Can IMG make Rugby League into a more successful sport?

[GUBRATS]

1 hour ago, Honor James said:

I have always been wary of the idea that, above all, Rugby League needs to `get bigger', 'do X to grow'. `do Y to grow' etc. ad nauseum.

What is wrong with being `small' so long as your `small' is sustainable?

Diamonds are generally on the small side, glass baubles can be considerably bigger but who (with any brain at all) would swap even a small diamond for a big glass bauble?

Or, to put that another way: Rugby League is a bit like caviar; you don't need much of it to realise that once acquired, it is a taste you will always prefer to the ordinary.

[steve oates]

7 hours ago, Dave T said:

Your posts are without any logic, creative thinking, or anything really - they simply amount to "heartlands, heartlands, heartlands". 

There is no need to be so rude Dave. It is logical to support the game heavily where it works.

It is illogical to spend £Millions on the game where it hasn't worked for the last 122 years when our M62 clubs need every penny available to them as SKY drop the deals.  

In the last 4 years player participation has bombed from 72K to 45K  as such we cannot spend a penny trying to get people to play the game where it is not played, we have to shore up the grass roots here in Yorkshire & Lancashire.

We can't be spending anything to try to get people to watch new clubs in new areas when the TV deal is falling and real clubs who are responsible for getting the SKY deal need every penny.  We can't give it away on a dream. Get real my friend........  You are right it IS Heartlands, Heartlands, Heartlands.......

[steve oates]

1 hour ago, Honor James said:

I have always been wary of the idea that, above all, Rugby League needs to `get bigger', 'do X to grow'. `do Y to grow' etc. ad nauseum. What is wrong with being `small' so long as your `small' is sustainable?

Nothing as far as I can see and we have done small for most of our history.   It's really up to those who want to spend monies on "expansion" to come up with how they would justify that in front of a panel of Superleague Chairmen who unlike them actually do sink their own monies into the game 

[Guest]

1 hour ago, Honor James said:

I have always been wary of the idea that, above all, Rugby League needs to `get bigger', 'do X to grow'. `do Y to grow' etc. ad nauseum.

What is wrong with being `small' so long as your `small' is sustainable?

Diamonds are generally on the small side, glass baubles can be considerably bigger but who (with any brain at all) would swap even a small diamond for a big glass bauble?

Or, to put that another way: Rugby League is a bit like caviar; you don't need much of it to realise that once acquired, it is a taste you will always prefer to the ordinary.

Because your small isn't sustainable. Union has bigger crowds overall and a lot more funding and even they had to cut funding for the lower tiers and community clubs. Rugby League isn't a diamond. That would be fair comparison if you were talking about the NRL. This attitude here is unfortunately the view of a lot of rugby league fans and why the sport will continue to decline. It won't even be the diamond in its own heartlands.

[Dave T]

27 minutes ago, steve oates said:

There is no need to be so rude Dave. It is logical to support the game heavily where it works.

It is illogical to spend £Millions on the game where it hasn't worked for the last 122 years when our M62 clubs need every penny available to them as SKY drop the deals.  

In the last 4 years player participation has bombed from 72K to 45K  as such we cannot spend a penny trying to get people to play the game where it is not played, we have to shore up the grass roots here in Yorkshire & Lancashire.

We can't be spending anything to try to get people to watch new clubs in new areas when the TV deal is falling and real clubs who are responsible for getting the SKY deal need every penny.  We can't give it away on a dream. Get real my friend........  You are right it IS Heartlands, Heartlands, Heartlands.......

We are spending all of our money on the heartlands. The results are as you quoted in your post. 

[Damien]

I'd love to know what all this mythical money that has been spent outside the heartlands is. The vast majority of any income the game gets stays in Lancashire and Yorkshire, and small parts of it at that.

Edited July 12, 2022 by Damien

[gingerjon]

1 hour ago, NW10LDN said:

Because your small isn't sustainable. 

And never was.

There have never been enough players in the heartlands to keep rugby league going.

Those scouts weren't encouraging shamateur Welshies to go north out of pity for poor mining villages in Glamorgan - they did so because the lads playing union were better than the options the heartlands were producing.

[Oxford]

There are certain things here that serve no purpose in this debate.

The downsizing seems to be on the cards. It is being portrayed as an essential part of the IMG processes and for achieving their goals.

One issue with this will be the cutting of some clubs adrift.

Past failures or successes are completely irrelevant.

This will, in all likelihood, mean RL with an even smaller geographical footprint.

