We have watched the game grow for 10+ years without you actually contributing, so why after 6 rounds, have you decided everything is going to change now and you can't sit back, relax and watch the game grow?

That’s an impressively contradictory post. Well done.

So what is this 'good' abstract figure which the championships should be getting and how was it decided without reference to any other attendances?

For sarcasm to work properly it has to come from someone who possesses a brain, so you're out. Whether I care or not about my club won't be changed by some troll (here you are again) posting reams and reams of stats which other posters have proved to be incorrect. My concern for my club is no concern of yours.

Personally I'd say at a level where all the clubs in the Championship could spend at the maximum salary cap for that league without needing unearned investement and all break even or prefferably see a profit that could be reinvested into ' infrastructure ' and ' facilities '

A bit like the stated aims of SL

Why is the current SC the ideal figure for wages, isn’t it a figure set on previous revenue of which the previous attendances we aren’t allowed to factor in, are the major part? Shouldn’t we want it to be higher, in which case the crowds needed to pay for it would need to be higher, etc etc etc.

Do you not see the inherent contradiction in arguing that the ideal attendance shouldn’t be judged in relation to previous attendances but should be judged in relation to the Salary Cap, which is a figure set in the main, on the basis of previous attendances.

And the most obvious flaw in what you are saying, is that the SC can change. It could change right now to an SC which would allow clubs with attendances of 500 to be competitive and profitable spending it, does that mean that 500 becomes the 'good' attendance for the lower leagues?

He did his best to answer your stupid question. Nobody can state an 'ideal' attendance, and you know that. What you're trying to do is manipulate any discussion so that any attendance, or any news at all, can never have a negative interpretation, because that would offend you, and your worship of the geniuses that run the RFL.

Im not manipulating anything. Im not the one arguing that we should ignore the fact (and it is a fact) that we are in a long-term growth trend because it doesn’t fit my bias. You are. And you look exceedingly silly doing it.

You have in fact here, shot yourself in the foot massively and argued quite succinctly against your own standpoint .

Yes, nobody can state an ideal attendance, because it doesn’t exist, so we judge our performance not against some abstract benchmark a moron called RL Bandit pulled out of his , but by the evidence we have. Which is previous attendances. We aren’t looking for some prefect attendance figure we are on a treadmill of constant improvement. Our aim is progress not perfection, so whilst we are showing growth we are showing progress, whilst we are showing progress we are meeting our aims. Its why the RFL, like almost all major organisations don’t use some tinpot A-level general studies concept to produce their over-all aims.

I dont think anyone could argue we havent been long a long term growth trend. But your dependence on this argument is silly. You talk about 'A-level' business studies, yet it seems you do not even understand that level! I have a much higher level of qualification than that in Economics and find your views lacking a clear thought process.

It is simple to have growth from small beginnings. There was a huge amount of concern when China's GDP dropped below 10% three times in 4 years (between 2008-2011) when it was 9.6%, 9.2% and 9.3%. Almost every other country in the world would be amazed by those sorts of figures, but to China it was a source of massive disappointment. According to your argument they shouldnt be bothered because they are on a long term growth trend, but this was not the case! they were a relatively small country in terms of GDP and that meant that large growth was easily obtainable, and dropping below that 10% mark was a sign that not all was as good as it seemed.

Like rugby league, china was starting from a very low point. That means that years of growth are not only expected, they are almost inevitable! Football would have loved to have the same growth in fans over the same period, but its starting much closer to its optimum level! There is sufficient indicators to say we are no where near the optimum level of fans, yet are figures are not only slowing, they seem to be dropping!

Another example that we can draw comparisons with is 20/20 cricket in the UK. The average fan was amazed by it, it had rapid growth over its first years. However, it was overkilled by the governing body of cricket (they do make mistakes, especially the RFL) and it had a rapid decline in attendances. A lot of this was to do with fiddling with the amount of games and format of the competition (more games, more chance of going through made each individual game less intense and important). Does that sound familiar? 20/20 cricket should be viewed as a microcosm of how sports formats can be destroyed by the governing bodies that run them.

(a few other points about 20/20 cricket, Some teams benefited from the extra games, these tended to be the smaller counties like Essex and Somerset which encouraged the Governing body to introduce even more games and dilute the competition even more, despite the fact that this harmed many of the bigger counties such as Lancs, Yorks, notts. does this sound familiar? helping the smaller teams at the detriment of the bigger teams. the continual tinkering with the competition has led to even more apathy from the competition despite the original concept being strong!)

