Shane Richardson Calls for Overhaul of British Rugby League

[Lowdesert]

2 hours ago, Big Picture said:

You forget that the main reason why Gateshead lost so much money was that they were denied their fair share of the TV money by the traditional clubs.

Could be wrong but I don’t remember any of that and I don’t think they could’ve set up a team without it.

It was a small squad but Grimaldi was a Bulldogs regular, Kerrod Walters was too at the Broncos so they wouldn’t have come for lower end wages, neither would Ian Herron.  Matty Daylight might also come into that plus Mick Jenkins who was a quality hooker who Reilly nearly signed.  They did very well imo.

[Lowdesert]

2 hours ago, Dave T said:

I've no doubts that Richardson is good at what he does, his CV is very impressive, but having now read the paper, it really is terrible. To summarise:

1 - To cull 6 existing UK-based teams, making them semi-pro. Replace them with the likes of Wales, London and Newcastle. Hmm, sounds familiar.

2 - 2nd division has no P&R, but the 1st division has P&R from Year 3. Erm, that doesn't work Shane.

3 - In his proposed structure he says "To create this 10 team competition, eight should come from outside England and two external". Clearly it's a typo, and he means inside England, but then Wales isn't in England. Errors like that hardly give confidence.

4 - And that seems to be it. 

5 - Oh no, he wants all in-season internationals scrapped, and he wants to stop wasting all this money on Euro teams. I'm not really sure which teams he refers to when he claims the Euro teams were filled with NRL players and lost loads of cash. 

6 - He also wants a year per 4yr cycle with no England games, and one with no NRL players in Internationals.

TBH, it is one of the most disappointing things I have read, from somebody held in high regard on these shores. It actually feels like a bad joke from these pages.

Have you a link to a copy Dave?

[Big Picture]

28 minutes ago, Smudger06 said:

You have something regarding the English speaking v French speaking Canadian Derby and the Montreal v European French rivalries. I don't think you could exclude 3/4 of the United States and hope for it to stick well enough there though plus yeah, Mexico City, Rio & Sao Paulo have potential but you'd run into the same logistics issues as what stopped you having US teams except for the East Coast, unless each team chartered its own specially prepared Aircraft all doable of course by 12 x highly motivated RL loving billionaires....

Thank you.  The fact that the WLAF's Montréal Machine drew a crowd of 53,000 to see their debut against Barcelona shows the potential of such matches.  Keeping the North American teams east of the Mississippi initially wouldn't be anything new, except for MLS none of the established major North American leagues went any further west than Chicago or Saint Louis when they started.  The logistics could be managed by that and by smart scheduling.

19 minutes ago, Smudger06 said:

The only 'new' Major League is MLS and it was in exactly that position for the 1st 10 years of its life regarding TV. Still the owners have to put in vast amounts now as the TV deal still ain't that good. Granted they are making a lot of money off selling expansion spots. I think the transatlantic aspect of your ideas offer something MLS does not though, as well as a less fearsome player market compared with MLS vs European Football so slightly easier to get decent talent. 

That's incorrect, MLS never paid to have their matches broadcast.  They were paid based on the ad revenue which their TV partners received on the broadcasts.  Very modest of course, but then soccer doesn't really offer many commercial break situations for broadcasters.

[Smudger06]

3 minutes ago, Big Picture said:

Thank you.  The fact that the WLAF's Montréal Machine drew a crowd of 53,000 to see their debut against Barcelona shows the potential of such matches.  Keeping the North American teams east of the Mississippi initially wouldn't be anything new, except for MLS none of the establish major North American league went any further west than Chicago or Saint Louis when they started.  The logistics could be managed by that and by smart scheduling.

That's incorrect, MLS never paid to have their matches broadcast.  They were paid based on the ad revenue which their TV partners received on the broadcasts.  Very modest of course, but then soccer doesn't really offer many commercial break situations for broadcasters.

Yeah but back when those leagues were establishing themselves the demographics were massively skewed to the Eastern side so not so much of a problem a hundred years ago. 

