester. I think that includes Wigan taking "big games" to the city and stuff at the other end of the scale.

Wigan are 'Lancashire', not 'Manchester' or 'Greater Manchester'.

Greater Manchester has 2 RL areas.  Areas with history.  Salford and Swinton in the north west, and Rochdale and Oldham in the north east. These seem sensible areas for development.

[Dave T]

1 hour ago, The Rocket said:

Dave I can only go off what I witnessed here, Balmain Tigers and Western Suburbs Magpies being the best example. Both proud old clubs who were both withering away and in very real danger of ending up like Newtown, Glebe, Annandale, or any other number of small clubs that had died .

When the clubs merged there were many who said they would never support them again, they had lost their identity, however a bit of success early and a premiership in 2005 brought a lot of the old fans back and new ones over. They are now one of the highest rating clubs in the premiership despite their lack of success recently. They have this ridiculous merged identity name `Wests Tigers` with the Tiger emblem over the heart and the Magpie on the sleeve. But the fans don`t seem to care anymore , maybe a few old diehards , but for the new generation that`s all they`ve known. And importantly this is about the next generation, so they can enjoy what we have. I`m a passionate St.George supporter, I know about mergers.

Maybe the strong leadership you refer to needs to present this to the fans, they need to say this is the reality, we merge or we die , we rally together or it`s oblivion. If we don`t maybe those other two teams will, so we better get in first, there `s a fair bit at stake here.

Mergers are a controversial topic, but probably not the best example of what we are discussing here. Mergers are distasteful to some people but have never been attempted properly over here in any case. But it isn't massively linked to my point about fans being club-led, as these fans still had a club representing them, it was just a different team directly representing them. 

A better example in Oz may be Souths. Their fans didn't just sit back and treat their expulsion as being good for the game. 

As per my last example, I expect the 20k (or so) people who watched TWP fans won't remain as active RL fans now their club has gone. 

Many fans are tribal, it isn't controversial to claim that, it is a big part of sport - it is more strange to expect them to be altruistic.

[Dave T]

53 minutes ago, JonM said:

But that's part of the problem. We don't have any regional sides. Leeds Utd are a regional side. Even Cambridge Utd are a regional side, in tier 4 or 5 of soccer. Leeds Rhinos aren't. Wigan & Widnes in the 1980s were able to attract supporters from a wider area. There's no reason why Sale can draw support from the whole NW but SL clubs can't.

I'm not sure this is the best example when Warrington, Wigan and Saints could all play at home on the same night as Sale and attract 35k versus 6k.

Regional sides may appear to be a good position to be in, but it hasn't really helped RU's top tier in the North.