IMG Grading Unveiled

[Harry Stottle]

16 hours ago, GeordieSaint said:

The same argument has no doubt been spun for over a 125yrs. It’s not either or with tradition vs expansion. Both can be achieved by being done properly. The latter has never been done properly in the UK. 

Hi Geordie, what is properly? 

In my honest opinion, the game is generic you are brought up with it to back it, OK you will point out that there are many fans of the sport scattered about the country of which there is undoubtedly no question, but collectively in any particular location away from the "heartlands" to attract people in sufficient numbers to make the venture worthwhile, I doubt it.

There may have been a point in the 50's when sport was an incremental part of people's social life to expand RL, but the governing body chose not to and sit on it's laurels, today's modern world offers so much more  and so many alternatives and football seems to be King in all locations that it will always dominate.

I am really intrigued to know, how much you envisage it would cost to be as you say "done properly", where would you suggest to be a primary location(s).

I would love this fantastic sport of ours to be national, but after close on 130 years I honestly believe that boat has sailed and we have missed it, we can't do it all there is simply not enough money in the sport, that is why I say look to what we have and do our utmost to make it the best it can possibly be.

All just my opinion of course.

 

[north yorks trinity]

1 minute ago, gingerjon said:

And, just think, all the club had to do to avoid it was find maybe 3-4 more people to man the bars during the breaks.

So tell me more about the circumstances. May be they tried, maybe someone called in sick. If you have more specifics I'd be happy to hear them.

[gingerjon]

1 minute ago, north yorks trinity said:

So tell me more about the circumstances. May be they tried, maybe someone called in sick. If you have more specifics I'd be happy to hear them.

As a potential customer, let me just say, I don't really care.

The crowd is fantastic, I hope they get it again and again.

But if they do then they will need to be better at the rest of it. Not least because there's decent money to be made that way and if people decide that it's not worth the hassle then the club are missing out.

[Tommygilf]

5 hours ago, Liverpool Rover said:

I would say that a lot of teams in the RU Premiership aren't based in towns you associate with major pro sport either but With IMG on board to help build a fanbase one of the best ways is to create events that people want to go to and taking games to a bigger stadium and creating an event feel to it with bands etc is one way of doing that. This way you can market the game to RL & general sports fans who may fancy going to a game and at the same time market that other things will be going on to try to attract families who want a day out so you are targeting as wide a range of people as you can. I'm not sure I agree with teams not being big enough draws, I think most people won't really care where they are from if they produce a good game.

You say that, and whilst I agree its not for every club, but in their top flight(s) they do tend to have more clubs in the sorts of places BP is on about than we do. 

London x3, Bristol, Leicester along with Newcastle and arguably Manchester in the English Premiership, Cardiff, Swansea, Dublin, Edinburgh, Glasgow and Belfast covered in the URC too. 

By contrast, our top flight counts Leeds, Hull x2 and Salford (who seem happier as Salford not Manchester in a way Sale seem very much the opposite). I'd argue Salford's approach doesn't seem to be working and Hull is having to go through a massive image change to change certain negative perceptions of itself.

You don't need big cities of course, but it is generally easier to achieve more when there are more people to go at. Likewise, if RL was more popular in more cities and urban centres, then it would reciprocally become more popular in the heartlands as these places that are cultural leaders and exporters of people start to take RL with them.

I certainly think that if St Helens or Warrington for example are going to claim their wider counties of Merseyside and/or Cheshire in their catchment areas, then they better start doing something to warrant it. As you say that might involve taking 1 game a season to Liverpool for example to guarantee a big crowd each season to engage the wider diaspora of the fanbase regularly.

[Tommygilf]

14 minutes ago, north yorks trinity said:

So a club on the up has it's best day for some years with a great crowd, finds itself a bit overstretched as a result and we use people moaning about a cup of tea or a beer as stick to beat them with. This sums up a lot of the negative mentality holding us back.

On the up is relative clearly. 

Congrats on the crowd of course, and the result. It has exposed some shortcomings however. Whether they are dealt with or not is something Keighley will need to look at.

As GJ stated, this is great, but its non-league football levels. Its also exactly why IMG and the RFL are introducing grading that incorporates off field systems.

[north yorks trinity]

7 minutes ago, gingerjon said:

As a potential customer, let me just say, I don't really care.

The crowd is fantastic, I hope they get it again and again.