RL is the same as soccer regarding commercial break slots, I think they should find a way of fitting a number of ads in, between the conversion and the restart possibly? Would be adecent extra money spinner on FTA commercial TV Channels, even if it was a delay of a minute and 30 seconds from the linesmans flags going up or down to the restart, instead of something like what 30 or 40 seconds ish now? 

[Big Picture]

Just now, Smudger06 said:

RL is the same as soccer regarding commercial break slots, I think they should find a way of fitting a number of ads in, between the conversion and the restart possibly? Would be adecent extra money spinner on FTA commercial TV Channels, even if it was a delay of a minute and 30 seconds from the linesmans flags going up or down to the restart, instead of something like what 30 or 40 seconds ish now? 

Nine squeezes them in dring NRL matches, with the downside that the viewing audience sometimes misses the restart which is very unprofessional in my view.  A solution is to stop the clock in dead ball situations like in plenty of other sports and as the NRL was considering a few years ago, so I would certainly do that in such a new league.  That way the broadcasters could have their ads and the viewers wouldn't miss any of the action, a win-win scenario.  I would also want to avoid situations where a team trying to come back feels a need to rush their conversion attempt after scoring to save time, it would never do for the audience to miss the conversion because a replay of the touchdown is being shown when it's kicked.

[Smudger06]

I think a big mistake the governing  bodies make currently is working on total amounts of actually money, there are several areas of the game that are crucial and should be allocated funding based on percentages of total expenditure rather than cash sums allocated. If expenditure must reduce then all areas reduce in proportion, when success is had, all key areas receive additional monies in proportion to their percentage of expenditures.

[Smudger06]

4 minutes ago, Big Picture said:

Nine squeezes them in dring NRL matches, with the downside that the viewing audience sometimes misses the restart which is very unprofessional in my view.  A solution is to stop the clock in dead ball situations like in plenty of other sports and as the NRL was considering a few years ago, so I would certainly do that in such a new league.  That way the broadcasters could have their ads and the viewers wouldn't miss any of the action, a win-win scenario.  I would also want to avoid situations where a team trying to come back feels a need to rush their conversion attempt after scoring to save time, it would never do for the audience to miss the conversion because a replay of the touchdown is being shown when it's kicked.

Yeah no one can miss the live action for the sake of a commercial so should do clock stops. Ridiculous.

[Lowdesert]

12 minutes ago, Smudger06 said:

I think a big mistake the governing  bodies make currently is working on total amounts of actually money, there are several areas of the game that are crucial and should be allocated funding based on percentages of total expenditure rather than cash sums allocated. If expenditure must reduce then all areas reduce in proportion, when success is had, all key areas receive additional monies in proportion to their percentage of expenditures.

Not sure it’s the actual giving over of money but the money going to the right section of the club.

[Big Picture]

19 minutes ago, Smudger06 said:

Yeah no one can miss the live action for the sake of a commercial so should do clock stops. Ridiculous.

Not ridiculous at all, it's one of those best practices of other major pro leagues which I mentioned above, and it's how the networks can afford to pay the huge sums they give the big North American leagues every year.  The AFL recognized that a few years ago now and they adopted it too.

[Damien]

1 hour ago, Big Picture said:

That's why I'd want many TV deals, so that between them they can provide the level of money needed.  No I wouldn't envision paying for airtime, instead I'd set things up so the broadcasters can make a profit on broadcasting the matches.

Just to summarise your posts, this all sounds great, it sounds similar to what I'm sure many of us dream about and what we'd do if we won the lottery.

However it's fantasy stuff and yet again there is absolutely no mention of how this would be done, who would pay for it and who would do it. I don't really consider things like there will be "two TV contracts for Spain, one for the Castilian-language rights and the other for the Catalan-language" as credible. There are more holes than a colindar.

In all seriousness if this was even vaguely realistic why don't you do it?

[Smudger06]

12 minutes ago, Big Picture said:

Not ridiculous at all, it's one of those best practices of other major pro leagues which I mentioned above, and it's how the networks can afford to pay the huge sums they give the big North American leagues every year.  The AFL recognized that a few years ago now and they adopted it too.

