These People Must Be In a UK Rugby League Independent Commission

[Dave T]

57 minutes ago, gingerjon said:

I don't think we all agree on the specifics of the problem and I doubt we're even close to being brave or selfless enough to put in place whatever the solutions proposed might be.

For example, is the problem that we don't attract enough blue chip sponsors to the game or is it that we have a small geographic footprint in England. It doesn't follow that the solutions are the same for both so which is the priority.

Is the problem that we don't play enough internationals or is it that we can't beat Australia?

And so on.

I think this is the biggest problem we have. I made this point a few years back with the RFL/SL Strategy Doc - it was a nice doc and all that, but it wanted to boil the ocean. 

We need to be really, really clear on what outcomes we want, and mercilessly pursue the plan to deliver them, but it really needs to be streamlined - we can't do everything.

[EastLondonMike]

Just now, Dave T said:

You got that far?

I wouldn't consider a single one of that list.

I’d be happy enough to see Sally Bolton and Richard Lewis bring their experience back into the game, but I’m very much of the same opinion as @whatmichaelsays we should be looking forward, not back.

[Dave T]

1 minute ago, EastLondonMike said:

I’d be happy enough to see Sally Bolton and Richard Lewis bring their experience back into the game, but I’m very much of the same opinion as @whatmichaelsays we should be looking forward, not back.

People forget how long Sally Bolton worked for the RFL and how she was a part of the RFL when they were being branded incompetent. Jon Dutton is the current version of her. 

What it shows is that it isn't necessarily that we have bad people in place, it is the level of investment and the planning that is short. 

Jon Dutton has overseen some utterly lacklustre international RL - yet here he is leading a tournament that is night and day ahead of anything we have done before (accepting it may not even happen!). It is almost a carbon copy of the Bolton situation in 2013.

[JohnM]

Yet again. Why would anyone with enough money to invest to get a decent RoI, or enough money to donate, do it in rugby league? 

They are either doing it already, or if they are not, don't see an opportunity. No commission will make any difference, in my view. 

Put all the effort and money into a successful World Cup, especially getting saturation media coverage, and the games profile here might be raised enough to make a difference. 

It's a constant disappointment to me that the sport here does not emphasise the domination of RL over Union in Aus. Surely that should be a weapon in the fight for UK media coverage? 

[Lowdesert]

1 hour ago, whatmichaelsays said:

Which is why I think you need to look beyond some ex-players and adminstrators. As much as it can be useful to look backwards and learn lessons from the past, you also do need to look forward. At some point either the things we did in the past stopped working, or we made a (presumably reasoned) decision to move away from them. 

I don't think a commission designed to look at the future of the game is particularly well-served spending too much time looking at the past because the past has ultimately got the game to the position it is in today. I think it is better served looking at what the sport wants to be, what it realistically can be and how it goes about getting there and, as mucn as I love Jamie Peacock and Kevin Sinfield, I don't think they're the people for that job - it's a job for market researchers.

Taking the view that all those suggested will look to the past is just guesswork though and The Daddy hasn’t suggested that.

Just the same as consultants will look forward and not in the past. (I agree, it depends on the remit btw).

 

[gingerjon]

4 minutes ago, JohnM said:

Yet again. Why would anyone with enough money to invest to get a decent RoI, or enough money to donate, do it in rugby league? 

They are either doing it already, or if they are not, don't see an opportunity. No commission will make any difference, in my view. 

Which is why, if we decide that the problem is, "there aren't enough people investing their money into rugby league" then that would be the direction the commission's priorities would head in.

The key problem would be expecting rugby league to do what the commission then recommended.

[LeeF]

1 hour ago, Dave T said:

People forget how long Sally Bolton worked for the RFL and how she was a part of the RFL when they were being branded incompetent. Jon Dutton is the current version of her. 

What it shows is that it isn't necessarily that we have bad people in place, it is the level of investment and the planning that is short. 

Jon Dutton has overseen some utterly lacklustre international RL - yet here he is leading a tournament that is night and day ahead of anything we have done before (accepting it may not even happen!). It is almost a carbon copy of the Bolton situation in 2013.

It’s almost like Dutton was being held back?

[Futtocks]

Some familiar saviours in that roll-call.

 

[DavidM]

Must they be on it even if they don’t want to be , just for clarification ?

[whatmichaelsays]

8 minutes ago, gingerjon said:

Which is why, if we decide that the problem is, "there aren't enough people investing their money into rugby league" then that would be the direction the commission's priorities would head in.

The key problem would be expecting rugby league to do what the commission then recommended.

I've used this analogy before, but there is a scene in the film Moneyball where the Oakland A's GM asks his team of scouts, as they're trying to replace three star players, "what's the problem" and the team, all sat around a table, answer back with the usual cliched nonsense that sounds like it's right, but actually misses the point entirely. That's just how I envisage a rugby league committee that's convened to work out the "problem" with rugby league. 

You can see it now. "We need a team in <city>". "We need more internationals". "Sky don't promote us enough". "Something something public school media". "Belle Vue is a dump". "Loop fixtures". "Deprived Northern Towns". "We don't have an Eddie Hearn". "We need private equity". "We're a great sport but we just don't promote it" - any I've missed? They're the answers that would come from that team of Oakland A's scouts in the clip and what I'd expect from a committee of people from within the RL bubble. 

They're actually not the "problem", just symptoms of the problem.

For me, in my unqualified view, the "problem" is that not enough people are watching rugby league and we don't reach a particularly diverse audience. That directly reflects the TV deals we can command, the media coverage we can earn, the sponsorship deals we can sign and the money coming into the sport. That reflects the talent that we can afford and how much can be invested in the product. It reflects how profitable our international scene is, which directly influences how motivated the Australians are to come to Europe in the Autumn. 

