I bet Ladbrokes are chuffed.

Or it shows that Tetleys paid too much and didn't get out of it what they wanted. Otherwise they'd have continued. The fact is not enough people watch and are involved in the sport.
It also marks a move away from bitter to lager by people. Tetleys as a whole are a brand in decline and have been for some time. Carlsberg and the other lager brands can market themselves to a much larger market in football. Which is why we've seen brands like Kingstone Press pushing themselves in RL. They don't have the clout for football sponsorship/marketing but can be a big player in RL.

This is and has been the problem with RL. The world changed and RL didn't keep up. Some of that is the RFL's fault, but given the power of the clubs in RL I think the majority of the blame should be laid at their door. They recklessly spent/wasted their assets and capital, didn't invest in any sense and were well and truly left behind as the world moved on.

So the difference is 300k over the 3 years?

Ie 10%. Is 10% really a huge fall from 15 years ago given the poor deals since then and the increase from First Utility? I'm no fan of the RFL but do you have an example of what they're paying themselves in relation to what's recommended?

No, I've read the thread again and there isn't a sickening level of RFL congratulatory posting, but, feel free to "hear what you want to hear and disregard the rest" as the song goes

I'm sorry, are you questioning whether getting a deal 10% worse than one that could be achieved 15 years ago isn't a failure.

I have no idea if it is correct that it was 1m a year 15 years ago, but lets look at this as if its true. Using the Bank of England inflation calculator, £1m in 2001 would be essentially £1.5m in 2015 (it doesn't go to 2016 yet, but safe to assume it would be just above £1.5m in 2016) rlhttps://www.bankofengland.co.uk/education/Pages/resources/inflationtools/calculator/flash/default.aspxrl

So, an equivalent deal would be £1.5m per year in 2016.

This is without any growth. With 15 years to try and grow the game, I would say the failure to barely get 50% of an inflation adjusted amount is a massive failure!

Over 15 years you would hope to see the long term strategy starting to work, sadly, if this is true it wouldn't point to that, in fact it would be a catastrophic failure.

If the £1m figure isn't correct, the fact that someone could still actually make a defence of it as if it was is absolutely ridiculous.

Al that you mention here, if the numbers are correct, is correct but, although there was no doubting the failure, I think you should take the line from the Stobbart deal onwards, which has us going from nothing (well, just about) to £1 million, which is good going.
Of course, if things had moved forward properly, the deal should have been almost double where we are but, the fact is the sponsorship went severely backwards, leacing us to "start again" and in this context, its a good deal, not brilliant but, better than most would have expected.