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.

Agree, faxlore, but my argument is that the admission has got well ahead of itself and needs to be redressed along with the players' wages.

Season tickets are also becoming less appealing, and not just because of what's happened this season, which incidentally could have serious repercussions gong forward in season ticket sales. Which in turn could see even more fans getting out of the habit of going as they might pick and choose their matches. Maybe other ideas could include a £15 admission with a £5 off voucher for the next game?

FWIW I think admittance should be cheaper but also FWIW I don not think that by lowering the price we will get more people, or at least not enough to make the difference, through the gate.

I wonder what the cost of admission was in 1998 when we finished third. Unfortunately my brain cannot recall that. It would be interesting, as a few minutes research shows that the median wage in Calderdale has risen by 70% between then and 2019.
I hardly watch SL anymore as I found it tedious and much prefer the competitive Championship where most teams can beat any other. The skill levels are pretty good just at a slightly lower pace and with smaller athletes than SL . I think the Championship is value for money.
I realise that the cost for a family can add up but the club do deals for families. Never forget if a supporter pays £19 the Vat man takes 20% of this to pay for NHS etc.

We're all just exchanging views FD all with good intentions and trying to think of a way forward and there's bound to be different views.
Again £19 is a lot of money and I would love to see it at a tenner or £15, just saying the clubs are caught in the dilemma of pricing people out or reducing it and running at a loss.
We have mentioned "on the gate" a lot but it would also have to be implemented pro rata across the season ticket prices as well.

I'm sure the club have a better vantage point to see the overall picture over me for example and must have considered it.

I remember standing down at the Shay next to a former director during a game and saying to him "you look tense, we're winning and playing great what's up with yer."

He replied yes that bit is great but I spend more time these days worrying about how many empty seats and spaces there are and how to keep it going and him mentioning this very subject of how to get it right and get more people in, that was a good few years ago and still remains.

As I mentioned, at the moment they must base any current and future planning on what the state of the game is now.

Regarding this from what DG said in the last statement from the club they have a plan in place for the next 2 or 3 years, to survive, consolidate and then grow based on the current situation.

Across the game and certainly at our level I don't think there will be a better time to implement some of the reductions we've discussed if the clubs can come together and with the inevitable less central funding they will be forced to operate on lower income and get some parity and I'm just as sure the BoD will be revising their planning in any case, they have said they are continuing to scrutinize every last detail.

Players will be willing or forced to accept less if only less is available but as mentioned there are other overheads that will only go up and there's not much we can do about that without opening other areas that will stop fans going like mergers and moving out of the town etc.

I agree with GRB. lowering the admission price wont bring more people through the door. I know this quite a few years ago but i feel that some of the cause for lower gates was down to the introduction of Sunday trading for shops eyc and (dare i say it) SKY TV. When i started watching Fax back in 1978 there was no Sunday shops open so folk went to watch Rugby League on the afternoon. Then as i lad when i started playing I loved playing on a Sunday morning then going to the game with my Dad in the afternoon. Now, as we all know, everything is open and RL is competing with all the world has to offer. Isnt it strange that RL was born out of workers not getting paid by owners of mills etc for playing RL on a Saturday so they moved to a Sunday. Now the (again) retail get the right to open on Sundays and RL are back struggling while the 'mill' owners a making lots of money off people shopping on Sundays.
Anyway, SKY, When Fax played midweek games back when' there was always a good crowed. 3-4 thousand playing Wigan or St'sor whoever. Now with Thursday and Friday Televised why would someone from Hull bother to get home from work on a Friday and try to travel to Wigan for the match when they can stay at home. and watch it. Yes it was good to have SKY take up RL but I think it has not been as possessive as it could have been.

Greg - I agree lowering the price will not be compensated by an increase in numbers that's why I am arguing for the "missing " compensation to be filled with a multilateral decrease in wages. But I also think a tenner will see far bigger crowds for the big games, especially Bradford. Recently their presence at the shay has seen very disappointing crowds, probably even being outnumbered by the bullies.

Cowfax - I remember the first time paying over a fiver. It was at saints in the 90s who were always more expensive than every other club for some reason.

Faxcar - in my opinion a merger or move out of town is the same as the club becoming extinct. I for one will stop going. I think Bradford are only getting decent crowds at dewsbury because the move is temporary and they intend returning to Bradford.

Ps - going back to the lowering the admission, I remember fax lowering it to a tenner a few seasons ago against whitehaven (can't remember the reason) and the crowd was unusually high over 2000

Understandable but a bit sad how this thread on new signings seems now to be devoted almost entirely down to the cost of attending games. I may be wrong but in the past when the club has had spells of success I don't remember any calls for this . I have been daft enough to follow the team, regardless of cost or the quality of play for a long time - and while I fully appreciate the cost of attending games can't be ignored I feel if you gave most wavering supporters the choice of watching a competitive team playing decent rugby for £19 or watching a young team getting battered, you'd get consistently higher gates at the former. Once the club start announcing next seasons signings the excitement this generates will hopefully move peoples thoughts more onto the anticipation of getting to watch some rugby again.