Whether this step will then be followed by expansion of any kind is mere hearsay.

I am concerned that this may end up putting us somewhere weaker and completely unable to even recover where we were before the IMG process began.

[Guest]

42 minutes ago, Oxford said:

There are certain things here that serve no purpose in this debate.

The downsizing seems to be on the cards. It is being portrayed as an essential part of the IMG processes and for achieving their goals.

One issue with this will be the cutting of some clubs adrift.

Past failures or successes are completely irrelevant.

This will, in all likelihood, mean RL with an even smaller geographical footprint.

Whether this step will then be followed by expansion of any kind is mere hearsay.

I am concerned that this may end up putting us somewhere weaker and completely unable to even recover where we were before the IMG process began.

RFL are insisting on the 2x10 and no licensing. Whoever spends the most next year will get in which is a ludicrous plan. No relegation will only work if you have the best run clubs with the biggest growth potential in there. The sport will be smaller regardless of what plan they go for and I suspect the same people will still be wondering in 10 years why things haven't changed. IMG may find the task impossible. Sadly, they'll be plenty of people within rugby league who will be happy for the sport to remain insular.

[Oxford]

3 minutes ago, NW10LDN said:

RFL are insisting on the 2x10 and no licensing. Whoever spends the most next year will get in which is a ludicrous plan. No relegation will only work if you have the best run clubs with the biggest growth potential in there. The sport will be smaller regardless of what plan they go for and I suspect the same people will still be wondering in 10 years why things haven't changed. IMG may find the task impossible. Sadly, they'll be plenty of people within rugby league who will be happy for the sport to remain insular.

This 2x 10 model was hangung round long before the IMG announcement. If it becomes their model then I suspect very strongly who they've listened to.

As you say it seems a ridiculous and ill thought out plan.

The sport will end up smaller not because IMG came up with this but some clubs who feel it won't mean them and who will benefit afterwards.

This is the epitome of the small and short sighted thinking that has riddled the sport.

Being insular seems to be a English disease at present and is neither a good look nor anything  like a a plan for the future of the game.

[Dallas Mead]

4 hours ago, GUBRATS said:

Jaysus

[Tommygilf]

15 hours ago, gingerjon said:

Pretty much everything.

And any attitude that suggests it's fine is on a par with people who get annoyed when their favourite band gets popular.

Every single problem the sport faces, from declining player base to having no money, has at its root cause the small size of the sport.

[Dave T]

5 minutes ago, Tommygilf said:

Every single problem the sport faces, from declining player base to having no money, has at its root cause the small size of the sport.

Nope. Small size of the sport is an outcome, not a cause. 

[steve oates]

10 hours ago, NW10LDN said:

RFL are insisting on the 2x10 and no licensing. Whoever spends the most next year will get in which is a ludicrous plan. No relegation will only work if you have the best run clubs with the biggest growth potential in there. The sport will be smaller regardless of what plan they go for and I suspect the same people will still be wondering in 10 years why things haven't changed. IMG may find the task impossible. Sadly, they'll be plenty of people within rugby league who will be happy for the sport to remain insular.

No there won't? Why would they be happy with failure??

Maybe you got excited when RP London, self proclaimed as an expert business consultant himself, said IMG would grow and grow revenues (he then disappeared). Just what some people want to hear so it get's them going and anyone rightly sceptical, based on the payment by results only IMG deal, gets this "Your Insular" stuff thrown at them. 

You talk about the "Best run clubs with the biggest growth potential" yourself, but perhaps you can explain what "growth" any of these clubs can achieve and exactly how, when SKY decide to drop the TV money and when playing numbers also drop, a situation Soccer and RU are in - so this is social change not mismanagement from the SL/RFL. You can't make people play Rugby or Soccer. You can't make wealthy people choose to back RL clubs.

So the plan is 2x10 and when you look at the clubs who are currently "top twenty" on the league tables they include all of the Superleague clubs plus the bigger clubs with superleague experience like Widnes and Bradford, and clubs like Leigh and York who have in recent years built towards Superleague.

This is all down to that massive TV deal we got when large amounts of money were paid to us by SKY and shared game wide, when BT were looking for content themselves and became a threat to SKY. SKY are no longer threatened by this.

So with respect, in your mind it's down to "insular people in Rugby League" whom I have never met in all my time following the game. We all want to see the game spread and grow, and we have over the years backed such projects from Wales to Kent, and Cornwall to Newcastle, with hope and excitement. Where we go wrong is we tend to get overexcited on each new initiative, in which many are just pie in the sky vanity projects.....

