Where has the Fun gone?

[fighting irish]

8 minutes ago, GUBRATS said:

In the pubs it's the ones who don't go who whinge and moan , not the ones that do go 

I suspect that's true for a lot of them, (not really fans at all) but we've got more than our fair share of them in here. 

I just think we need new blood Gubrats, a joy transfusion. 

Edited June 20, 2022 by fighting irish

[GUBRATS]

48 minutes ago, Dave T said:

Apologies if I'm wrong, but I believe I am a fair bit younger than you Oxford, and I have a 6yr old who keeps me even younger even if my body is not quite so young! 

But one thing that is quite big in society at the moment is experiences - a lot of family fun experiences have emerged and appear to be doing really well. We're talking family festivals, drive thru cinemas, adventure golf, seasonal events (Halloween etc), pubs now are popping up offering beer pong, bowling, crazy golf in them, Bongo Bingo nights are huge, and so on.

I don't think the fun has left us, I think people are looking to have fun, they are just finding it elsewhere. People are out there spending money doing these things. I worry we aren't keeping up with the times. 

Lots of different ' experiences ' , but most are single time events , we don't work like that , do people attend a festival 15 times a year every other week ?

Its different , like the F1 argument , yes I've suggested to my son that I'd like to do Azerbaijan one day , no idea why , just seems to appeal , but will I do it every year ? No , will it make me want to go everywhere else watching F1 ? , Doubtful 

These are not like for like comparisons , ultimately in a sport like RL somebody wins and somebody loses pretty much every game , that is a fact , and generally people are happier when they are winning ( last year I attended nearly all Leigh's games , but like in 2005 I was already conditioned to the fact we would lose possibly every single game , I still enjoyed them , would I be happy for that to happen year on year ? , No ) attending something that isn't competitive is completely different , your mindset is different from the start , your emotional investment is completely different , if it was the same , I wouldn't be going in the first place , and neither would most if not all the others 

[fighting irish]

1 hour ago, Dave T said:

Warrington have done a fair bit of this over the years, a little sporadically though. Draper really kickstarted the fan engagement piece in earnest before he was moved on. 

For some reason, they have abandoned pretty much everything since the return from the pandemic, and we are seeing the results of that (our crowds were down prior to the bad results). 

I do think you are overstating the stick KF has received - I don't think anyone is moaning about face paint for kids, mascots and dancers. 

Why have they abandoned it all? 

[Dave T]

6 minutes ago, whatmichaelsays said:

I understand that F1 does almost all of its production in house with a single video feed (probably with some language variations) which is supplied to broadcasters, who can then either use their own commentary or use the international feed (which is the Sky Sports UK commentary). 

Most of the graphical elements are sponsored (the race data is sponsored by Amazon Web Services) so there is a commercial motive as well, but it's a clever way to keep users engaged throughout a long race. 

Other sports do similar with their TV presentation. Darts tries to build up anticipation for "9-darters" with their graphics whilst The Hundred, for all the stick it got from traditionalists, used a "bar chart" graphic to visualise run chases. I'm not sure what you do in RL really, because it's hard to predict so much of it (remember Phil Clarke's 'margin meter'?), but I'd like to see the sport try and make better use of stats and data. 

Funnily enough, RL and Sky has had some quite nice touches over the year that are now part of other sports and embraced well. 

Margin metre is effectively part of football in their xG star and their fans haven't hounded it out of the game. It is also a principle used in cricket with win likelihoods etc. It probably needed tweaking and a better presenter than Clarke, but it was a well thought out initiative. 

We used to have graphics that showed where teams scored their tries - it wasn't perfect, and maybe heat maps would have been better, but again, gone, when we see graphics like this in other sports now. 

We also used to have a lot of 'futuristic' graphics on the screen, which looks dated now, but more sports are filling their screen with garish graphics as ours has been stripped back and maybe looks done on the cheap. 

I would go as far as to say we were ahead of our time, we were almost the testing ground for many things (as well as nicknames, dancers, music after scores etc) in the UK, and others have run with them far better than we have and we now look like a cheap version. 