Rarely do posts stay on thread Ilkley, the thinnest of links is that income affects signings which is how it went in that direction.

Another angle of looking at is after cutting the cost of say attending, at the moment you will end up with lower standard players, a losing side because the better ones will go elsewhere.

Then what can the club do to reverse the trend...........nothing you are stuck with it.
Crowds are going to go down because of the poor performances and entertainment value.
You can’t buy any better players because you have no money.
You can’t put the prices back up because that would make the situation worse.

Again it’s this financial dilemma of continually going from hand to mouth all the time.

As you say, what we need are the announcements on new signings and if a couple are exciting as mentioned by DG then it will give us a lift.

You appear to be losing track of my argument, faxcar. The admission price reduction needs to be multilateral with a low championship salary cap to prevent " the better ones going elsewhere". You can't do it unilaterally, I get that, unless of course the gamble of reducing the admission doubles the crowds.

Incidentally, everyone seems to be poo pooing the last scenario I have mentioned even though it's hardly ever been trialled. But I've already mentioned our own example of letting fans in for a tenner against Whitehaven a few seasons back (when if I remember rightly the admission then was £15) which saw an usually high attendance of over 2,000. Other examples include Huddersfield getting 9,000 against Catalans.

If people think a winning team will attract lots more fans no matter what clubs charge, I'm afraid they'll be disappointed. Aka Salford recently getting to the Grand Final who still had an embarrassingly small knot of fans (albeit noisey) in attendance.

Apologies for high jacking the thread, Ilkley Fax.

The club have often in the past been able to really push the marketing for an individual game, including cut price admission , as a way of hopefully introducing new spectators to the game. I feel however a longer term drop in admission prices is too big a gamble for the club to take if it still wants to put a competitive team on the field.
I also don't feel a low imposed salary cap is is either workable or even desirable.At the moment Fax obviously don't have a wealthy benefactor, but if a David Brook or Tony Gartland came along again with the possibility of putting together a team capable of getting into and then being competitive in super league I think the vast majority of supporters would welcome them with open arms!!
I won't comment again until we have some positive news on retention/recruitment - something which I think is desperately needed to lift the mood of supporters and get them thinking positively again about the prospects for next season.

I’m not losing track about anyone else’s argument FD, simply staying on track of my own alternative argument or reasoning because of the dangers involved and from the start highlighted the need to act multilaterally.

Agreed is you can’t do it unilaterally but that’s one of my points, if the club were to do it now then that’s exactly what they would be doing, the entire argument around reducing admission prices now would in fact be unilateral.

As I have said the BoD can only plan now, by looking at what is actually happening now and not on what doesn’t even exist or on what may or may not happen in the future, but if in the future things change then they may well do so.

All the examples you have mentioned were one off promotion events, there will be a number of reasons and factors involved but a common denominator is they were not intended to become the norm and all fall under the category of being loss leaders.

The Whitehaven game with 2,300 in attendance was largely down to “The Big Apple Day” initiative with someone who attended winning a trip to New York.

I attended the promotion event and they had a dark purple Statue of Liberty with the spiked head on the stage and I remember them saying that it was connected to the “tremendous promotion that had been advertised” and humorously adding that we weren’t signing Wayne Price.



The fact that these were not repeated or being used en mass by anyone in the game proves these loss leaders would only lead to loss.

PS: And if people think that watching a losing side will increase or maintain the numbers of the paying public then they will be sadly disappointed as per Bradford for example who in the modern SL era have gone from World Club Champions, record crowds and a glittering trophy cabinet to playing at Dewsbury.

Fair enough, ilkley, that's your opinion and i respect that. However, I get the feeling the majority on here are happy to "plod along " hoping something will happen, such as a sugar daddy. But be careful what you wish for. We have already seen what's happened at leigh and Toronto with their sulky sugar daddies and look how much huddersfield owe davy. It's eye watering.

And if you think new fans will pay 19 quid even if we're winning you're living in cloud cuckoo land. If radical changes aren't made we'll be down to sub 1000 crowds on a regular basis in the next 3 seasons. As with other championship clubs.

Ps just read your post, faxcar. How do you know the whitehaven game was a loss leader? Maybe the club was hoping the "excess " fans would continue to attend at full price, if I recall we played well. The sums suggested we made more with the promotion because whitehaven matches have always been poorly attended.