Where do we think Rugby League will be in 5 years time?

[Oxford]

13 minutes ago, Harry Stottle said:

The only way that could ever happen is to improve what we already have, i.e. making the game stronger and more productive where it is presently being played, only then can your vision even be contemplated.

Harry that sounds like an argument for doing beggar all and I can't imagine that's what you mean.

[Tommygilf]

25 minutes ago, Harry Stottle said:

I asked the question on the back of the statement that the lack of Rugby League at the amateur club level was having an adverse effect on the local communities and especially the kids, I am a firm believer that if professional clubs did not have a presence in some towns were the game is played therefore taking the focal point of the game away that it would also effect the amateur game in those areas.

So, having a reliance on less economically deprived places  as you say, would to me obviously mean doing a multiple of the North American variance of financing  teams and importing player's to get the game off the ground in those new places (where exactly would all the players come from? perhaps already existing teams) before getting the amateur game established and producing professionals.

It's a viscous circle Tommy, I have been witness to the amateur side of our sport in decline for a long long time now, our sport depends solely on the success of our amateur game in those financially deprived places, the governing body of our sport should be doing all it can to boost it along, the consequences of not doing would be unimaginable.

Its a circle only into oblivion sadly H.

The game, where ever it is played, needs resources and fundamentally those resources aren't in a lot of the RL towns. Therefore, to get those resources to support the amateur game in the likes of St Helens, Dewsbury, Castleford, RL needs to go to where the resources are and spread those from there, whilst at least for the short term the playing resources are directed the other way. 

We can't "protect the heartlands", the past 40 years show that they simply do not exist in isolation.

[Big Picture]

36 minutes ago, Harry Stottle said:

The only way that could ever happen is to improve what we already have, i.e. making the game stronger and more productive where it is presently being played, only then can your vision even be contemplated.

You have it backwards there, the lack of money and declining participation in the heartlands means that the latter is necessary if the former is to be accomplished.  The sons and grandsons of the RL players and fans of yesteryear probably aren't that different from their peers in non-RL families; if the latter are only or primarily interested in big events then the former likely are too, in which case RL needs some of those big events to attract them and their support and as many such events as it can possibly create.

Even if that was not the case, the experience which GUBRATS recounted from his time in club management where the management of the other clubs didn't want to know about his ideas for them to work together to achieve better financial results demonstrates that making the game stronger where it is presently played is beyond their capability.

[THE RED ROOSTER]

21 hours ago, Bedfordshire Bronco said:

You've been reading this forum too much chap and it's given you a negative slant

Reports of our games demise have always been greatly exaggerated 

 

You paraphase Mark Twain's cable back to the US in 1897

I Jack Nicholson line from a Few Good Men- "The Truth you cant handle the Truth"

[Oldbear]

From pretty much when professional sports were created the lure of a professional career has been attractive to young people with sporting talent, especially if they come from an economically disadvantaged background, or lack the intellectual capacity to thrive in the education system. Of course in modern times we have seen the huge wage explosions in soccer and most North American Sports, plus sports such as RU and cricket can now offer the potential to earn enough to set the athlete up for life, without having to rely on the old boy network that was the traditional attraction of these sports. By contrast RL does not offer the potential for such riches, the salary cap has fallen in real terms and the game generates insufficient income to address this. If we then add into this the reality that the game offers little in career options for the retired player, plus the game does not have a great record in the way that past players are treated by the sport. 
 

If we put all that together a career in pro RL is unlikely to be as attractive for a teenager as a number of other sports, unless they are looking (or advised to look) long term at the potential by switching to RU or moving to the NRL. Unfortunately the game can’t address this, or indeed make the earnings better for the majority of the non star, but good club players without a major cash injection, currently the sport is not really making itself attractive to new investors either.

[GUBRATS]

3 hours ago, Big Picture said:

As I've said before the game needs money if it's going to avoid falling even further behind soccer and RU in Britain, and a lot of it.  As its traditional clubs and league structure are rooted in smallish towns where the kind of money necessary to support big time major pro sport can't be accessed because it isn't there and isn't ever going to go there, that money can only be brought into the game via a whole new league set up fit for that purpose which has its franchises in the sort of places where it can be accessed.

In view of the game's image problem in Britain which other posters have mentioned plenty often (i.e. most Brits don't even know two versions of rugby exist and most of the remainder who do look down on RL because they see it as small time and downmarket), such a league would probably need to re-brand the sport to overcome that obstacle and it would have to ensure that newbies who come to check it out have a great time when they do and want to come back for more.  It would have to make whatever tweaks are needed in its presentation of the game to be a success and it would need to deliver a great on-field product.

Absent that, all I can envision is continuing slow decline until John Kear's prediction of there not being any pro RL in Britain and all that's left is a feeder/development setup for RU and the NRL comes to pass.

So basically ' it would '

But it won't , because ' there isn't '

[Bedfordshire Bronco]

2 hours ago, THE RED ROOSTER said:

You paraphase Mark Twain's cable back to the US in 1897

I Jack Nicholson line from a Few Good Men- "The Truth you cant handle the Truth"

"If you never try you can never fail" - Homer Simpson 1998

[thebrewxi]

"Where do we think Rugby League will be in 5 years time?"

Probably not on Sky Sports.

[The Rocket]

46 minutes ago, Bedfordshire Bronco said:

"If you never try you can never fail" - Homer Simpson 1998

Was that part two of Homer`s  2 great life lessons for Bart, the other being:

`Always say and do exactly what every body else does`.

[Big Picture]

6 hours ago, GUBRATS said:

So basically ' it would '

But it won't , because ' there isn't '

There isn't what?

[GUBRATS]

3 hours ago, Big Picture said:

There isn't what?

Enough money in the universe to pay for it 

[Robthegasman]

Rugby league will survive.

Something will survive.The game will not die.