But people aren't going to buy a product just because you are honest about it being . In fact 2 hat you are describing is the antithesis of marketing. It is antimarketing. If Cas v Salford isn't and isn't ever going to be a big game then it shouldn't be an SL game. Having a game that isn't elite in an elite league damages the competition.



Leeds Rhinos cannot and do not operate in a vacuum. They cannot charge premium prices when everyone else around them is selling it as a bargain basement deal.

you say pricing needs to be affordable and We need to be the elite sport for the North of England. Yet you also state that despite cheap tickets we can't sell out Wembley. We cannot sell out an elite sport at a cheap price because people know that a elite does not come cheap.


A guy meets you in the street, offers to sell you a rolex for a fiver. It's not got its proper box and has some cheap looking packaging do you buy it and get it insured and make sure you take care of it and treat it as a treasured possession? No because you know rolex watches don't cost 5 pounds and they aren't presented in cheap packaging. Best case scenario you buy it and treat it as disposable and unimportant, worst case you don't buy it because you aren't desperate for a watch and even 5 pound is a waste if it turns out to be as crap as you expect a 5 pound knock off to be.

I'm not stating that we can simply market the product ad premium and raise prices. I'm saying we sell a premium product at a premium price.

Our product isn't simply 26 men on the field. It's everything surrounding it. We don't just need improved junior development, we need bigger better stadiums with better more modern facilities, we need a better match day experience, We need better marketing, we need a better image, we need higher visibility.

None of those things can or will be achieved by lowering prices.

the product we are selling is soooooo much bigger than the 26 men we have on the field.

I can watch a better RL game, played by better players and better athletes for a few pounds a month in the NRL premier sport. I can watch it on a big fancy LCD TV. I can even watch exactly the same Super League product on Sky for a price per month less than 1 ticket. I can sit on my sofa and watch the game in glorious HD and pay for some nicer beers and a takeaway for less than going to the match.

If the product is simply 80 mins of RL I can do it more comfortably and cheaper on my sofa at home. So why would anyone go?

The answer is because we aren't selling 80 mins of rugby.

So I think Pop tart is massively wrong. The product hadn't been looked after. The game itself is great but sadly it is played in awful facilities, the surrounding entertainment is generally working mens club level, and to top it off the quality isn't always great.

We have the greatest sport in the world, but we present it terribly and we surround it with things which are cheap and unimaginative. And people in large have responded by valuing us low. So we get cheaper, invest less and wonder why people still aren't turning up

Only read the last page
I'm with smokeyta on a lot of points.

People don't realise it but making something cheaper does automatically make it less appealing in some ways. It's just the way the mind works. Although we are mainly dealing with northerners who want everything for free and then it's still too expensive.

Also we have reduced the amount of teams so I completely agree the attitude should now be. If the bottom two sides cannot be as good a game as the top two. Why not. Should they be in super league?

There's a lot of arguments for and against everything. Salary cap etc..
But no one can argue we want superleague full of great teams that can all compete for the big prizes.
That will never happen overnight. But look at cas. What an amazing season and hopefully they will keep that quality up for years to come.
If it's not going to be saints to win anything. I would love to see cas win a trophy.

I like the magic weekend idea. Letting other parts of the country watch the sport.
I think everything should be done to fill whatever stadium is used.
Travelling fans will fill a certain percent. Then free tickets for every student in the local area.
But not spouting about it on sky, that free tickets have been given out to fill the stadium.

The pre match entertainment seems to have died on it's in recent years too.
This all ads to the hype. Bradford had a real good hype years ago with what they were doing. Why did that fade?

You might believe the product is worth more the problem is your target audience doesn't. The target audience has a limited amount to spend on leisure and RL has to fit into that budget. I bet for many RL fans the cost of their hobby is a big chunk of their disposable income. If you want to charge more then you need to shift the demographic and as we have seen in London and Wales easier said than done.

Your Rolex image is a good one - Rolex is a tried and tested brand it competes with all its rivals on performance. SL cannot compete with NRL or RU let alone PL soccer. If you were seeing the likes of Greg Inglis/Sam Burgess every week as you are RU and soccer then yes I would agree there is justification for charging like Rolex do. Sadly you are offering a second rate product so how can you charge premium prices? The standard on the field outside of the top 4 clubs is poor so how can you market a game between two average sides as a big game and carry any credibility? If I go to a Mariah Carey concert and the venue is great the lights are great but she can't sing I am not going to be happy - I am there to hear her sing.

