Sky Sports halving offer-What are the ramifications for Championship and Championship 1 clubs?

[Harry Stottle]

8 hours ago, Tommygilf said:

Again that's lovely but assessing "true game changers" is hardly an exact science at senior level nevermind junior competitions. Adam Cuthbertson hardly lit up the NRL yet in some ways defined Leeds' treble winning season, similarly Coote for Saints, whereas G. Burgess or Widdop hasn't come close to that. The single addition of Matt Parcell turned Leeds from relegation material to Super League champions in 2017.

If I may, I suggest you have missed out the most influential overseas player for the Leeds club in recent times that being James Segeyaro in 2016, without him and the way he turned around the Rhino's in those 10 games he played, 2017 could well have seen Leeds in the Championship.

[yipyee]

10 hours ago, Harry Stottle said:

Where are all those that know we have attendance problems, they are the one's who useually moan but still do nothing about it, it's very simple get up out of the chair, get along to the ground, put a hand in a pocket, and watch some live Rugby League Football.

If you build it they will come is a hollywood story.

Its easy to see why games dont sell out when you wouldnt know games were being played unless you went looking

[Harry Stottle]

15 hours ago, yipyee said:

If you build it they will come is a hollywood story.

Its easy to see why games dont sell out when you wouldnt know games were being played unless you went looking

You do not believe then that there are people who profess to see RL as their number one game but don't bother attending and would prefer to sit in front of the box watching it?

I would suggest there are a lot of those, they don't need to go looking Yipyee they are well aware of the fixture scheduling. 

[Wakefield Ram]

On 24/12/2020 at 15:20, GUBRATS said:

Woaahh ! , Hang on ,you can't say that on here , the GF was a classic , not boring at all 

It was a fantastic finish and close, but the game was not a great spectacle, it was 80 minutes of arm wrestle. I know, shoot the heretic, but it was dull.

[Mr Frisky]

On 27/12/2020 at 00:26, Wakefield Ram said:

It was a fantastic finish and close, but the game was not a great spectacle, it was 80 minutes of arm wrestle. I know, shoot the heretic, but it was dull.

Not in most peoples opinion- it was the single most enjoyable game I've see  all season including the NRL. The game was top quality from start to finish.

As someone said at the time - if you didnt enjoy that game you dont really understand RL.

Like watching the Ashes cricket a few years ago in Cardiff when Anderson and Panasar blocked out for over an hour against the Aussies and it was far more entertaining, tense and riveting than any cricket match you will ever see when 6s and wickets are flying.

[Adelaide Tiger]

On 25/12/2020 at 19:10, Harry Stottle said:

Where are all those that know we have attendance problems, they are the one's who useually moan but still do nothing about it, it's very simple get up out of the chair, get along to the ground, put a hand in a pocket, and watch some live Rugby League Football.

We all know of many friends/work colleagues that for some reason or another choose not to go to watch a live game.

But just saying it is simple process for them to return to watching a live game is not addressing ‘Why’ they have lapsed in attending.  How many clubs have looked at lapsed season ticket holders and gave them a call to find out why those people choose not to attend?

In addition a question that I have asked many times on this forum but never received an adequate response is ‘With the current structure and low visibility of the game, how do we attract those people who live in, let’s say a ten mile radius of a club, that have never attended, or infrequently attend a live game’.

 

[Harry Stottle]

8 hours ago, Adelaide Tiger said:

We all know of many friends/work colleagues that for some reason or another choose not to go to watch a live game.

But just saying it is simple process for them to return to watching a live game is not addressing ‘Why’ they have lapsed in attending.  How many clubs have looked at lapsed season ticket holders and gave them a call to find out why those people choose not to attend?

In addition a question that I have asked many times on this forum but never received an adequate response is ‘With the current structure and low visibility of the game, how do we attract those people who live in, let’s say a ten mile radius of a club, that have never attended, or infrequently attend a live game’.

 

Hi AT, what would you say is a good/acceptable return percentage wise from the catchment area of any RL club?

[Adelaide Tiger]

2 hours ago, Harry Stottle said:

Hi AT, what would you say is a good/acceptable return percentage wise from the catchment area of any RL club?

IMHO the problem with the game is that too many financial and human resources are tied up by clubs battling each other in overlapping catchment’ areas. Therefore a lack of joined up thinking means that RL is invisible to many thousands of potential new supporters that lie just outside catchment areas.

The challenge of attracting lapsed or new supporters to attend games cannot be left solely to clubs as this leads to a localised focus and ignores the bigger picture.