[gingerjon]

11 minutes ago, Dave T said:

Nope. Small size of the sport is an outcome, not a cause. 

It can be both.

Like a circle.

Because we are small we do not have the resources to put in place our good ideas in a way that means we will grow and so we stay small or get smaller and because we are small we do not have the ...

[RP London]

10 minutes ago, steve oates said:

Maybe you got excited when RP London, self proclaimed as an expert business consultant himself, said IMG would grow and grow revenues (he then disappeared).

oh do grow up, i've not proclaimed anything about myself and I've hardly disappeared, I've just got better things to do than repeat myself to someone who cannot be bothered to see the hand on the end of their arm!

[Dallas Mead]

1 hour ago, Dave T said:

Nope. Small size of the sport is an outcome, not a cause. 

Nope.  We STAY small because we ARE small, in exposure, in money, in playing numbers, in attendances, in aspirations……

[Dave T]

59 minutes ago, gingerjon said:

It can be both.

Like a circle.

Because we are small we do not have the resources to put in place our good ideas in a way that means we will grow and so we stay small or get smaller and because we are small we do not have the ...

The problem is that AFL has a small geographic footprint but does well for itself within its boundaries. 

Similar to GAA sports although I don't know much about them, so open to challenge. 

Things can be small and successful (which I think was part of Honor's point). 

The other problem is that 'small' is not a measurable term. 

[Dave T]

11 minutes ago, Dallas Mead said:

Nope.  We STAY small because we ARE small, in exposure, in money, in playing numbers, in attendances, in aspirations……

I mean that doesn't even mean anything. 

Things can and do grow all the time. 

If people are saying the root cause of being small is that we are small, then they are literally saying there is no hope for growth. 

[gingerjon]

8 minutes ago, Dave T said:

If people are saying the root cause of being small is that we are small, then they are literally saying there is no hope for growth. 

I mean that's literally what Steve and Honor are saying.

[Dave T]

1 minute ago, gingerjon said:

I mean that's literally what Steve and Honor are saying.

And Dallas. 

But yes, I disagree with them. It's why I'm challenging that being small isn't the root cause. 

[Tommygilf]

1 hour ago, Dave T said:

Nope. Small size of the sport is an outcome, not a cause. 

Outcomes can of course be causes for other things. 

I stand by it though, the size of the sport is a critical underpinning factor in most of the problems we face.

[idrewthehaggis]

Small? Yes or no.

UK Handball. hockey; both ice and field; basketball, lacrosse, speedway and swimming would love to have the publicity, attendances and money that RL has.

But in comparison to football, that other code and maybe cricket, it is smaller.

There are plenty of examples of sports which have an internal coherence and confidence that are successful and do not need to big to be so.

I think GAA, German handball, Czech ice hockey and so on.

That coherence seems to be lacking in our Game. 

I would disagree that the Game can not expand. SRD are a mid sized club who have shown that they can be competitive and successful.

I can imagine SRD sized clubs could exist outside the Heartland. London, Newcastle or Avignon. 

Edited July 13, 2022 by idrewthehaggis

[Oxford]

All of RL's efforts to grow have had limited effect, mostly.

The link between this and investment in the game is tenuous to say the least.

The link between investment in any sport and it's media acceptance and coverage is written in cement.

The legacy media in London is'nt recognising market forces by ignoring RL it's been writing the rule book on who can and who won't be included and defines the limits of their inclusion.

Media defines and promotes sports it finds acceptable and their coverage is not simply related to popularity.

Their attitudes are about them so they're happy to keep RL sidelined. Comparing RL to sports with less coverage does not help.

 

 

 

[Dave T]

1 hour ago, Tommygilf said:

Outcomes can of course be causes for other things. 

I stand by it though, the size of the sport is a critical underpinning factor in most of the problems we face.

I don't disagree on your first line, but that's not really a root cause. You can't fix being small by just becoming bigger. You have to look at the root cause which is that we have poor leadership and strategy to be able to become bigger. 

If you want to identify the root cause so you can make changes to it, highlighting an outcome isn't necessarily helpful. 

Other sports are small and don't have some of the challenges we have. Or alternatively, have different aims than us. 

And one thing that should be challenged is the constant narrative that we have no money. We are a sport that is playing around with investment worth hundreds of millions of quid - we do have money, maybe we aren't spending it as well as we can.