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16 minutes ago, Toby Chopra said:

You can of course and perhaps that may be part of the future. But actually I think game length is always a bit of a distraction, in that cricket had a particular problem with the length of its matches which made it hard to attract certain types of spectators and was less than ideal for broadcasters. 

RL broadly has a fan and media friendly game length - the issue is what those games offer. 

For me the biggest lesson of T20 - and more specifically franchise cricket like the IPL and (dons hard hat) The Hundred - is the borrowing of players from their existing clubs for a short period, and packaging them up and selling them to a new audience.

Could we even dream of trying something like that? 

I think Union does something similar, they call it the Six Nations or something???

I agree, match length isn't our main issue at all, but a more diverse offering in all respects will be logically be involved in securing a more diverse audience generally.

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5 minutes ago, gingerjon said:

The Hundred and T20 are both already longer than a rugby league game that plays out two periods of golden point extra time.

If 9s is the answer (or some variant like 9s) then it is an answer to a different question.

What's interesting - insofar as anything about The Hundred is interesting - is that in this second season a lot of big name players who were available have not been signed. Instead, some of the biggest money has gone on players who might struggle to be recognised in their own living room but who can be pretty much guaranteed to be consistent and not likely to have any sudden last minute demands on their time from elsewhere.

So there's not a lot being put into it (and the marketing reflects this) about star names but there is, again, a huge amount about match day experience, value for money, and diversity.

Interesting. And to be frank, if we tried some sort of city-based franchise tournament the vast majority of the audience we were targeting wouldn't know who any of the players were. Perhaps it wouldn't matter. I think the biggest thought would go into tweaking the rules to enable a high scoring end-to-end contest and selecting the players that fitted that. 

I can but dream! 

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3 minutes ago, Tommygilf said:

I think Union does something similar, they call it the Six Nations or something???

I agree, match length isn't our main issue at all, but a more diverse offering in all respects will be logically be involved in securing a more diverse audience generally.

After posting I immediately thought "well, that could be internationals of course." 

But the truth is it won't be.

It's common on here to call for boosting the international game. In pronciple that's correct and I hope it happens.

But the facts of where the talent is and who controls it means, in my view, that's it's just not going to be the gamechanger that northen Hemisphere league needs. 

Others may be more hopeful something can be done and I'm sure we'll debate it in the future.

But that's the conclusion I come to, hence my search for a way to reinvigorate/repackage what we do control. 

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2 minutes ago, Toby Chopra said:

Interesting. And to be frank, if we tried some sort of city-based franchise tournament the vast majority of the audience we were targeting wouldn't know who any of the players were. Perhaps it wouldn't matter. I think the biggest thought would go into tweaking the rules to enable a high scoring end-to-end contest and selecting the players that fitted that. 

I can but dream! 

I have made this point before. If we were to recreate a Hundred style franchise tourney in Dublin, Edinburgh, London, Prague, Paris, Madrid, Berlin and My Back Garden, we wouldn't need to worry about 'quality' in the sense of needing to get the best players from the NRL or even Super League (although it almost certainly would hoover up the latter cos they are achingly cheap). Eight evenly matched teams where the halves know rugby league and the rest can be trusted to tackle and catch a ball would sell the game more than well enough if the game day experience was consistently of a high enough quality value-wise.

The key would always be in the words 'evenly matched'. Nobody is getting interested in a franchise league if it's anything other than that - so that would need to be rigged and re-rigged every season.

Build a man a fire, and he'll be warm for a day. Set a man on fire, and he'll be warm for the rest of his life. (Terry Pratchett)

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10 minutes ago, gingerjon said:

I think this oversimplifies something that cricket often, not always, does well.

It has multiple different audiences going to the same event.

Most grounds now have very distinct and obviously separate sections for the beer snakers versus the families, for those who are there to watch the cricket all day and not move versus those who are going to get up and check out the eateries and drinkeries behind the stands ... 

Multiple audiences attend rugby league. My Dad has no interest in standing behind the sticks for eighty minutes singing and shouting, my cousin on the other hand wouldn’t be comfortable sat in a hospitality section for the day or sat around a load of “pensioners eating their sandwiches” (his words) as neither are where he feels are his place at a game. 

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Just now, Jughead said:

Multiple audiences attend rugby league.

Not really and not enough of them.