All in all I cannot believe someone would argue the points you are making, yet have the nerve to accuse someone else of only think at a 'A-level' level. Indicators of slower growth/negative growth should alarm people within our game considering where it started from!

Maybe when you have finished telling us about your economics qualifications, and we are all very impressed, you could spend some time working with an English teacher who can help you with you comprehension skills and learn how to tell the difference between the words General and Business.


The fact that you would ignore 10+ years of a long term trend to focus on a 6 weeks sample size makes me disbelieve your early claims of economics qualifications.

Also, Rugby League was the 4th most popular team sport. It wasn’t in anyway ‘small’, if this growth was so easy to acquire, why didn’t we get it in the 100 preceding years?


you havent responded to any of my arguments at all, simply bragged about your economics qualifications, got some words wrong and then made a ridiculous analogy that RL is like china and should be disappointed at unprecedented growth! Indicators of Slower growth and negative growth shouldnt alarm anyone but the easily startled. We are a sport which is over 100 years old, more people are attending than ever and last year was the best attended season ever, and with all your economics knowledge you should be well aware under what climate that was achieved, to be the 2nd best attended season ever isnt a reason to think the sky is falling in

Laughable, just pure drivel being spouted! I understand the economic climate of that there is no doubt, but thank you for enlightening me, hold on whilst I ring America and tell them not to worry because the Dow Jones reached its highest level ever and therefore all the problems are solved!

I understand you have limited knowledge about the economy, so please do not try and pretend as if you do. Using buzz words does not make you knowledgeable on the subject.

I am by no means saying this is the end of Rugby League, I am not even saying it will cause massive problems. But my gosh if you dont think we should be concerned about the recent trends then you couldnt be more wrong! If you think that it is a problem that will go away without any concern you may well be wrong (its not an exact science, but there efforts should be made to address the issue)

Continue to disrespect me all you wish if it makes you feel good about yourself and some how believe it strengthens your argument. I'm not saying your argument is completely wrong, neither am I suggesting that its over. I think both sides of this argument, especially the ones saying there is no problem, need to stop being so naive.

They aren’t disappointing recent figures, they are barely figures at all, there hasn’t even been the same number of fixtures.

They are, our 3rd best figures ever, and 2nd best when you discount the Magic Weekend which started 2011.

You seem to have serious problems with the English language. In what world does ‘not reaching maximum potential’ mean ‘has to be small’?

I would assume that the main cause of a nation being poor is bad governance. Which would indicate that you think that the preceeding 100 years of poor growth for RL was down to bad governance, which surely only leads us to the conclusion that this growth we are experiencing now is because we don’t have bad governance, but good. This seems to undermine your own argument.Advances in advertising? Really? Our growth over the past ten + years is down advances in ing advertising? To quote the hopefully soon to be late Ken Bates "i havent laughed so much since my ma caught her tits in the mangle"





Yes, erm that seems relevant and definitely germane to what I said.

Would you disagree that posting growth in this economic climate is more difficult than more affluent times? Are you going to tell us what you disagree with or can we carry on enjoying this strange rant?

So there may or may not be a problem, we may or may not be able to solve, we wont know if we did or didnt solve it, but we should definitely be doing something, but we aren’t sure what, afterall, its not an exact science!
We don’t know if there is a problem, we could for the rest of the year post record attendances, we could still, without posting huge crowds, post the best attended season ever. We are, right now, on course to post our second best attended season ever, the year after we opened two new stadia and posted our best attendances ever. This isn’t a problem, it is barely a minor inconvenience, there is nothing here that should make us look at making any kind of major changes whatsoever.

One thing I was taught from a young age is don't argue with a fool, they will bring you down to their level, then beat you with their experience!

you ignore points which disprove you, and jump on points you think you can win an argument on, whilst just looking a little silly by not (for what ever reason that may be, maybe you are not able to) understanding the underlying reasoning behind the points being made!

I suggest you put some thought into your words rather than just letting your mind run free! Although I have enjoyed the entertainment you have provided me through completely missing the point of almost everything I have said, I would much prefer it if you could join in with a proper debate, rather than just sticking your head in the sand and screaming everything will be okay!

