Yes a great effort by the bod.

My main worry going forward is that many fans might have got out of the habit of attending so crowds will be hit further which applies to all clubs.

And as I keep banging on about, no new fans because of the prohibitive 19 quid fee.

Sorry for the doom mongery but I fear for many clubs.

Excellent Post from Faxcar keep the Faith

Yes I can see that happening, it seems like a decade has gone by since we last played and a long time still to go before we will be playing again and people do move on.
A key motivator to rekindle existing interest or attract new interest is a winning team and the club have identified the need for that.

Covid needs to be beaten before we can have any crowds because we can’t afford to play behind closed doors and who knows how long that will take.

Let’s say it is beaten, admission fees is a major income stream and obviously impacts on what you have to spend on players for example.

All, or at least the vast majority of the clubs would need to cooperate in lowering admission fees and set a general “going rate” for what the players would be paid.
To slash gate prices as a stand alone club could mean you end up with low calibre players because if the better ones can get more elsewhere then they will likely go elsewhere.



Normal life and the game as a whole is facing so many challenges it’s hard to come up with a solution that solves everything.

As i seem to recall he asked to leave due to taking on a new job at the time and felt he would find it difficult to commit to the travelling. May or may not be the whole story , we may never know (or care?)

Unfortunately I can't see a multilateral change by all the clubs.

For a start there are the likes of Beaumont at leigh who will do a great disservice to the championship with his blinkered selfish club ambitions. Toronto also ironically ruined our league last season as they were impossible to compete with.

We need radical changes starting from next season.

Covid certainly appears to be forcing all clubs to drastically cut the wage Bill. Hopefully fax are ahead of the curve with players becoming available elsewhere and just wanting a job rather than how much will you pay. You wouldn't fancy rugby league as a profession currently . The above may in turn bring less expensive entrance fees becoming an option because as you say fuzzy 19 quid and 20 odd at the likes of bradford just doesn't cut it in today's world.

Too right ohmetoe. I will keep banging on about the 19 quid until I am blue in the beak. It's terrible value for money. You can get a burger and 6 pints for less in the pub. Only the avid loyal supporters are sticking with the club.

It's alright some on here saying we are stuck with it but we MUST address the entrance fee above all else otherwise we will never get anywhere.

Well to continue the discussion.
Absolutely the entrance fee at £19 is a lot of money at any level of rugby and if say just a man and his wife go to the game and have a burger and a plastic cup of tea it’s a big dip into the pocket.
I’m not aware of anyone saying we are stuck with it, just wary of the consequences of the proposed alternative.
The season ticket options are the main way of reducing the overall costs but they don’t suit everybody.
I would expect avid loyal supporters to stick with their club and certainly not be criticised for doing so but even then only to a point.
I can only speak for myself but if it ever got to having only enough money to take care of the family needs or going to a rugby game then the club would come second.
Getting the entrance fee right is a continuing balancing act and one that every BoD at every club past and present give a lot of thought to and we can be sure the Fax BoD are doing so as well.
Set it too high and it could price people out, set it too low and you lose a significant amount from a key income stream.
There is no evidence to suggest that reducing the entrance fee attracts enough new or former supporters back to the game with the numbers required to make up the difference.
As stated before, operating with less income affects the club in every area including player recruitment.
The less you have to spend on players on average brings the quality of performance down and visa versa, that’s why as you stated Toronto walked away with it, at the time they bought their way to the top.
The lower the performance the poorer results and you have a losing side.
There is plenty of evidence to show that it’s results that counts, a winning side gets people coming, a losing side quickly sees hundreds if not thousands stay at home as per the fickle fan syndrome.
Cutting tens of thousands from the clubs income is a massive gamble, is this the responsible MUST thing for our BoD to do at this point in time?
There simply isn’t a fix all answer because if there was all the clubs would be doing it instead of them all struggling along year after year with the same old and now new problems to deal with.
Once we realize there isn’t a panacea and as DG stated it’s a cyclic inherent part of the game that is independently incapable of meeting the financial demands required for it to flourish then it’s easier to accept.

I aren't criticising the loyal supporters, faxcar, not at all. Far from it. Indeed, I'm one of those supporters!

My underlying concern about the sport in general stems from my own attitude ................ I attend now more out of "a sense of duty" than being entertained.

In the past 25 years the entrance fee has quadrupled whereas the average salary has doubled, thereby Rugby League is progressively pricing themselves out of the entertainment industry, particularly as television and online options have improved significantly as a much cheaper value for money alternative.

That's why I think the sport should act now. The Championship in particular should exercise a very strict LOW salary cap meaning they're essentially only utilising part time players so we can MULTILATERALLY get the entrance fees right down and get the fans back and the communities more interested. Situations where we have bank rolled clubs like Toronto and Leigh are killing our league. We shouldn't be having full time pros playing against part timers - it's awful to watch (hated our home game against Toronto last season, couldn't wait for it to end - just imagine if a "newbie" decided to stump up 19 quid to watch that? Never to be seen again I reckon),

Just my take.

Yes I agree many of the game are as flat as the proverbial.
Bit of repetition here but the only way to be better entertained is to get better players but as the ability goes up so does the cost.

As a rough guide if a club has say 1000 paying adults at £19 a game x 13 homes games that’s £247.000.
If you cut it to £10 that’s £10,000 x 13 = £130,000 with a loss of £117,000 in one hit.

The clubs are caught in the financial dilemma we have both mentioned and if we thinks £19 is a lot just think that for many past and present board members the amount they have poured in that figure had multiple zeros on the end!!