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Build a man a fire, and he'll be warm for a day. Set a man on fire, and he'll be warm for the rest of his life. (Terry Pratchett)

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6 minutes ago, gingerjon said:

The key would always be in the words 'evenly matched'. Nobody is getting interested in a franchise league if it's anything other than that - so that would need to be rigged and re-rigged every season.

Works for the NFL! 

Edited by Toby Chopra
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24 minutes ago, gingerjon said:

I think this oversimplifies something that cricket often, not always, does well.

It has multiple different audiences going to the same event.

Most grounds now have very distinct and obviously separate sections for the beer snakers versus the families, for those who are there to watch the cricket all day and not move versus those who are going to get up and check out the eateries and drinkeries behind the stands ... 

I think that's a big point. 

RL is good at catering for the "I just want to stand on the terraces, have a pint and go home" crowd. With Magic (and to some extent, the Grand Final), we are good at catering to the "lads day out / stag weekend / booze-up" crowd. But what other crowds are we actually good at catering to? Yes some clubs do a bit of corporate hospitality and we do some cheap tickets for kids, but where are the initiatives to attract the real growth audiences that are going to broaden the appeal of the sport and the clubs?  

A point came up in the CF Semi final discussion about how the premium section was especially sparse, but the question there is surely whether that particular combination of RL, the CC and Elland Road offers the sort of experience that the sort of people who can drop £50 on a day at the sport expect? If it does, do we communicate that well enough? If it doesn't, why not? 

Again, this conversation doesn't necessarily have to go down the familiar rabbit holes of new formats or new teams in new cities or franchised comps - some of those may be part of a long-term answer but for the moment, there are numerous and sizeable audience segments right on RL's doorstep that the clubs don't seem to be motivated, or don't seem to know how, to try and appeal to - and that's something that the RFL and all of the club owners need to be challenged on. 

Edited by whatmichaelsays
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2 minutes ago, Toby Chopra said:

Works for the NFL! 

Exactly.

The cricket franchise leagues tend to use a policy of either retained lists followed by open market, or a draft/auction, or some variant of the two. Keeps it all fun.

Build a man a fire, and he'll be warm for a day. Set a man on fire, and he'll be warm for the rest of his life. (Terry Pratchett)

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18 minutes ago, gingerjon said:

The Hundred and T20 are both already longer than a rugby league game that plays out two periods of golden point extra time.

If 9s is the answer (or some variant like 9s) then it is an answer to a different question.

What's interesting - insofar as anything about The Hundred is interesting - is that in this second season a lot of big name players who were available have not been signed. Instead, some of the biggest money has gone on players who might struggle to be recognised in their own living room but who can be pretty much guaranteed to be consistent and not likely to have any sudden last minute demands on their time from elsewhere.

So there's not a lot being put into it (and the marketing reflects this) about star names but there is, again, a huge amount about match day experience, value for money, and diversity.

 

16 minutes ago, gingerjon said:

I think this oversimplifies something that cricket often, not always, does well.

It has multiple different audiences going to the same event.

Most grounds now have very distinct and obviously separate sections for the beer snakers versus the families, for those who are there to watch the cricket all day and not move versus those who are going to get up and check out the eateries and drinkeries behind the stands ... 

I think these two posts are right. 

We need to be very clear about what question we are answering. Thinking we can add a new format of the game like Cricket did is an odd concept to me, I see zero benefit in that. T20 solved a genuine problem - it provided a shorter format of the game with a more family friendly and fun atmosphere against the stuffiness of County Cricket.

Your point about different audiences is key for me - and this is the problem we should be solving. Diversifying our audience is key - we already have bigger numbers than some of the sports who get praise - but we do struggle for sponsors, investors, hospitality sales etc. when we have been one-dimensional in our aims - cheap and cheerful. That leads to the situation we find ourselves in where we cant increase our salary cap.

The packaging/presentation of the regular game is key on a week by week basis - our offering needs improving and to appeal to wider groups of people, and I don't mean on the field which imho is nowhere near saturation point.

We then need to supersize that for our events to maximise them and make them showpieces for the game. 

We need to focus on internationals. More of them, in better grounds, as bigger events.

And we need the infrastructure behind the scenes to be right - first class digital offerings, content and broadcasting packages. 

I think most of that can be done without changes to the game of Rugby, and probably within the existing competition structure. 