No not the adverts, the cutting of live action. 

[Dave T]

1 hour ago, Lowdesert said:

Have you a link to a copy Dave?

Can be found on Loverugbyleague mate... 

[Dave T]

10 minutes ago, Damien said:

Just to summarise your posts, this all sounds great, it sounds similar to what I'm sure many of us dream about and what we'd do if we won the lottery.

However it's fantasy stuff and yet again there is absolutely no mention of how this would be done, who would pay for it and who would do it. I don't really consider things like there will be "two TV contracts for Spain, one for the Castilian-language rights and the other for the Catalan-language" as credible. There are more holes than a colindar.

In all seriousness if this was even vaguely realistic why don't you do it?

To be fair, it's a bit better than Shane Richardson's plan...

[Big Picture]

12 minutes ago, Damien said:

Just to summarise your posts, this all sounds great, it sounds similar to what I'm sure many of us dream about and what we'd do if we won the lottery.

However it's fantasy stuff and yet again there is absolutely no mention of how this would be done, who would pay for it and who would do it. I don't really consider things like there will be "two TV contracts for Spain, one for the Castilian-language rights and the other for the Catalan-language" as credible. There are more holes than a colindar.

In all seriousness if this was even vaguely realistic why don't you do it?

I'd need a partner with connections who could open doors so the concept could be presented to the sort of individuals who would be targetted as potential franchise owners and/or broadcasters and alas I don't have any contacts like that.  The likes of Paul Godfrey (who tried to bring an NFL franchise to Toronto some years ago) could well see great merit in the concept and so could their counterparts over there, though he's old enough now that any decision would probably fall to his heirs.

Re Spain, evidently you didn't know that the WLAF had a two year agreement with TV 3 Catalunya on the strength of including Barcelona in that league, so similar agreements are certainly conceivable.

10 minutes ago, Smudger06 said:

No not the adverts, the cutting of live action. 

What "cutting" do you mean?  Nine cuts into the live action for ads at times, I would never want that.

[Damien]

3 minutes ago, Big Picture said:

I'd need a partner with connections who could open doors so the concept could be presented to the sort of individuals who would be targetted as potential franchise owners and/or broadcasters and alas I don't have any contacts like that.  The likes of Paul Godfrey (who tried to bring an NFL franchise to Toronto some years ago) could well see great merit in the concept and so could their counterparts over there, though he's old enough now that any decision would probably fall to his heirs.

Re Spain, evidently you didn't know that the WLAF had a two year agreement with TV 3 Catalunya on the strength of including Barcelona in that league, so similar agreements are certainly conceivable.

That really isn't a how, it's fantasy. It's akin to me hoping for a chat with Bill Gates and hoping he funds my world domination plan for Rugby League. 

I don't doubt deals can be done. I seriously doubt deals can be done to make this pay, and according to you these TV deals are going to fund it all. Looking at the channels WLAF was on I'm certain they paid very little, if anything, and that is for a sport they've heard of. Indeed WLAF lost $30 million per year. I'm not sure why you think this would somehow be different.

[Smudger06]

21 minutes ago, Dave T said:

To be fair, it's a bit better than Shane Richardson's plan...

He's thought about it, just the matter of a bit of cash needed now. 

[Big Picture]

10 minutes ago, Damien said:

That really isn't a how, it's fantasy. It's akin to me hoping for a chat with Bill Gates and hoping he funds my world domination plan for Rugby League. 

I don't doubt deals can be done. I seriously doubt deals can be done to make this pay, and according to you these TV deals are going to fund it all. Looking at the channels WLAF was on I'm certain they paid very little, if anything, and that is for a sport they've heard of. Indeed WLAF lost $30 million per year. I'm not sure why you think this would somehow be different.

No one's going to fund a dream, they'd have to be presented with a detailed plan showing them how it would be expected to work.

Of course TV deals wouldn't fund it all, no more than they do for any league anywhere.  Other revenue sources would be needed too just as in any other league.  As it happens, in Barcelona they do now know what RL is due to Catalans playing there, so it wouldn't be a case of getting anyone to back an unknown sport.