I will give you an analogy.  I used to work in Town Centre Management in the late 1990’s.  Traders continually complained about the lack of footfall so I asked them how did they promote their business.  Most of the smaller traders said that they put an advert in the local weekly paper, some had a advert 1/16th or 1/32nd of a page and many had small adverts 4cms by 1cm in the classifieds.  I added up the cost of their collective adverts and drew to their attention that they could have a full page ad promoting the town centre in the local weekly paper and one full page ad per week in the Regional paper for the same money.   BUT most of the businesses refused to work together as that would ‘be promoting their competitor’.  Aarrghhh!  So they continued to promote their own business just in the weekly paper and wondered why footfall failed to increase.

And that to me sums up the approach by SL and its clubs.

Now I do not know how much of the income generated by the game is held back by SL to promote the whole game and how much each club spends on promotion across its ‘catchment’ area.  But - lets initially look at the conurbations within 30 minutes of the M62 corridor- if all these pots of money are used collectively to devise and implement a 3 to 5 year plan promoting SL across various forms of traditional and digital media then IMHO that is a more efficient and cost effective use of resources that greatly increases the visibility of the game than leaving it in the hands of individual clubs.

Clubs can still promote at a local level and should be able to do this with a smaller budget IF there is a coordinated whole of game approach that forms an umbrella over their local work.

To me working together offers a better option than working individually and from that you have a greater opportunity to increase the average attendance rather than leaving it to people to get off their backsides.
 

 

[GUBRATS]

10 minutes ago, Adelaide Tiger said:

IMHO the problem with the game is that too many financial and human resources are tied up by clubs battling each other in overlapping catchment’ areas. Therefore a lack of joined up thinking means that RL is invisible to many thousands of potential new supporters that lie just outside catchment areas.

The challenge of attracting lapsed or new supporters to attend games cannot be left solely to clubs as this leads to a localised focus and ignores the bigger picture.

I will give you an analogy.  I used to work in Town Centre Management in the late 1990’s.  Traders continually complained about the lack of footfall so I asked them how did they promote their business.  Most of the smaller traders said that they put an advert in the local weekly paper, some had a advert 1/16th or 1/32nd of a page and many had small adverts 4cms by 1cm in the classifieds.  I added up the cost of their collective adverts and drew to their attention that they could have a full page ad promoting the town centre in the local weekly paper and one full page ad per week in the Regional paper for the same money.   BUT most of the businesses refused to work together as that would ‘be promoting their competitor’.  Aarrghhh!  So they continued to promote their own business just in the weekly paper and wondered why footfall failed to increase.

And that to me sums up the approach by SL and its clubs.

Now I do not know how much of the income generated by the game is held back by SL to promote the whole game and how much each club spends on promotion across its ‘catchment’ area.  But - lets initially look at the conurbations within 30 minutes of the M62 corridor- if all these pots of money are used collectively to devise and implement a 3 to 5 year plan promoting SL across various forms of traditional and digital media then IMHO that is a more efficient and cost effective use of resources that greatly increases the visibility of the game than leaving it in the hands of individual clubs.

Clubs can still promote at a local level and should be able to do this with a smaller budget IF there is a coordinated whole of game approach that forms an umbrella over their local work.

To me working together offers a better option than working individually and from that you have a greater opportunity to increase the average attendance rather than leaving it to people to get off their backsides.
 

 

At the introduction of licencing I initially contacted half ( 10 ) of the clubs outside SL with a proposal to work together for their mutual benefit , the response was the same " why should we help them make more income ? " , " Because you also will make more money due to their involvement  and your ability to make even more money depending on how hard you want to work locally will not be affected , but indeed enhanced " 

They didn't want to know , complete stupidity 

[Damien]

10 minutes ago, GUBRATS said:

At the introduction of licencing I initially contacted half ( 10 ) of the clubs outside SL with a proposal to work together for their mutual benefit , the response was the same " why should we help them make more income ? " , " Because you also will make more money due to their involvement  and your ability to make even more money depending on how hard you want to work locally will not be affected , but indeed enhanced " 

They didn't want to know , complete stupidity 

I know you've mentioned this a fair few times but it sounds like a great idea and exactly what the lower league clubs need to do. Working together for mutual benefit to expand the pie should always make complete sense.

[GUBRATS]

1 minute ago, Damien said:

I know you've mentioned this a fair few times but it sounds like a great idea and exactly what the lower league clubs need to do. Working together for mutual benefit to expand the pie should always make complete sense.

It would have worked at that time , unfortunately it's one of those things that wouldn't work when we have P and R 

Unless of course it was am RFL initiative for the whole sport , so again , it's not happening

[Cardypaul]

To be honest I only think P & R will only happen if they get the club they want if not there will be some sort of restructure.