I'm not against new formats, comps etc. (expanded WCC would be the thing to fight for, but think its not happening), but I don't think a new format would fix the problems we have.

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2 minutes ago, Jughead said:

Multiple audiences do. There’s enough evidence across Super League of this. Enough of them? Well, no. 

So, what I'd be really interested in is what percentage of the crowd - whether the lads behind the post or the pensioners in the stand - come from the rugby league "community"? ie it's a family tradition to support the club, and/or they've played at school/community level? 

My sense is a very high percentage of rugby league spectators tick one of those boxes. Is that fair? 

If it is, how do we get better at attracting the hundreds of thousands of people who live in the vicinity of an M62  rugby league club but don't already have a link to the game?

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8 minutes ago, Jughead said:

Multiple audiences do. There’s enough evidence across Super League of this. Enough of them? Well, no. 

 

12 minutes ago, gingerjon said:

Not really and not enough of them.

Multiple audiences isn't the issue. The issue is those that we under-index in are those that are attractive to broadcasters, sponsors and pack out your corporate boxes etc,

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10 minutes ago, Toby Chopra said:

After posting I immediately thought "well, that could be internationals of course." 

But the truth is it won't be.

It's common on here to call for boosting the international game. In pronciple that's correct and I hope it happens.

But the facts of where the talent is and who controls it means, in my view, that's it's just not going to be the gamechanger that northen Hemisphere league needs. 

Others may be more hopeful something can be done and I'm sure we'll debate it in the future.

But that's the conclusion I come to, hence my search for a way to reinvigorate/repackage what we do control. 

It just struck me that your comment around packaging players into a new wrapper and selling to different audiences was exactly what Union does with its Six Nations tournaments. Even on the minuscule level, Schools Rugby gets a new audience involved in and around the sport and reinforces ties too.

Multiple connections, or ways to connect into the game are needed. Hence why annual England games in London and elsewhere are key for me. 

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14 minutes ago, Jughead said:

Multiple audiences do. There’s enough evidence across Super League of this. Enough of them? Well, no. 

Arguably the same audience at different stages in their life is what you described. That's fine, so long as their is a constant flow up from the bottom. 

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Just now, Toby Chopra said:

So, what I'd be really interested in is what percentage of the crowd - whether the lads behind the post or the pensioners in the stand - come from the rugby league "community"? ie it's a family tradition to support the club, and/or they've played at school/community level? 

My sense is a very high percentage of rugby league spectators tick one of those boxes. Is that fair? 

If it is, how do we get better at attracting the hundreds of thousands of people who live in the vicinity of an M62  rugby league club but don't already have a link to the game?

I think we have a wider range of people at games, certainly compared to some other sports, and we do have separate areas, whether pre-defined by clubs (like family stands) or created through peoples habits and natural movements, for people to congregate and take a game in how they wish to. Maybe we need to make a collective song and dance about different areas within a stadium and offer things in those areas that appeal to people there (there’s no real point doing happy hour on ale in a family stand, compared to behind the sticks). 

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45 minutes ago, Toby Chopra said:

But don't the numbers speak for themselves? I know it's not often enough for loyal red ball fans, but there ARE county championship games on at the weekend, even in high summer this year. They get a fraction of the audience that the Blast does. 

Ish - I love Worcestershire, but do I love Worcestershire enough these days to drop everything and get to the maybe two matches that I could actually physically attend in the red ball?

Regular weekend county cricket hasn't been done for over 20 years, so the 'one man and his dog watch it' shouldn't be any surprise - they've even been through the absolute nadir period of scheduling the championship matches Monday-Thursday, which really did feel like trying to kill it. Thankfully I waas a student at the time, so it didn't hurt me as much as it could have. 

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On 02/05/2022 at 11:26, idrewthehaggis said:

It has been discussed comprehensively on here.

The general opinion is that its would be detrimental to the game.

Which means it will be announced by the end of the week to Tina Turner and the applause of anyone who benefits.

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2 warning points:kolobok_dirol:  Non-Political

 

 

 

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14 minutes ago, Jughead said:

I think we have a wider range of people at games, certainly compared to some other sports, and we do have separate areas, whether pre-defined by clubs (like family stands) or created through peoples habits and natural movements, for people to congregate and take a game in how they wish to. Maybe we need to make a collective song and dance about different areas within a stadium and offer things in those areas that appeal to people there (there’s no real point doing happy hour on ale in a family stand, compared to behind the sticks). 