50-60,000 people watch the games live - 200-300,000 watch one game on Sky!!

You are selling primarily the quality on the pitch - if its an elite sport it needs elite players playing to elite standards - if you can't offer that then you cannot charge premium prices.

People aren't paying in large numbers for it as this cheap and cheerful day out as we have now either. For a business to work You can either sell lots of things at a low price or fewer things at a higher price. We are selling few things at a lower price. You know what that should tell us? You know what not selling the cc final out with cheap tickets should tell us? What not selling out Wembley for a WC final double header with 3 of the 4 best teams in the world with tickets for a tenner should tell us? You know what RFU selling out twickenham for 50 a head tells us. Price isn't driving demand. That we can't win by being cheap because staying at home is always going to be cheaper. It also tells us, like the premier league does, like the nfl international series does, like the RFU does, people will pay a premium price for a premium product.

boxing is a good example, poor quality fights are cheap as chips to attend. The big fights are incredibly expensive. Yet more people go to the big fights than the poorer ones.


If we sell at a premium price we need to provide a premium product so our first action is to stop selling crap. If the standard outside the top 4 is too poor then we improve the standard outside the top 4.

And if you go to a Mariah Carey concert and there are no big screens, aging speakers, your seat is falling apart, you have to queue for an hour for a poor selection of drinks and food and crap 2nd rate merchandise, but she sings like an angel it's still going to be a bit of a crap evening

I agree improve the product - until you do that you can't charge top dollar. RU charges top dollar because their demographic can afford to pay - I went to England v Australia at Twickenham £1,000 a head for corporate, glad I wasn't paying. Can't see many northern folk spending their company's brass like that.

So how do you go about creating a truly elite SL - first reduce the numbers of teams to 10 maximum, increase the salary cap to 2m and ensure those teams left spend to that level if they can't afford then they don't get a franchise. Encourage the RFL to get better and bigger sponsors etc. You can't dress a swatch up to be a Rolex the public are not stupid. If you want to charge more then you have to deliver more.

If Mariah Carey singings well I don't care if I can't get a meat pie or I pay £4 for a pint of beer, I pay that at Headingley. Equally I would be pretty hacked off if she couldn't sing but the pies were great and I paid £2 a pint. It is the main event you are paying for Wigan v Hull was a terrible CC final despite being played in the most superb surroundings. England v NZ WC semi would have been a great game no matter where it was played.

And yet more people paid to go watch Wigan v Hull than England v NZ. Our product is simply bigger than the 80 mins on the field.

Weren't you criticising the RFL for not announcing details of next years test series the other day? I do agree that is embarrassing btw. A crowd of 67,000 for our last international at Wembley (against a less marketable opponent,) isn't that far behind the '92 crowd, despite the mass mistakes made internationally from 1996-2010.

And why is a year long promotion campaign for a match a bad thing? If anything, we need more promotion in order to attract decent attendances. On the ludicrious ticket prices, what price were the tickets for the GB vs Australia game in 1992 by comparison. I'm assuming you knew the prices weren't ludicrously cheap?

Agree with that. It's also a different age. People have far far more choice of leisure activities today than they did in 92 and a trip to London was still a big deal back then. Its necessary to have a marketing campaign, even football have to market some of the less enticing England games.

There were plenty of mistakes made 96-2010 (and continue to be). The loss of tours and especially 3 Test Series being the major ones in my opinion.
I like the Tri/4 Nations (credit goes to Richard Lewis for getting it up and running) and I think it should be expanded to 5 Nations, but it shouldn't have been at the expense of Test Series. The 3 match series are great for getting RL in the media and getting us noticed.
There could have bee much greater scope for 3 test series from 2003 to now.

Unfortunately a lot of it comes down to the fact that there are (effectively) only 2 governing bodies. If there were more, 4 or 5 say, then we'd have to have a central body like FIFA (hopefully without the rampant corruption) to oversee and organise international affairs. With only 2 governing bodies and effectively 3 nations it comes down to the most powerful/richest governing body having the final say. Sadly the Aussies are quite insular about the international game and whilst their insularity is often overplayed to cover up some problems it is a big issue in the sport. Hence the lack of a set international calendar and the lack of mid-season internationals.

