Quote Judder Man="Judder Man"This is what concerns me most when the RFL try to advise the clubs whats good for the game in the business side of sport when later it all becomes shams and gimmicks. The RFL over the last 5 years remind me of the "financial guy" offering endowment mortgages with PPI insurances.
Lets look at the facts we have:
Reduced real money sponsors.
Reduced media presence
Reduced sport england funding.
Reduced player participtation.
Reduced Sky deal
Reduced marketing of the game.
Correct me if I am wrong, but I assume clubs are responsible for producing the product and the RFL to promote it and market the product as a business sport.
Obviously the clubs do some marketing locally, but when the clubs become victims of scams and gimmicks from the RFL its natural to be suspicious of any future offerings.
We have some very good chairmen in the business sense who have made millions and willing to invest in our sport, surely they are in a better position to judge what has real value and what is a pipe dream.
Nigel Wood historically has very little business prowness having seen Halifax go into debts of almost a £1 million, processed the CVA for the club and jump ship.
Similarly Richard Lewis was more for presentation than a business guru, who after reducing our sponsor value and funding looked for brighter shores and jumped ship.
We are now in the ridiculous situation now where the RFL are saying they are micro managing the clubs and the clubs now want to manage the RFL.
I,m not really confident that the RFL has the dynamics to rescue our sport, so whats the choice more influence from the clubs business people or the apathy of the RFL.'"
Is the media presence reduced from 5 years ago? Not sure how quantifiable that is but I don't remember bags of media publicity in 2008.
The Sport England funding was reduced recently by £10m. More due to a large increase in the target for increase participation than anything. Plus the participation figures only include over 16's. In 2008 it was increased by £11m.
The Sky deal has increased. It was £12.6m a year from 2004-2008. £16.7m a year from 2009-2011. And £18m a year from 2012-2016.
Has the marketing reduced? Like the media presence, I don't remember loads of marketing 5 years ago.
