Quote ="Donnyman"Thanks for such a well thought out interesting post, points of respectful disagreement are as follows.
1. Don't we have to "Play each other more" to meet the demands of a. club income targets and b. SKY TV schedules running from late February to early October. The simple solution could be a 14 club League, they could have perhaps retained London and and brought Mr. Beaumont's Leigh in with TWP. Do you advocate this or are you looking at New York and Ottawa?? Whichever way to do this where do we get the 60 players required??
'"
We only have to do that if you subscribe to a zero-growth mentality. The argument for loop fixtures only stands to scrutiny if you genuinely believe that every club has maximised its potential in terms of how much revenue if can generate from matchday and non matchday sources. I don't think they have.
I personally don't think a 14 team league is the right approach. I don't think the talent pool is there to create an intensity of competition. I would rather a 12 team competition, with Magic Weekend, and space carved into the league calendar for rest periods for the players, possible representative events and, personally, I think we should explore a Nines event to try and appeal to new audiences.
Quote 2. You say [i"there;s so much more clubs can do"[/i but you don't say exactly what they can do and how this would work. Some of the bigger clubs actually have very smart marketing departments, Mr. Hetherington certainly heads one at Leeds. What is it that Mr. Hetherington and his staff are not doing that would (a) bring the new fans in?? and that (b) could be copied by such as Wakefield and Castleford??'"
I wouldn't personally say Leeds are that good, but they're better than most in RL. The work they've done on matchday experience is definitely a step in the right direction.
As for what clubs can do, there's an awful lot in my view that needs to change both at club and governing body level, but the clubs have to grasp the nettle.
I was at a conference earlier this year where the marketing director at a Premier League football club was taking about the challenges that they faced and how they solved them. Now, before anyone sees the phrase "Premier League football club" and starts rolling their eyes and saying RL can't do that sort of thing, there were two things about what he said that were very striking:
1. The problems they faced were very similar to the problems facing RL. They had an ageing fan base, they had a fan base concentrated in one of the poorer parts of the UK. They had an ageing stadium, empty seats and they had a culture in the marketing team that they couldn't achieve regular sell-outs. They also had an under-achieving team and were the 'second' sporting team in their particular area. All issues that many RL clubs face.
2. The solutions to a these issues were not particuarly difficult, and certainly not expensive, to implement.
They did a lot of analysis of their supporter base - looking carefully at the data behind who they are, their supporting habits, what they bought and what they didn't buy, and they changed the mentality that a 'supporter' was only worthwhile to them if they bought a season ticket. They now know more about their fans than they ever did, they know when and where they are likely to 'drop off', they cater their offering to each and every supporter and they make it easy for people who don't or can't go to the games to buy into the club. The only "expense" behind this was some time spent with their CRM system.
They addressed the ageing fan base issue through little more than community marketing and matchday experience. They made the players accessible to young fans and they ran community events - stuff that all RL clubs do to some extent. But they also improved the matchday experience for younger fans - made it more kid friendly, gave every new junior season ticket holder a "debut season" gift pack and held events where they could play on the pitch after the last game of the season - all fairly easy and cheap stuff to do, but something that means the world to those kids.
They've gone from having just one sell-out game a year to having an 11,000+ season ticket waiting list within the space of five years, and they now have the youngest average season ticket holder age in the PL.
Clearly, there are various other factors at play, but even if RL clubs could get the 'cheap stuff', like the stuff mentioned above, right then they and the game would be in a much better position. The problems RL faces in the modern sports market aren't particuarly unique - it's just the way in which the sport tries to fix them.
I look at and here regular complaints from people in the media and from sponsors about the treatment they get from RL clubs, and it's no suprise that we are where we are. Brian Carney spoke on a podcast last year about how difficult Sky find it to get clubs to grant access to players - his accusation was that some clubs were all nicey nicey with Sky until the cheque cleared, and then they practically ignored them. This is our main media partner, and we're treating them like this? That has to stop.
Quote 3. I understand a Wakefield fan is worth around 14 admission prices into Belle Vue a year and a Salford fan worth one, but this ducks the issue. I am talking about the thousands of away fans from Castleford, Huddersfield, Hull.K.R. Salford and Bradford who would buy tickets to go to Belle vue once or maybe twice a season. Let me estimate that at 10,000 fans at an income for the club of £20 - income lost = £200,000 if these clubs didn't visit and instead North American clubs came without fans. '"
That again, only assumes that you cannot replace some of those missing away fans with locals. Read [url=https://www.mirror.co.uk/sport/rugby-league/behind-scenes-look-warrington-wolves-20971324this insight into Warrington's marketing approach[/url, because they believe that they can replace those away fans with locals. They don't use away fans as an excuse and I think that's the right approach.
Quote 4. Let me suggest that IF north American clubs came into SL to replace M62 clubs home support would be lost as well. If Hull average 10,000 home fans and as per their poll 8,000 of them are not impressed by the idea of losing Cas, Wakey, Huddersfield, Salford and epecially HKR and not seeing Bradford ever again but instead having to watch the SAME players only wearing North American shirts a good number of them would fall off watching the game. '"
There's no evidence to suggest that this would play out as you describe. There is, however, evidence that fans are bored of seeing the same fixtures time and time again. Without checking the stats, haven't Toronto provided the biggest crowd of the season at most UK grounds they've played at?
Quote You say some fans want the traditional game and some want the transatlantic game. It appears on that first ever poll 80% want the traditional game? I fear a large part of that of those very real 8,000 Hull fans who want to keep the game along the M62 would be most upset and many would walk. Your bottom line is to [i"adapt to the modern realities of professional sport"[/i but again you do not say what this adaptation would involve? We cannot move forward on a slogan? What is the business plan??'"
If I'm thinking about the same polls, these are online polls by LRL and/or the Hull Daily Mail, right? If so, take those with a pinch of salt. Online polls are almost always self-selecting (I'd say HKR fans are probably going to feel more threatended by expansion clubs, so of course they'll vote disproportionately for anti-expansion options), easily manipulated and far too simplistic to provide a true picture of public opinion. I've only got my own anecdotal evidence but, when you come out of the echo chamber of various groups, I'd say the pro/anti expansion debate is more evenly split.
The modern realities of sport is that we have to find new generations of supporters, we have to attract new sponsors and we have to increase our profile to do that.
It means improving matchday experience. People expect more from their £25-30 ticket than just "a game and go home". Yes, you and I might just want that, but we're the dying breed on this one. Look at how other sports put on an event, put on a show, put on an experience, and RL just looks, well, dated in comparison.
It means making it easy for people to buy this sport. Particuarly with a sport that has such poor geographic reach, RL has to work out how to appeal to people beyond the M62. Supporters can be supporters without buying a ticket to the game, and the game can turn those people into a revenue stream, but it's incredibly poor at it.
When it comes to appealing to new, younger audiences, RL really has struggled to understand how social media in particular has changed the game. We can't just keep relying on dads dragging their kids to the ground - we need to focus on how to engage those people. For me, that means making this sport somewhere where the stars can shine. The biff and barge has limited appeal and the game needs to adapt to give the superstars the opportunity to create those moments that go viral on social media. Cricket has done this with Twenty20, darts puts huge emphasis on the "9 darter" because those moments get shared again and again.
Is any of this going to be easy? No, it's not supposed to be easy. But it's the reality we're now in.