But if they do then they will need to be better at the rest of it. Not least because there's decent money to be made that way and if people decide that it's not worth the hassle then the club are missing out.

I completely agree with what you are saying and I hope the club receive the negative feedback and learn from it. They're a progressive thinking club so I suspect they will.

My frustration was the finding of a negative angle to a positive story.

[north yorks trinity]

4 minutes ago, Tommygilf said:

On the up is relative clearly. 

By definition, yes 

[Tommygilf]

4 minutes ago, north yorks trinity said:

I completely agree with what you are saying and I hope the club receive the negative feedback and learn from it. They're a progressive thinking club so I suspect they will.

My frustration was the finding of a negative angle to a positive story.

This is a thread about IMGs grading system, 75% of which is based on off field matters such as your stadium and Matchday.

Its a reminder that there is still a decent gulf between the SL and many Championship clubs as businesses.

[Mr Hicks]

I was at the Keighley v Bradford game yesterday. What a delight to see the ground 3/4 full. Temporary bars set up on all corners of the ground and by the look of the terraces after the game with empty beer glasses nobody went short of a drink.

Nearly 5,000 fans there. When did London achieve anywhere near that. People in the south have no interest in rugby league neither have Wales, Scotland or Ireland. Shame really as it would be great for the sport but it has been tried so many times sometimes you have to admit we tried but it failed.

Our sport is dying when you look back at crowds 50 years ago grounds were packed. 

When big derbies are played in any league they get big crowds. It's the so called fans who only go to those games where problems lie if they came every week the clubs would have so much capital to push the club forward.

Nobody can walk to a game anymore because most new grounds need a car to get there where as before people had a pint or 2 in the town then headed to the game.

It's all linked to the big clubs never having pressure on them and the smaller clubs chasing a dream that will never be reality. 

[Mr Hicks]

The Championship is also a lot more competitive league than Super League.

[north yorks trinity]

6 minutes ago, Tommygilf said:

This is a thread about IMGs grading system, 75% of which is based on off field matters such as your stadium and Matchday.

Its a reminder that there is still a decent gulf between the SL and many Championship clubs as businesses.

But there is a glaringly obvious reason for that. Money. My hope was that IMG would look for potential and help those clubs actively looking to help themselves in order that they become the best versions of themselves that they can be.

Wakefield are another good example of a club that are doing so much good work and in  my opinion have so much potential, but many seem to want us out of the top division largely because of our inability so far to attract a wealthy investor.

Edited March 27, 2023 by north yorks trinity
To highlight the bit I was replying to.

[Tommygilf]

8 minutes ago, north yorks trinity said:

But there is a glaringly obvious reason for that. Money. My hope was that IMG would look for potential and help those clubs actively looking to help themselves in order that they become the best versions of themselves that they can be.

Wakefield are another good example of a club that are doing so much good work and in  my opinion have so much potential, but many seem to want us out of the top division largely because of our inability so far to attract a wealthy investor.

Yet even then, Wakefield are a far more professional organisation than Keighley. Wakefield are an example of how even at the lower end of SL, the fully professional clubs are on a different level.

That's not a slight on Keighley, its just a fact of the system that compared to the 8 tiers of football for example, we put the same range of clubs into just 3. 

Its not impossible to change where you are, but saying this is us and we think its great probably won't get you anywhere either.

[Tommygilf]

13 minutes ago, Mr Hicks said:

The Championship is also a lot more competitive league than Super League.

Hasn't been for the past however many years with 2 divisions in 1 and usually only 1 or 2 clubs seriously vying for promotion based often on a massive (central) funding disparity.

But other than that yeah it is very competitive.

[Harry Stottle]

13 hours ago, NW10LDN said:

It's just wishful thinking. There are a lot more distractions these days and RL has to fight harder for its share. The sport can't survive by reverting back to the heartlands. It needs both.

Not enough money to do both NW.

[Tommygilf]

3 minutes ago, Harry Stottle said:

Not enough money to do both NW.

Then make the tough decisions and cut funding where it is being doubled up or oversaturated. That's when we'll know the heartlands are not being put first.

[Harry Stottle]

1 hour ago, gingerjon said:

That post reminds of a specific non league team locally that is somewhat infamous for doing everything on the cheap (aside, ironically, from paying some of its players). Its half time tea bar is a bloke with a kettle. If you're not in the queue for the first eight or so cups then you won't get a half time cuppa because he has to reboil the kettle.

That's down south for you, up here we would have two kettles and one would go on immediately one was taken off before making the cups, continuity sir.