 I used to go to as many games as I could watch my club home and away, internationals the works now I go now and then because it’s all just a hidden agenda. Only rugby I watched after lockdown was 10 minutes at my dads house because he had it on tv otherwise wouldn’t have bothered with any of it and won’t bother much next season.

[Mr Frisky]

On 21/12/2020 at 19:54, ShropshireBull said:

RFL have a year now to push the App like no tomorrow and promote the hell out of it to get a membership up.  Then £12 a month to access games vía the streams.  Might force RFL to build a regular international calender that they can offer with Championship.  

League 1 is done I am afraid. Two or three teams up and need to protect one Welsh team to grow. 

League 1 is far from done- it's been a cracking comp over the past 4 years. Onwards and upwards.

[DC77]

On 25/12/2020 at 18:43, yipyee said:

If you build it they will come is a hollywood story.

Its easy to see why games dont sell out when you wouldnt know games were being played unless you went looking

Off topic, but my god what a load of old tosh that film was.

Seen it for the first time on Sky Cinema about two months back (I was nine years old in ‘89 so I was aware of the film back then, just never got round to seeing it), biggest let down ever. 

Read the reviews after I watched it as surely I had missed something and hoped to be enlightened. The reviews (one in particular) only confirmed what I just watched. Two hours I will never get back. The storyline is bleedin dreadful. Then there’s Costner, even more wooden than in his Robin Hood outfit. 

[Adelaide Tiger]

16 hours ago, GUBRATS said:

At the introduction of licencing I initially contacted half ( 10 ) of the clubs outside SL with a proposal to work together for their mutual benefit , the response was the same " why should we help them make more income ? " , " Because you also will make more money due to their involvement  and your ability to make even more money depending on how hard you want to work locally will not be affected , but indeed enhanced " 

They didn't want to know , complete stupidity 

It’s so frustrating when you see officials at clubs being unable to see the bigger picture of working together so everyone can benefit.  Good on you for having a go.

A question for anyone to comment upon ... is there any correlation between the lack of a collective approach by SL clubs and the business background of CEO’s and Directors?  This is not aimed at you Gubrats as you have demonstrated above that you see the advantage of such an approach.

I am making an assumption that the majority of CEO’s and Directors are from a business background where they either created and ran a successful company or worked their way to the top of a private company. In both scenarios the aim is to own or be part of the most dominant company in their sector.  These companies usually do not work in partnership with competitors or share information.  So do these people, whilst being successful business people and putting money into clubs, have an inbred distrust to working collectively?

Do clubs need a more diverse skill set amongst CEO’s and Directors that mixes strong business acumen with an equally strong emphasis on developing a partnership approach across all teams?

[Cerulean]

9 hours ago, DC77 said:

Off topic, but my god what a load of old tosh that film was.

Seen it for the first time on Sky Cinema about two months back (I was nine years old in ‘89 so I was aware of the film back then, just never got round to seeing it), biggest let down ever. 

Read the reviews after I watched it as surely I had missed something and hoped to be enlightened. The reviews (one in particular) only confirmed what I just watched. Two hours I will never get back. The storyline is bleedin dreadful. Then there’s Costner, even more wooden than in his Robin Hood outfit. 

To continue your digression on "build it and they will come":

If you haven’t already read it, the original novel “Shoeless Joe” by W P Kinsella offers an interesting perspective. It’s an enjoyable and whimsical fantasy, a story with deeper and more complex elements than a film can explore. There may be some considerations for a rugby league fan: that the traditions and history of your sport can exist side by side with its present and the future, that heroes are essential in sport, that sport is escapism where dreams are woven into its fabric. It also leads you to the history of the Chicago White Sox betting scandal - built around the need of players to make a decent living. 

And the line “Say it ain’t so, Joe” is one of the saddest quotes in sport, a young fan’s lament on discovering that sport isn’t the pure and wonderful escape from life that it should be.

Other perspectives, of course, are available.

[Tommygilf]

8 hours ago, Adelaide Tiger said:

It’s so frustrating when you see officials at clubs being unable to see the bigger picture of working together so everyone can benefit.  Good on you for having a go.

A question for anyone to comment upon ... is there any correlation between the lack of a collective approach by SL clubs and the business background of CEO’s and Directors?  This is not aimed at you Gubrats as you have demonstrated above that you see the advantage of such an approach.

I am making an assumption that the majority of CEO’s and Directors are from a business background where they either created and ran a successful company or worked their way to the top of a private company. In both scenarios the aim is to own or be part of the most dominant company in their sector.  These companies usually do not work in partnership with competitors or share information.  So do these people, whilst being successful business people and putting money into clubs, have an inbred distrust to working collectively?

