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.

[Part quote

Well how do you know what the sums were, please show then to the club as concrete proof that they worked and if so i'm sure they will take a look.

However, the fact is in the 7 years since then, not this club nor any other has copied the exercise which they would have done if it had been a viable option.

In any case the Whitehaven game in line with your argument is irrelevant because the attendance went up because of the "Big Apple" prize promotion and not because the admission fee was reduced.

What are the club to do now, reduce the prices and send someone of on holiday to New York after every game?

Lets just respect each persons view and agree to disagree and leave it to the people who are running the club because by now i'm sure we are boring the pants off everyone else.

Fair enough

Quote: Fuzzy Duck "Point 1 - I've no idea what the sums were, faxcar, but it was a "calculated guess" that the attendance x fee > than usual. You "sweepingly" claimed that the game was a loss leader using no factual evidence whatsoever. I just disagreed with you. Point 2 - Again, how do you know the extra attendees were there because of the promotion and not because they've rugby league fans who wanted to go cut price? Point 3 - I do respect other peoples' opinions! As for leaving the running of the club to the directors, that's what I'm doing! I'm not criticising their efforts, just debating what I think the problems we have in the sport as a whole, not just at club level. And I'm sure we're not boring the pants of folk ........... this is the feistiest debate we've had on here all season! https://halifaxrlfc.wordpress.com/tag/halifax-rlfc/ As before, for a fact it hasn't been done since by anyone so it can't be a good long term idea. The loss leader comments has been taken out of context because you originally included Giants vs Cats in your examples of how it had worked when in fact, for that game the entrance fee was free to celebrate the appointment of Simon Woolford. Here's the factual evidence. https://www.familiesonline.co.uk/local/ ... v-catalans Thankfully our BoD are not planning the clubs future based on having no idea about the sums involved, guess work, free admission when we appoint a new coach, taking a unilateral step when it’s a multilateral step that’s required or trips to New York as some would "sweepingly" claim to be the way forward.

Quote: Fuzzy Duck "Point 1 - I've no idea what the sums were, faxcar, but it was a "calculated guess" that the attendance x fee > than usual. You "sweepingly" claimed that the game was a loss leader using no factual evidence whatsoever. I just disagreed with you. Point 2 - Again, how do you know the extra attendees were there because of the promotion and not because they've rugby league fans who wanted to go cut price? Point 3 - I do respect other peoples' opinions! As for leaving the running of the club to the directors, that's what I'm doing! I'm not criticising their efforts, just debating what I think the problems we have in the sport as a whole, not just at club level. And I'm sure we're not boring the pants of folk ........... this is the feistiest debate we've had on here all season! https://halifaxrlfc.wordpress.com/tag/halifax-rlfc/ As before, for a fact it hasn't been done since by anyone so it can't be a good long term idea. The loss leader comments has been taken out of context because you originally included Giants vs Cats in your examples of how it had worked when in fact, for that game the entrance fee was free to celebrate the appointment of Simon Woolford. Here's the factual evidence. https://www.familiesonline.co.uk/local/ ... v-catalans Thankfully our BoD are not planning the clubs future based on having no idea about the sums involved, guess work, free admission when we appoint a new coach, taking a unilateral step when it’s a multilateral step that’s required or trips to New York as some would "sweepingly" claim to be the way forward.

So why reduce the admission if the attendance was purely down to the Big Apple promotion? You're saying the higher attendance had nothing to do with the reduced attendance fee! Really? And also strange that despite its success the promotion wasn't tried again because ......... it was considered it wouldn't be a success. Confused.com

Hey let's just plod along eh? And we'll have the same old people on here in a few seasons time scratching their heads saying "I wonder why we only had 800 against Fev? Can't be anything to do with it being £22 to get in. Nah!!"

The only proof I've got is in my head, faxcar. I have a brilliant memory. I even remember the score: 50-18 to Fax which flattered us because we didn't shake them off until the last 20 minutes. It was the 7th July 2013 and it was a scorching hot day. After the match I watched Andy Murray win at Wimbledon on TV in the Pump Room.

Alas, I think we should agree to disagree on the admission fee subject because we're just going round in circles.

Let's digress. I'm assuming SKY have lost an awful lot of money this season on the soccer and rugby (both league and union) with cancelled / paused customer subscriptions and lost advertising revenue, even accounting for claw backs.

SKY needs soccer, but doesn't need Rugby League. In view of the above, do you think the next TV deal will be significantly reduced with the RL having no choice but to accept anything offered, no matter how poor? We should never have sold our souls to SKY. We're now stuck with unsustainable vastly inflated player salaries (which have indirectly filtered down to the championship - see previous discussion).

PS - In "real life" I'm not a miserable doom monger as some as my posts might portray. In fact I'm a jolly nice chap who always has a smile on his face

I can't believe that Fuzzy Duck has solved the club's problems! Simply drop the entrance price to £10 - £15 and we'll be laughing our way to Super League.

Thanks Fuzzy Duck, you're a very intelligent hero.

Didn't suggest for one minute we would be laughing all the way to super league, enforcer. I am saying the only way to attract new fans is to stop charging stupid money

Stop acting like a childish troll.