I await your response with interest where you argue using the most basic of figures to sound as if you understand any form of of complex economics. It is embarrassing how you really on your buzz words and figures which to anyone with even an ounce of understanding about the area would realise are worthless. I could recommend a few good books on economics in sport if you wish?

great story, original and compelling.
You haven’t disproved anything, you haven’t even put forward any evidence of anything..

Nobody, but you, has banged on about economics. I made a fairly throw away comment about it not being a particularly great economic climate at the moment, you seem to have seized on this, started some strange attack on my knowledge of economic theory, even though I haven’t at any stage discussed any type of economic theory at all, and whats even weirder is that neither have you. You seem to be having this weird argument with yourself where I am telling you some basic economic theory, you are arguing against it, and you are now exasperated at doing so. But neither you, nor I, have done anything of the sort. In fact, you haven’t addressed anything I have said, made your own little strange analogies and laughable reasons why the game has grown (if there is one thing we know, for sure, isn’t the reason the game has grown, it’s the RFL’s advertising)then had a hissy fit about economic theory and randomly buzzwords. All in all, very strange!

Except, despite the title of the thread, you asked him about the championship. Which is not, by any stretch of the imagination, on a treadmill of constant improvement. Odd that, for a "tournament worth winning in its own right"

Smokey, trust me, you're getting absolutely smashed in this argument and looking extremely silly. Keep going though, it's great fun to read.

Welcome to the infants' class, peeps.

Starbug will be more than happy to confirm he brought the championship in to the argument, and that he stated that he wanted the championship attendances to be judged in isolation not in comparision. I simply asked him how we would do that. For reasons yet to be discovered this upset you.

You should also take notice that in the post you quoted i mentioned neither SL nor the championships but the game. What I said applies to the championships and SL and the amateur game. I.e we shouldnt limit ourselves by targetting 1k, 8k, 9k, 10k, 15k, averages, but should simply, constantly, try to improve.

There isnt an argument, i would rather there were one but there isnt, just one person saying RL is improving and progressing and growing, and one person talking about China and how the other person who isnt talking about economics shouldnt talk about economics. Its a strange one.

Well it took you a while to think up some bollox to answer with , as your suggestion that a reduction in the Championship SC could then put a positive ' spin ' on poor attendances indicates



I would have suggested that the logical way of looking at this is that the aim should be for all clubs to reach the SC threshold , and then raise it , you obviously think that is the wrong way to do it

I can , it would be to have every stadium full for every game , I would suggest until you reach that level , you still have work to do , maybe thats the problem , Nigel/smokey think nothing can be done , so they do nothing , its the lazy way of running a sport

I think you misunderstood me. The point i was making was the SC is based on attendances (or at least a major part of it is) so by basing it on the SC you are basing it on attendances. The other point i was making was that the SC is movable (as you go on to say) which means the aim you are stating (i.e your ideal attendance) isnt the aim at all, the aim is just as I said, progress.

I wasnt suggesting that lower crowds and a lower SC would be a positive spin on anything, i was suggesting that IF our aim was simply to fulfil the SC then should we bring down our SC to a lower level, even if crowds fell, then we would have achieved our aim. Which is clearly what no-one would want, which is why it wouldnt be a particularly worthwhile aim.

And i wouldnt disagree that when the SC becomes to low we raise it, thats pretty obvious. I just dont know why we would set it as our aim, i would just see it as a by-product. All our aim should be is constant improvement, when we bring in enough money we increase the SC, when we fill all our stadiums we build bigger ones, and when we bring in even more money we increase the SC, and when we fill our bigger stadiums we build even bigger ones, we dont set out to build bigger stadiums, nor increase the SC, we increase the cap and build bigger and better stadiums to increase attendance.

Sorry , did you say something ?

So where are Leeds Rhinos going wrong then?

[uLeeds Rhinos home attendances/averages by season[/u
2013 - *46,282/*3 = 14,289
2012 - 194,240/13 = 14,941
2011 - 196,192/13 = 15,092
2010 - 199,619/13 = 15,355
2009 - 205,058/13 = 15,774
2008 - 221,555/13 = 17,043
2007 - 228,259/13 = 17,558
2006 - 219,478/14 = 15,677
2005 - 238,169/14 = 17,012
2004 - 224,390/14 = 16,028

If this is an intelligence test, I admit defeat, because I have absolutely no clue what you're talking about. You'd be great at the RFL you know...you really should apply for a job.