The official attendance for the BIG HIT double header semi finals event during the RLWC was 67,575 but that figure includes Club Wembley which accounts for 16,532 seats. Anyone who attended knows that very few of those Club Wembley seats were occupied, therefore the real attendance was closer to 53,000.


Who claimed that a year long promotion campaign is a bad thing?


I don't recall the exact price I paid but it was a relatively decent seat at the old Wembley in the middle to upper tier region behind one of the corner flags and I paid something like £25 for mine. There were cheaper seats behind the sticks but they won't have been a great deal cheaper than what I paid. Factor in historic inflation rates [url=http://www.thisismoney.co.uk/money/bills/article-1633409/Historic-inflation-calculator-value-money-changed-1900.html[uutilising this link[/u[/url and £25 back in 1992 would equate to around £47 today.

[url=http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Great-Britain-v-Australia-1992-World-Cup-Final-Used-Rugby-League-Ticket-/171540386063?pt=UK_Sports_Memorabilia_ET&hash=item27f09a910f[uHere is a more expensive ticket priced at £37 in 1992 which would equate to around £70 today[/u[/url

Loads of tickets for the BIG HIT double header in 2013 were on offer at between £10 and £20 including free RLWC beanie hats in some cases.

Mid season internationals between the northern and southern hemisphere sides are impractical the distances are too large - even the world cup in soccer is segregated at qualifying to cut down on travelling.

If we were able to beat the Aussies consistently then perhaps there would be more interest until that happens the international will be a case of here we go again - Australia beat England/GB.

You could have a mid-season international window and it wouldn't have to be Australia coming here every year for instance, just a period where players are made available for internationals. So for instance Samoa or PNG could play England or Wales or even NZ. At the moment they can't because they won't get their NRL players.

I agree but it's still a negative attitude from Australia that holds a lot of international issues back. And Australia, with the media attention they get in Australia and that region could do more than they are to help the game.

I might be wrong but the club wembley tickets were on General sale and if my memory is right it was pretty full in that section.

Yep. I think William is getting mixed up with the 4 nations game v Australia a year or 2 previously.

Also attendance is just that, number attending on the day, not number of tickets sold or stadium members seats not filled. But hey ho this is william we are talking about.

Not necessarily. Pretty sure I've seen attendances given before now that were based on tickets sold rather than bodies through the gate. Have been at Wembley NFL games announced as a sell-out crowd which have been nothing like, for example.

Yep, for instance I was at Sale v Exeter before Xmas, on a corporate freebie I hasten to add, I move in exalted circles you know, the official attendance was given as just over 5000 much to everyone's amazement as there appeared to be only half that. A Sale employee confirmed they count all season ticket holders and all tickets sold regardless of who turns up. I think it was Sky that had the "actual" attendance of around 1800.

I know Leeds do the same too. Whether that extends to large stadiums like Wembley though I have no idea. Though in this case it's sort of irrelevant as the Club Wembley seats were pretty full.

The club wembley ring was packed to the rafters as it was on general sale, I have 4 debenture CW Gold seats and they did not include that event or the 4 nations previously, they do include the CCF though

and the CCF is less attractive due to date, transport over that date, hotel costs and the silly format now used with no momentum.

Quote ="William Eve"The official attendance for the BIG HIT double header semi finals event during the RLWC was 67,575 but that figure includes Club Wembley which accounts for 16,532 seats. Anyone who attended knows that very few of those Club Wembley seats were occupied, therefore the real attendance was closer to 53,000.'" Yeah it looks deserted up there: www.rlwc2013.com/~media/images/i ... =11294.jpg

Quote ="William Eve"The official attendance for the BIG HIT double header semi finals event during the RLWC was 67,575 but that figure includes Club Wembley which accounts for 16,532 seats. Anyone who attended knows that very few of those Club Wembley seats were occupied, therefore the real attendance was closer to 53,000.'" Yeah it looks deserted up there: www.rlwc2013.com/~media/images/i ... =11294.jpg

Absolutely deserted:

Oh dear William

Sorry to disappoint you mate but I was sat in the pleb seats right next to Club Wembley that day - they looked pretty full to me!