[Dave T]

4 minutes ago, GUBRATS said:

Lots of different ' experiences ' , but most are single time events , we don't work like that , do people attend a festival 15 times a year every other week ?

Its different , like the F1 argument , yes I've suggested to my son that I'd like to do Azerbaijan one day , no idea why , just seems to appeal , but will I do it every year ? No , will it make me want to go everywhere else watching F1 ? , Doubtful 

These are not like for like comparisons , ultimately in a sport like RL somebody wins and somebody loses pretty much every game , that is a fact , and generally people are happier when they are winning ( last year I attended nearly all Leigh's games , but like in 2005 I was already conditioned to the fact we would lose possibly every single game , I still enjoyed them , would I be happy for that to happen year on year ? , No ) attending something that isn't competitive is completely different , your mindset is different from the start , your emotional investment is completely different , if it was the same , I wouldn't be going in the first place , and neither would most if not all the others 

I'm not entirely sure of the point you are making. Whether something is a one-off or a weekly event it doesn't change whether you want to enjoy it or not and have fun. 

People who appear resistent seem to worry that it will affect the game or it is a slur that RL is not entertaining, that's not the point at all.

I was with 8 people at the game the other day - all have been to RL before. 5 left after the dancing and 2 left bored. It was an event for the purists, as per my opening post. 

That's fine for you and I, but we are a dying breed. 

[fighting irish]

2 minutes ago, GUBRATS said:

Lots of different ' experiences ' , but most are single time events , we don't work like that , do people attend a festival 15 times a year every other week ?

Its different , like the F1 argument , yes I've suggested to my son that I'd like to do Azerbaijan one day , no idea why , just seems to appeal , but will I do it every year ? No , will it make me want to go everywhere else watching F1 ? , Doubtful 

These are not like for like comparisons , ultimately in a sport like RL somebody wins and somebody loses pretty much every game , that is a fact , and generally people are happier when they are winning ( last year I attended nearly all Leigh's games , but like in 2005 I was already conditioned to the fact we would lose possibly every single game , I still enjoyed them , would I be happy for that to happen year on year ? , No ) attending something that isn't competitive is completely different , your mindset is different from the start , your emotional investment is completely different , if it was the same , I wouldn't be going in the first place , and neither would most if not all the others 

I agree with all of this Gubrats.

The question is, how do you (we) create the different mindset, the emotional investment? The fan who wants to be there come rain or shine, win or lose.

I suggest one of the best ways to inculcate that love of the game and in time, loyalty to a club and country, is to get the ball into the kids hands as early as possible.

If that effort is neglected, then it's no surprise that the average age of our fan base is increasing and the total numbers dwindling.

[Dave T]

6 minutes ago, fighting irish said:

Why have they abandoned it all? 

I can't speak for the club, but I expect it is a cost cutting measure. It is really noticeable how much they have cut back on. 

I don't know whether our owners' businesses have taken a huge hit during the last couple of years, but there has been a real streamlining of effort. 

[GUBRATS]

22 minutes ago, Dave T said:

Couple of things. It's a silly question that is unreasonable to ask as we can't answer that. These are private commercial clubs who have to manage their own finances and activity - but it is clear evidence that off-field improvements work - similar to those clubs who have seen big increases through facility improvements.

And of course a winning team are likely to drive bigger crowds - but whilst you can guarantee entertainment, you can't guarantee a winning team, so it is a riskier strategy.

Even when the Bulls were on their way down and losing, they were still a bigger club than pre-SL. 

It was losing hand over fist , it was a gamble , a roll of the dice , it failed 

[Dave T]

Just now, GUBRATS said:

It was losing hand over fist , it was a gamble , a roll of the dice , it failed 

But surely when they stopped it, and crowds were higher they just became a financial success, no? 

Or maybe its far more nuanced than that. 

[GUBRATS]

22 minutes ago, fighting irish said:

I suspect that's true for a lot of them, (not really fans at all) but we've got more than our fair share of them in here. 

I just think we need new blood Gubrats, a joy transfusion. 