I can see some clubs cooperating but can’t see the high fliers bringing their standards or ambitions of getting into SL down to the lower levels of the rest of the pack.

It’s interesting to compare how some recent suggestions on the forum are advising what the BoD should do and how much they differ, for example.
Stay as a stand alone club.
Vs.
Merge with Huddersfield and play at the Shay.
Vs.
Move out of the Shay and play at Batley.

Get more financial initiatives up and running and bring more money into the club.
Vs.
Slash over £100 grand off the gate receipts.

It would be hilarious, but likely catastrophic to have us lot as the current BoD trying to implement anything,
I wonder how our current BoD are going to please everybody

Not necessarily faxcar!

Going back to my argument about slashing the overall wage bill and going part time .......... would it not be better seeing an even dual between 2 very good part timers, like wingers robbo and sharpy for example, rather than throwing the likes of Liam kay in the mix who probably spends all week sprint training?

It's all about getting parity.

As I say, start by savagely slashing the championship wage bill then the entrance fee. No players paid over a certain amount permitted. There are some very good part time players who could keep us entertained at a reasonable cost.

Ps Don't agree with your calculation regarding significantly reducing the gate receipts to that extent. Hopefully a reduced entrance will see a few more attending (that's the point!) although admittedly not making the full reduction, but that should be more than offset by a halved wage bill.

Well I did first mention a move towards parity and the clubs coming together and setting a reduced players “going rate” and you didn’t think they would act multilaterally and do so.

Anyway basic accounting, fully agree, you must reduce the outgoing costs before reducing the incoming cost such as reducing gate receipts to balance the books, the fact that so many clubs including Fax on multiple occasions regularly run into financial difficulties prove it’s harder said than done.

On skill levels and entertainment the better you do something the more you entertain.

On average anyone doing something full time will do it better than someone doing it part time and the odd part time player who defies the norm will soon become full time when he’s picked up by one of the big clubs.

That leaves the likes of Fax vying for the rest and from those regardless of whether they are full time or part time each club will go for the best of the rest which currently involves paying more for them.

Until if and when anything changes, to show some ambition and build a competitive side the club and BoD have to work with the above reality as opposed to some currently future non existent ideas that no club has even proposed yet.

(On admission prices, in the example used of 1000 fans, for every £1 knocked of it’s £13,000 grand, for a £5 it’s £65,000.
It would have to be closer to the £5 to make any meaningful difference to those paying.)

PS: You can’t ban full time players from playing in the Championship for one thing it could be restraint of trade and illegal and you can’t ban clubs from having full time players if it serves their ambitions and purpose.

Impossible to quantify in advance, and difficult even in retrospect, but you do need to consider how many of those 1000 fans attending a game may stop attending games dependent on the entrance price. Keeping entrance at £19 might mean that 1000 becomes 900, then becomes 800?

£14/£15 feels a more appropriate level, but of course even that's a big chunk out of some folk's weekly disposable spend (especially for couples/families). On the other hand, £19 is probably "loose change" to some (albeit a small minority).

Looks like just me and thee having this debate, faxcar, even though I'd like to think others are looking in either nodding their head in approval or shaking their head in disagreement.

You come up with some very valid and interesting points, and even though I disagree with some of them, I fully respect your opinions therefore I'm not "retorting" with a scowl on my face.

I did say I don't think the clubs "will" work together multilaterally, but I think they "should". As you have gathered (!) I feel VERY strongly about having to reduce the admission. I know it will be extremely difficult in getting ALL the clubs to do this, but it just has to be done. Maybe carry out some kind of survey asking ex fax fans and potential fax followers for a SENSIBLE price they would pay to resume watching again, then take it from there. A survey carried out through email shots, the Courier or some geezer stood at the entrance of the Piece Hall. We need to be proactive about this and not just sit on our hands expecting people to continue to turn up and/or there to be a sudden interest surging out of the blue.

As for your point regarding "banning" full time players being illegal. A low salary cap restriction (a salary cap is legal remember) will prevent clubs from being able to employ full time players to a certain extent. So the Championship will essentially be part time which MUST be the case, we cannot afford to be anything else. We have to accept our league won't be as entertaining as full time Super League (which incidentally isn't always the case anyway, I've seen some awful one sided matches in that league, even though it was funny seeing big prop Walmsley running 50 yards through Leeds' full time defence ). Part time rugby can still be entertaining, you know. RL as a whole coped very well in the "old days" before the advent of over hyped Super League.

PS - Just seen your post, Hxsparky. Personally I'm basing my own tenner suggestion as being inline with salaries inflation over the past 25 years. £19 now is a commitment rather than what used to be loose change. From my own personal view point, the cost of going to a match never used to be an issue 30 years ago (I went to all home and away matches) but now it is an issue - I won't attend away matches because of the admission price (and I'm not short of a few bob, I just think it's bad value for money).

I’m not sure if you have discussed this already but the gate money is not just for paying players wages. Has electric, washing kit, purchasing kit, paying rent for the ground, medical cover, insurance and on and on. There is so much financial out put even before the budget for playing staff. As we all know our own utility bills go up every year as does council fax and I am sure our wages never go up by the percentage of that increase.
So the club have all those problems and increases to balance Year on year Yet the admission price has bee Around the same for several years. I don’t have a solution, if I did I’d be on the board! If we want the club to survive we, like the directors, player and commercial sponsors, have to put our money into the club. Either buying a season ticket or paying what is asked at the turnstiles.