Yes, it all sounds very simple - get more people watching rugby league - but I think it does require such a big sea-change in thinking that I don't think many stakeholders in the game are capable of. It would involve making our product adapt to changing tastes (and possibly cracking a few eggs with our existing fan base in the process), emphasising long-term thinking vs short-term gain, it would involve speaking to people that RL isn't used to speaking to, and I think that too many stakeholders see that as too hard work.  

[RigbyLuger]

And the guy at the top of Super League, albeit temporarily, his club, whenever they want to boost attendances, devalue tickets to such a level that nothing changes going forward. Cheap tickets is not marketing or trying to find an audeince!

[M j M]

We've   gone from a list of failed or implausible candidates to somehow bringing in some consultants to give advice. 

First I was afraid, now I'm petrified. We may as well just burn a couple of million £ in the car park at Red Hall.

[Les Tonks Sidestep]

8 minutes ago, M j M said:

We've   gone from a list of failed or implausible candidates to somehow bringing in some consultants to give advice. 

First I was afraid, now I'm petrified. We may as well just burn a couple of million £ in the car park at Red Hall.

SLE already tried a scaled down version of that with PE. It didn't work so let's go big.....

[graveyard johnny]

whos paying these people and wheres brass coming from?

[whatmichaelsays]

8 minutes ago, M j M said:

We've   gone from a list of failed or implausible candidates to somehow bringing in some consultants to give advice. 

First I was afraid, now I'm petrified. We may as well just burn a couple of million £ in the car park at Red Hall.

Equally, the cost of doing nothing is just as petrifying. You can't look at a reported 25% cut in the value of TV rights as money well saved. 

Rugby league's problems are not that unique and rugby league itself is not so unique, or working in so unique circumstances, that there is nothing we can learn from how other sports / clubs have addressed them. 

[M j M]

19 minutes ago, whatmichaelsays said:

Equally, the cost of doing nothing is just as petrifying. You can't look at a reported 25% cut in the value of TV rights as money well saved. 

Rugby league's problems are not that unique and rugby league itself is not so unique, or working in so unique circumstances, that there is nothing we can learn from how other sports / clubs have addressed them. 

I honestly cannot see any value in the use of consultants in this case. 

We know the issues and fundamental to everything is that the sport needs a strong executive, either an individual or a small team, backed by the power to do things without being overriden by club bosses. If you want some form of outside expertise then employ them, don't use people who aren't going to ever have to deal with the consequences of a set of recommendations they've come up with.

If we want someone to fulfill that executive role and to make the big decisions they can do all the consulting and investigating they like before implementing it. The mindlessly expensive security blanket of being able to say they're just following the guidance of a tedious but nicely presented report prepared by external advisors who have long disappeared is of zero value.

[The Future is League]

Dave Woods, Tony Rea, John Wilkin, Brian Noble, Jonathon Davies 

[gingerjon]

22 minutes ago, The Future is League said:

Dave Woods, Tony Rea, John Wilkin, Brian Noble, Jonathon Davies 

Your boys took a helluva beating?

[Dave T]

6 hours ago, LeeF said:

It’s almost like Dutton was being held back?

Indeed. As per my point. People ain't the issue, investment is. 

[GUBRATS]

11 minutes ago, Dave T said:

Indeed. As per my point. People ain't the issue, investment is. 

And then what to spend it on ?

[Dave T]

3 minutes ago, GUBRATS said:

And then what to spend it on ? 

Absolutely. 

It's all the same point. Spend millions on a world cup and Dutton looks great, spend nowt on a 4N and he looks amateur

[Mumby Magic]

9 hours ago, The Daddy said:

Mick Hogan and Steve Mcnamara are the only ones that have current vested interests and obviously they wouldn't be able to participate in a commission if they were involved in their current positions, other than that I have no concerns about prior affiliations.

However others have played for clubs etc. My assumption of independent is neutral. 

[The Rocket]

7 hours ago, whatmichaelsays said:

Equally, the cost of doing nothing is just as petrifying. You can't look at a reported 25% cut in the value of TV rights as money well saved. 

Rugby league's problems are not that unique and rugby league itself is not so unique, or working in so unique circumstances, that there is nothing we can learn from how other sports / clubs have addressed them. 

Unrelated to above post, but it it sticks in my memory that you once said that you don`t see the limited geographical footprint of League in England as being the problem, more that the game isn`t being sold properly to reach a broader audience and the advantages that go with that.

But don`t you think the entrance into Super League of another strong club from France, especially if we could see them both regularly challenging for titles, would address those perceptions, even purely just as a by-product of having two strong foreign clubs being successful in your competition, their mere presence and the credibility they will bring.

The point I`m trying to make is that I think English Rugby League is on the right track, I don`t think they get the credit for what they have achieved with Le Dracs, but I think patience is called for and a little bit of faith in where they are headed.

I`d go as far as saying that I think France is the key for Rugby League in England. The stronger that France gets, the better the rivalries, the more likely to be able to negotiate a broadcast deal to supplement the British one, and so could begin a virtuous circle out of the current predicament.

[Oxford]

This is all completely false and mistaken we need a board of people like these : Victor Lustig, Reed Waddell, John St. John Long, William Elmer Mead,Henri Lemoine, Lord Gordon Gordon, Boris johnson, Tony Blair and St Francis for the accounts.

 

[ATLANTISMAN]

Thats the revered Sally Bolton who gave away World Cup tickets for peanuts and sponsorships for as little as 10K a career champagne socialist sports administrator jumping from one sport to another.

Others have long gone apart from Mick Hogan (Excellent choice)

 

P