I'm very happy , but then again my team is winning , following weekly a team sport , usually one you have some connection with ( locality ) involves emotional investment and attachment , Bongo's bingo doesn't involve that , neither does beer pong , crazy golf , watching ####### darts or even F1 , certainly watching Edd Sheeran or Kylie Minogue doesn't although I'd like to do both 

Its different , it's meant to make you unhappy sometimes , it's meant to be frustrating sometimes , it's not meant to always be FUN , otherwise there isn't any point in going

[Dave T]

1 minute ago, GUBRATS said:

I'm very happy , but then again my team is winning , following weekly a team sport , usually one you have some connection with ( locality ) involves emotional investment and attachment , Bongo's bingo doesn't involve that , neither does beer pong , crazy golf , watching ####### darts or even F1 , certainly watching Edd Sheeran or Kylie Minogue doesn't although I'd like to do both 

Its different , it's meant to make you unhappy sometimes , it's meant to be frustrating sometimes , it's not meant to always be FUN , otherwise there isn't any point in going

It is clear you are unable to think of anythibg other than the sport. This thread isn't about the sport. 

The non-sporting experience in the ground is never, ever meant to be frustrating, so tbh, your posts make literally no sense as you are talking about something not relevant here. 

[GUBRATS]

19 minutes ago, Dave T said:

I'm not entirely sure of the point you are making. Whether something is a one-off or a weekly event it doesn't change whether you want to enjoy it or not and have fun. 

People who appear resistent seem to worry that it will affect the game or it is a slur that RL is not entertaining, that's not the point at all.

I was with 8 people at the game the other day - all have been to RL before. 5 left after the dancing and 2 left bored. It was an event for the purists, as per my opening post. 

That's fine for you and I, but we are a dying breed. 

Did they have a genuine emotional attachment to the participants ? , If it had been Australia England we're playing , would they have stayed ? , Would the whole atmosphere have been different ? 

[Dave T]

1 minute ago, GUBRATS said:

Did they have a genuine emotional attachment to the participants ? , If it had been Australia England we're playing , would they have stayed ? , Would the whole atmosphere have been different ? 

Are you leading us to a place where we just have 30 England v Aus games a year? 

[GUBRATS]

22 minutes ago, fighting irish said:

I agree with all of this Gubrats.

The question is, how do you (we) create the different mindset, the emotional investment? The fan who wants to be there come rain or shine, win or lose.

I suggest one of the best ways to inculcate that love of the game and in time, loyalty to a club and country, is to get the ball into the kids hands as early as possible.

If that effort is neglected, then it's no surprise that the average age of our fan base is increasing and the total numbers dwindling.

While I agree about participation levels need improving , it has IMO be bearing on watching numbers 

[whatmichaelsays]

1 hour ago, GUBRATS said:

Lots of different ' experiences ' , but most are single time events , we don't work like that , do people attend a festival 15 times a year every other week ?

Its different , like the F1 argument , yes I've suggested to my son that I'd like to do Azerbaijan one day , no idea why , just seems to appeal , but will I do it every year ? No , will it make me want to go everywhere else watching F1 ? , Doubtful 

These are not like for like comparisons , ultimately in a sport like RL somebody wins and somebody loses pretty much every game , that is a fact , and generally people are happier when they are winning ( last year I attended nearly all Leigh's games , but like in 2005 I was already conditioned to the fact we would lose possibly every single game , I still enjoyed them , would I be happy for that to happen year on year ? , No ) attending something that isn't competitive is completely different , your mindset is different from the start , your emotional investment is completely different , if it was the same , I wouldn't be going in the first place , and neither would most if not all the others 

I think what we're talking about here isn't the person who is going to turn up 15 times a season, but instead the people who might decide to "give RL a go", maybe turn up once, giving the sport an opportunity to convert that one visit into maybe three a year, five a year and, if we're really fortunate, 10-15 visits a year. And it's those audiences to whom the whole idea of "putting on an experience" is really important.