Do clubs need a more diverse skill set amongst CEO’s and Directors that mixes strong business acumen with an equally strong emphasis on developing a partnership approach across all teams?

I think there's a bit of that. Equally there's a lot of big fish small pond mentalities flying around - I don't know if you've seen Friday Night Dinner but some remind me of Mr Norris and his "not the 4th, not the 3rd but the second biggest button sewing factory in the Hertfordshire region".

[GUBRATS]

2 minutes ago, Tommygilf said:

I think there's a bit of that. Equally there's a lot of big fish small pond mentalities flying around - I don't know if you've seen Friday Night Dinner but some remind me of Mr Norris and his "not the 4th, not the 3rd but the second biggest button sewing factory in the Hertfordshire region".

That was the response I received " but we sell loads more than them , why should they get a penny from what we sell ? " Or better still " we get 10 grands worth of free kit from our supplier " 

Completely over their heads 

[Tommygilf]

8 minutes ago, GUBRATS said:

That was the response I received " but we sell loads more than them , why should they get a penny from what we sell ? " Or better still " we get 10 grands worth of free kit from our supplier " 

Completely over their heads 

Exactly it all screams tinpot 

[DC77]

5 hours ago, Cerulean said:

To continue your digression on "build it and they will come":

If you haven’t already read it, the original novel “Shoeless Joe” by W P Kinsella offers an interesting perspective. It’s an enjoyable and whimsical fantasy, a story with deeper and more complex elements than a film can explore. There may be some considerations for a rugby league fan: that the traditions and history of your sport can exist side by side with its present and the future, that heroes are essential in sport, that sport is escapism where dreams are woven into its fabric. It also leads you to the history of the Chicago White Sox betting scandal - built around the need of players to make a decent living. 

And the line “Say it ain’t so, Joe” is one of the saddest quotes in sport, a young fan’s lament on discovering that sport isn’t the pure and wonderful escape from life that it should be.

Other perspectives, of course, are available.

There are an endless number of great film adaptations of books/stories, the film in question is bleedin dreadful. 

Had I not heard about it for 30 years and not gone in with any expectations then perhaps it would have been a lot more bearable. Can’t recall ever being as disappointed in a film. It has a critical rating of 57 out of 100, and that’s far too generous imo.

[The Blues Ox]

On 27/12/2020 at 00:26, Wakefield Ram said:

It was a fantastic finish and close, but the game was not a great spectacle, it was 80 minutes of arm wrestle. I know, shoot the heretic, but it was dull.

I'd agree with that. It were two teams playing exactly the same style of rugby, same moves, and both looked uncapable of producing a bit of flair(probably down to the coaches playing the stats) that could have changed the game.

[Davo5]

17 minutes ago, The Blues Ox said:

I'd agree with that. It were two teams playing exactly the same style of rugby, same moves, and both looked uncapable of producing a bit of flair(probably down to the coaches playing the stats) that could have changed the game.

I enjoyed the game(not the result) but Kendal's 10m interpretation and slow ruck speed coupled with 2 outstanding defences snuffed out any chance of an open game.

 

[GUBRATS]

34 minutes ago, The Blues Ox said:

I'd agree with that. It were two teams playing exactly the same style of rugby, same moves, and both looked uncapable of producing a bit of flair(probably down to the coaches playing the stats) that could have changed the game.

If that had been a regular season lower tier game on TV , there would have been queues on here describing it as rubbish , apart from the last 10 seconds 

[The Blues Ox]

20 hours ago, GUBRATS said:

If that had been a regular season lower tier game on TV , there would have been queues on here describing it as rubbish , apart from the last 10 seconds 

True.

I don't blame the players though, I just think all flair and off the cuff stuff is coached out of them in favor of possesion and teritory stats. Nobody dare make a mistake now trying to open a game up. As Gubrats says, take away the last minute or so and it was pretty drab. The 3 drives then the ball out the back gets a bit boring and a bit easy to read for any competent defense after the first 40 times its used.

[Wakefield Ram]

On 28/12/2020 at 23:26, Mr Frisky said:

Not in most peoples opinion- it was the single most enjoyable game I've see  all season including the NRL. The game was top quality from start to finish.

As someone said at the time - if you didnt enjoy that game you dont really understand RL.

Like watching the Ashes cricket a few years ago in Cardiff when Anderson and Panasar blocked out for over an hour against the Aussies and it was far more entertaining, tense and riveting than any cricket match you will ever see when 6s and wickets are flying.

Riveting for the purists. And for the non-purists? Would that game create new fans? That's the question.