Quote ="Beverley red"Ok I may not be putting my point well, what I wanted to put across is that some folk on here expect far to much from the limited resources available to us & the low price they are paying for the match day experiance. I am a fan of the game & the people who play & watch it but no amount of wishfull thinking can cover the fact that without rich patrons we would not have a club playing at this level, I am happy with that & just get frustrated with people expecting to get somthing for nothing. To me £24 for a game is reasonable, half of what I would pay for a meal out or a night in the pub. I would love an investor like the guy at salford to come in to the club & then we might have a reason to complain that the team was not perfoming but as it stands I think we get good value from what we can afford.'"
I can understand the argument you’re putting across but there is a big BUT that needs addressing. If all reports are correct and I believe NH has confirmed this. Until last year we were at full cap, last year and this we are approx. £100k below full cap, so let’s say one good (not exceptional) player down.
So with the exception of the year we finished 4th and to some extents even that year we have never really competed with the top clubs. If you look at our relative playing squad it certainly doesn’t look or feel like a club that is only one player down either. I think this is where the frustration lies with fans, we are told we are spending the same as say a wire or Leeds yet the product we see is miles away. If we had Roman Abramovich in charge we’d still be only able to spend £100k more so would he improve the situation other than being able to improve the infrastructure and employ a better back room staff.
I can see where JTP is coming from with reducing the cap, not sure on the stats but I think only one club makes a profit (leeds) so to stop clubs drowning maybe reduce the pay, but this would just reduce the product and the vicious circle would ensue. £70k is the average wage, but this is heavily tilted by every clubs Sam Tomkins type who will be on double plus that sum. The average player will be on £30 - £40k and for a career that effectively ends at 32 (and could be at the weekend) is not overly attractive.
As I said earlier footfall is not the be all and end all its only a gauge of how well the sport is performing and in the big picture gate receipts will not save any club or the sport on its own.
Hypothetically if RL was very cheap to watch for a year and say the total attendances were raised by 50% that would attract bigger sponsors, potentially bigger tv deals and potentially get people hooked. Don’t think it would work BTW as people would get used to not paying much but it would have more of a chance than fleecing the already strapped fans and forcing them away.
I fear this weekend (and ultimately the RLWC) can do more damage to our sport than good. We will have games on national tv and I would bet are reasonably poorly attended, little atmosphere and the impression of an amateur sport, we need to fill these games out one way or another to tempt supporters this worth watching.