[Route66]

38 minutes ago, Tommygilf said:

On the up is relative clearly. 

Congrats on the crowd of course, and the result. It has exposed some shortcomings however. Whether they are dealt with or not is something Keighley will need to look at.

As GJ stated, this is great, but its non-league football levels. Its also exactly why IMG and the RFL are introducing grading that incorporates off field systems.

Interesting comparison to non league football as well as town I also follow workington afc in the npl west and even at that level the crowds and facilities can be comparable to some championship and league 1 clubs, but the difference is there is a clear structure for progress hence Macclesfield can aim back for the football league on the strength of their performances on field.

[Tommygilf]

3 minutes ago, Route66 said:

Interesting comparison to non league football as well as town I also follow workington afc in the npl west and even at that level the crowds and facilities can be comparable to some championship and league 1 clubs, but the difference is there is a clear structure for progress hence Macclesfield can aim back for the football league on the strength of their performances on field.

Often forgotten however is that there are minimum standards in football. Very few clubs going for whatever level fail to meet them, but it does happen occasionally. 

Standards are higher throughout and there is more to go through as well so that your clubs at the level of Workington AFC aren't thinking they'll be in the premier league operating basically as they do now...

[Harry Stottle]

1 hour ago, Dave T said:

The constant claims of focusing on what we have, or the heartlands is tiring. 

The vast, vast majority of games, activity, development, money etc is spent on the heartland areas. 

The heartlands have never been neglected for a second. 

The top division of our sport is full of heartland clubs. 

We can do a hell of a lot more on expansion before there is any talk of doing enough, never mind too much. 

Go on then Dave, we are obviously poles apart in our thoughts, what is your expansion strategy, I have seen, heard and read loads of it over the years, I have seen many many  incarnations of new club's only to see them vanish as quickly as they have appeared, to quote you, I also find that tiring, like I asked Geordie where is your target locations in this country, I assume they would be in areas of large populations, but which of these are not football centric. 

[Harry Stottle]

1 hour ago, north yorks trinity said:

But there's too many people thinking it has to be either/or as witnessed by the criticism of Keighley above, when they have so much potential to develop further, just as Cornwall, Newcastle and London do too.

Absolutely love that word 'Potential' it just never seems to come to fruition.

[north yorks trinity]

16 minutes ago, Harry Stottle said:

Absolutely love that word 'Potential' it just never seems to come to fruition.

I understand your frustration but unless we simply accept that what we have is as good as it gets (and that of course is no guarantee that things can't decline) we have to assume there are areas of potential improvement and work on them. That's what I mean by potential.

[Harry Stottle]

1 hour ago, Tommygilf said:

As you say that might involve taking 1 game a season to Liverpool for example to guarantee a big crowd each season to engage the wider diaspora of the fanbase regularly.

But does Liverpool want RL?

Does Leeds really want RL Tommy?Without doubt our biggest populated centre that had not one but 3 teams in its locality and entrenched in the history of our game. The fact that only 1.5% of it's population and probably even less when the Metro is taken into consideration, and less further still if the away fans are included in the average figures, says that RL is not that popular with it's inhabitants, yes they may go on special occasions but evidently not regularly.

The whole idea to take the sport to areas with big populations (not just Liverpool) that have no connection with the sport and expand the game there and put roots down looks to me as money wasted.

Same question to you I have previously posed, where do you suggest we expand the game to in this country?

 

[Harry Stottle]

9 minutes ago, north yorks trinity said:

I understand your frustration but unless we simply accept that what we have is as good as it gets (and that of course is no guarantee that things can't decline) we have to assume there are areas of potential improvement and work on them. That's what I mean by potential.

Now those are your words not mine NYT, I have said in these threads look inwards and spend on making the heartlands as good and as strong as it can be, yes that means focusing on what we have.

[Harry Stottle]

13 minutes ago, north yorks trinity said:

I understand your frustration but unless we simply accept that what we have is as good as it gets (and that of course is no guarantee that things can't decline) we have to assume there are areas of potential improvement and work on them. That's what I mean by potential.

I believe there are loads of club's that can be improved and can benefit with a "good dose of attention" isn't that your view with Keighley?

[gingerjon]

22 minutes ago, Harry Stottle said:

The fact that only 1.5% of it's population ...

This is the benefit, of course, of bigger population centres.

You don't need to have such a massive hit rate to generate greater returns.