We've done this line of discussion before, but you and I as RL purists are more than catered for, and it's very easy for us to spend our cash on RL. But there aren't enough of us. We need to widen the net and it starts, in my view, by encouraging those groups for whom a day at RL is a "one off event" in the same way that a day at the cricket, a day at the trampoline park, an evening at the cinema, a theatre weekend, an afternoon at indoor golf or a night at bingo bongo is also a "one off event" - all things that RL is competing with when it comes to attracting the casual leisure dollar. 

Like I said earlier, if I try and take the family to an RL game, only for my son to get bored and for my wife to spend ages queuing for the toilet, what chance have I convincing them to go again? That's two potential supporters lost and, even if those supporters only attend two or three games a year, it's money being left on the table. 

You might dismiss all of that and argue that trying to attract those audiences is too expensive, too difficult or not worth the effort, but where does that leave us? Just trying to manage the decline with falling commercial and TV revenue, falling crowds and declines in participation? 

As for whether BullMania was washing it's face, it really does depend on how you want to measure it because there are both tangible and intangible ways to measure it. 

I'm sure the Bulls at the time will have known what their margin was on event days (I've neither the time or inclination to look through their accounts) so the leadership at the time will know if there is a direct ROI in ticket sales. What I think we can fairly say is that summer rugby, of which the Bulls were very much at the forefront of, massively changed the perception of the sport and that perception shift saw growth in crowds, media coverage, commercial income (we started attracting sponsors from industries like financial services, aviation, retail, education, automotive - not just booze, fags and bookies) and TV revenue across the board. I would say that in TV revenue alone, that change in perception delivered an ROI and to that end, it's hard to argue against the role that things like BullMania played. 

The financial issues at the Bulls were multiple and I don't think it's evidence that their marketing efforts in the early years of SL were a failure. The cost of maintaining Odsal was a huge millstone, the struggles to redevelop it into something more modern and sustainable, the sale of the Odsal lease and the resulting decision by their bank to call in their overdraft, the legal saga over Harris, the decision to cut investment in their matchday experience and move to a cheap ticket model and the decline in fortunes on the field that coincided with that - all of those elements came together to start the ball rolling on where they are today. I don't think it's accurate to say that it's evidence that BullMania failed or that investing in matchday experience is a folly. 

Edited June 20, 2022 by whatmichaelsays

[fighting irish]

7 minutes ago, Dave T said:

I can't speak for the club, but I expect it is a cost cutting measure. It is really noticeable how much they have cut back on. 

I don't know whether our owners' businesses have taken a huge hit during the last couple of years, but there has been a real streamlining of effort. 

This is a real problem.

Proving the causal relationship between these initiatives and increased spectator numbers is at the heart of it.

If it works, great.

Next question is how long does it take for the extra expense, to generate sufficient increases in income to pay for it?

A profitable business can accept lower profits (due to marketing expense) with the intention of building better brand awareness, which should translate to more fans, more sponsorship, more income.

My question is how long do we need to wait, to ''invest'' before we get the return to cover the cost of doing it, in the first place. The first goal is to match the ongoing expenditure, then to pay back the original ''loss leader investment''.

One year? Two, Ten or Twenty-five? If you were the owner, where would you draw the line?

How long would you be prepared to ''feed the machine'' before demanding a payback?

Whatever your answer, isn't it true that, in the long term, unless the money comes back in then the whole exercise has been pointless.

If we can't answer that question or estimate with an acceptable variation, how long we will have to wait, then how can we confidently embark on these ideas in the first place?

I'm sure IMG will have made these calculations and be confident of an acceptable return, in a reasonable timescale, or they wouldn't have got involved with us, in the first place. 

 

[GUBRATS]

32 minutes ago, Dave T said:

 

People who appear resistent seem to worry that it will affect the game or it is a slur that RL is not entertaining, that's not the point at all.