The WLAF had bloated player and coaching rosters because of the sport they played, and a short season too.  Their franchises covered an even greater range of time zones than I envision, and it was a second-tier league.  That's a different scenario altogether.

[Smudger06]

1 minute ago, Big Picture said:

No one's going to fund a dream, they'd have to be presented with a detailed plan showing them how it would be expected to work.

Of course TV deals wouldn't fund it all, no more than they do for any league anywhere.  Other revenue sources would be needed too just as in any other league.  As it happens, in Barcelona they do now know what RL is due to Catalans playing there, so it wouldn't be a case of getting anyone to back an unknown sport.

Watch the film Hancock with will Smith,  where the bloke who becomes Hancocks mate is trying to make a hopeless pitch near the start of the movie. Your goodself and even RL itself hasn't any way of even getting a time slot to attempt the pitch, even Russel crowe can't get that time slot with the ultra rich to make the pitch, to the people that could make such a concept happen. 

[Smudger06]

In case you haven't noticed they are all trying to reach the stars, either to abandon us all or to transfer us all to total recall type mars colonies so they have the earth gaff to themselves.....

[Damien]

1 minute ago, Big Picture said:

No one's going to fund a dream, they'd have to be presented with a detailed plan showing them how it would be expected to work.

Of course TV deals wouldn't fund it all, no more than they do for any league anywhere.  Other revenue sources would be needed too just as in any other league.  As it happens, in Barcelona they do now know what RL is due to Catalans playing there, so it wouldn't be a case of getting anyone to back an unknown sport.

Hoping to bump into a billionaire to then present a plan isn't a solution to fix the problem the game faces. It's a dream. Maybe you should try Dragons Den, I wouldn't hold out much hope though and suspect you'd be torn to shreds.

Obviously other revenue would be needed, that's a given but you've not mentioned how for that either. Your big idea is TV deals in all these countries to pay for the teams in these countries. 

I was also in Barcelona for the Wigan game and RL is as unknown as they come. I literally didn't come across one local that had a clue. Please don't pretend otherwise.

 

[Smudger06]

You say 12 teams big picture, well we can combine the total money wasted over the Toronto wolfpack project divided by the number of seasons they played RL and then add a salary cap level at a level competitive with SL, NRL and the top level union comps to come up with a per Club figure and then multiply that by 12 to get the annual cost of your plan. Just 4 or 5 seasons would be about a billion UK pounds thrown at it. 

[Damien]

6 minutes ago, Smudger06 said:

Watch the film Hancock with will Smith,  where the bloke who becomes Hancocks mate is trying to make a hopeless pitch near the start of the movie. Your goodself and even RL itself hasn't any way of even getting a time slot to attempt the pitch, even Russel crowe can't get that time slot with the ultra rich to make the pitch, to the people that could make such a concept happen. 

Actually come to think of it Russell Crowe did try various things, mentions of RL constantly, games in Florida and getting Denis Rodman et al to go etc. He never really got too far.

Isn't Lachlan Murdoch a huge RL and Brisbane Broncos fan? If anyone had the ability to make stuff happen in the US and try to make serious money there it's him. He could have easily created TV content for his network for relatively little. The fact he hasn't says a lot.

[Smudger06]

9 minutes ago, Damien said:

Actually come to think of it Russell Crowe did try various things, mentions of RL constantly, games in Florida and getting Denis Rodman et al to go etc. He never really got too far.

Isn't Lachlan Murdoch a huge RL and Brisbane Broncos fan? If anyone had the ability to make stuff happen in the US and try to make serious money there it's him. He could have easily created TV content for his network for relatively little. The fact he hasn't says a lot.

Yes indeed. 

[Smudger06]

Just now, Johnoco said:

How much did Toronto cost the RFL/SL?

Matters not. 

[Smudger06]

It cost air transat a fair bit, sure they may have gotten a little value out of the sponsorship, cost the TV production companies a fair bit, sure Argyle paid them maybe most of what he owed them, and then it cost the man himself a Bob or two.