We've always had a a mixture of people at games, particularly in comparison to football. More women, families, older people alongside blokes. I do think that we struggled with teenagers and young adults though. 

Football however has kicked on massively in diversification. It has started to come closer to RL crowds with its female following in this country (aided by the growth in the womens game). It has more family friendly elements now than before. And RL has always seemed to struggle with racial diversity in its crowds too - football isn't brilliant in its walk up crowds, but in the broader population it is well over that. 

Equally as important is how football has also managed to diversify the economic background of its audience - something RL has almost completely failed to do.

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14 minutes ago, Tommygilf said:

Equally as important is how football has also managed to diversify the economic background of its audience - something RL has almost completely failed to do.

If you watch the Beebs sports news you'll know that RL is essentially invisible on the channel in spite of Aunty being one of our biggest partners.

You cannot, football could not, achieve any kind of diversity levels if it was largely discreet, unnoticable or as unobtrusive as RL is on the most popular news outlet in the country.

 

 

2 warning points:kolobok_dirol:  Non-Political

 

 

 

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On 05/05/2022 at 21:57, M j M said:

This cultural cringe some fans have, and their desperation to disassociate the sport from its reality, from its embarrassing unfashionable, non-affluent fan base, is a constant theme. And you seem willing to kill off a couple of clubs and destroy the integrity of the sport to achieve it.

Good point. The roots, the sense of place and belonging should never be dismissed. The cringe ah well, some of which deserves to go. I have no faint sentimentality for Wheldon Road's earthy proletarian spartan nature. Nor lads from Warrington or Salford recreating 1970s after the pubs shut fighting nor any daft glorification of poverty.

I am more in the Leninist camp that when we are victorious, gold will be used for the building of public toilets and RL stadiums as nothing should be too good for the masses. 

Ask Oxford. He knows.

The ethnic diversity of the crowds, probably reflects the diversity of the towns it is placed in.  It could and should do better though.

That assumes diversity is a shade of skin issue. RL has as long as I recall had great diversity of people whose heritage comes from Ireland or Poland for example. Perhaps again a reflection of where the Game is played.

RL has a fine reputation for challenging discrimination and acceptance, of inclusion in accepting diversity and being an equal opportunity employer. In other words, who ever you are, then if you are good enough, we don't care year lad and mam is.

Look for example the contrasting experiences of Jimmy Peters - one of the first black rugby players- from Salford-in Union and then League.

Edited by idrewthehaggis
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16 minutes ago, Oxford said:

You cannot, football could not, achieve any kind of diversity levels if it was largely discreet, unnoticable or as unobtrusive as RL is on the most popular news outlet in the country.

Excuses.

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Build a man a fire, and he'll be warm for a day. Set a man on fire, and he'll be warm for the rest of his life. (Terry Pratchett)

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18 minutes ago, idrewthehaggis said:

The ethnic diversity of the crowds, probably reflects the diversity of the towns it is placed in.  It could and should do better though.

They don't though, which is why it is worrying that the game's crowds are essentially stuck in the white and "working class", I believe C2DE is the more modern term, group that is on the decline in the "towns RL is placed in".

More absolutely needs to be done. There should be loads more Mikolaj Oledski's and going back way too far Ikram Butt's, in our sport. 

My brother and I have both played both codes of rugby with Eastern European and Asian lads, but they were few and far between considering the areas we played in. Likewise, the sport is no better than any other mature industry for having its old boys networks in place; knowing what scouts are where and which junior clubs are the ones to go to in order to get picked up by the pros and who's dad knows who. New people to the sport, which basically covers all immigrant families, do not have those connections or that knowledge. 

It is the same RL story of going to the same pool to fish for the same fish time and time again.

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2 hours ago, Toby Chopra said:

For me the biggest lesson of T20 - and more specifically franchise cricket like the IPL and (dons hard hat) The Hundred - is the borrowing of players from their existing clubs for a short period, and packaging them up and selling them to a new audience.

Could we even dream of trying something like that? 

I have no idea how it would work logistically and financially, but an evening of 9s RL involving a 3 team round-robin could make for a belting evening, especially if it contributed to a truncated league of some sort.

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