 

Resistant ? , To what ? , I'm not resistant to anything , I question the impact and benefit it will make 

As I said I've suggested loads of stuff over the years ( mostly for the lower tiers ) that clubs should do ,  it isn't an accident that Batley is the away fans favourite trip in the Championship , something Barrow are working towards ( I was genuinely disappointed I couldn't go a couple of weeks back ) and other clubs should do , IMO best ideas should be shared , but as we know all clubs are different , facilities are different , what you can and cannot do are different , and nothing I've ever suggested is a magic bullet , that doesn't exist , in fact Bradford proved that very point 

It requires hard work , an open mind , seeing a ' bigger picture ' of what the future can be , and quite often clubs are too much in the here and now , that's why as I posted earlier , it should be outsourced , and combined , but it also needs to feed the emotional attachment to clubs , the longer between drinks the sweeter it tastes when it happens , as we sometimes see , drinking too often takes away the ' FUN ' , you among us all should know that Dave 

[Harry Stottle]

1 hour ago, Dave T said:

And of course a winning team are likely to drive bigger crowds - but whilst you can guarantee entertainment, you can't guarantee a winning team, so it is a riskier strategy.

Yes exactly, but I will not be dissuaded from the fact that the successful on field period of domination was the driving factor in the success of Bullmania, whilst you highlight a third placing before and after the successful period it comes nowhere near what they acheived in that euphoric few years.

Edited June 20, 2022 by Harry Stottle

[Dave T]

44 minutes ago, Harry Stottle said:

Yes exactly, but I will not be dissuaded from the fact that the successful on field period of domination was the driving factor in the success of Bullmania, whilst you highlight a third placing before and after the successful period it comes nowhere near what they acheived in that euphoric few years.

I suggest nobody can come up with similar increases solely due to on-field success. 

In fact, some teams have seen winning teams deliver next to no uplift. 

Do you know what Bradford's crowds increased to when they won the league prior to SL? 

Edited June 20, 2022 by Dave T

[Tommygilf]

2 minutes ago, Dave T said:

I suggest nobody can come up with similar increases solely due to on-field success. 

In fact, some teams have seen winning teams deliver next to no uplift. 

Exactly, see Huddersfield.

[fighting irish]

49 minutes ago, GUBRATS said:

................ but it also needs to feed the emotional attachment to clubs , the longer between drinks the sweeter it tastes when it happens , as we sometimes see , drinking too often takes away the ' FUN ' , you among us all should know that Dave 

WTF is this supposed to mean?

46 minutes ago, Harry Stottle said:

Yes exactly, but I will not be dissuaded from the fact that the successful on field period of domination was the driving factor in the success of Bullmania, whilst you highlight a third placing before and after the successful period it comes nowhere near what they acheived in that euphoric few years.

Come on Harry, if the only way we can increase crowds is by winning the GF or Challenge Cup, the game is doomed. We might as well shut up shop now and go home, because only one(or two) teams a year can grow and then (if they don't win again next year) shrink back down to subsistence levels. God help us Harry, is that the best you've got?

[Dave T]

Bradford won the league in 1981. 

They averaged 5.9k.

The next time they won the league was 1997. They averaged 14.3k.

[Tommygilf]

4 minutes ago, Dave T said:

Bradford won the league in 1981. 

They averaged 5.9k.

The next time they won the league was 1997. They averaged 14.3k.

bUt It WaS jUsT bEcAuSe ThEy WeRe WiNnINg!

[Dave T]

13 minutes ago, fighting irish said:

WTF is this supposed to mean?

Come on Harry, if the only way we can increase crowds is by winning the GF or Challenge Cup, the game is doomed. We might as well shut up shop now and go home, because only one(or two) teams a year can grow and then (if they don't win again next year) shrink back down to subsistence levels. God help us Harry, is that the best you've got?

I took Harry's comment to be reference to Wire and not enjoying it despite winning. And that is sort of my point. It can't all be about the on field stuff. The window dressing is part of the product imho. 

[GUBRATS]

16 minutes ago, Dave T said:

I suggest nobody can come up with similar increases solely due to on-field success. 

In fact, some teams have seen winning teams deliver next to no uplift. 

Do you know what Bradford's crowds increased to when they won the league prior to SL? 

Bradford was a combination , the whole ' package ' individually it wouldn't have worked , which showed once one part disappeared the other wasn't sustainable on its own , for it to continue required success on and off the field , which we all know doesn't happen