Quote: bramleyrhino "There's a relatively simple solution to this - we need fewer games. One thing that many sports are finding is that bigger events are better for generating interest than simply "more games". We do it with the Magic Weekend, and rugby union does it with things like the Twickenham opener, the Saracens games at Wembley and the Welsh double-header in the Pro14.
I'm a firm believer that we need fewer games anyway because we currently flog our top talent far too much, but it has the added benefit of making points more scarce, which should improve standards, and reduce the number of dead rubbers.
I understand that certain clubs argue that they need the fixtures but this, again, is where the sport is falling behind in the modern sports market. Other sports are moving away from a reliance on ticket revenue as an income stream, and diversifying their revenue streams - making more money from TV, from hospitality, from sponsorships, from digital, from merchandising and from non-matchday revenue. Again, that's what our clubs should be doing much more of.
As for audiences, there are undoubtedly new audiences out there to be tapped into. We have affluent parts of North Yorkshire and Cheshire on our doorstep, yet our clubs really aren't tapping into those markets - that's a failure of marketing.
And if we have genuinely saturated the market, that's why expansion becomes even more important. It's why North America is an exciting prospect because, even though they might not bring the "away fans" that people seem to think are so important it really doesn't matter than much, because if we can just tap into a tiny fraction of the North American TV market, it changes the game completely.'"
I would agree about the fewer games. Personally I would do the 23rd's. Then have the Augest bank holiday as the GF weekend. Moving the challenge cup to a may bank holiday weekend. I would probably also have magic weekend as the last rd of fixtures. And the WCC the weekend of the current GF. This would also give the players a proper rest before internationals in oct/Nov. And allow the season to kick off a bit later. Injuries are part and parcel of the season, but at the moment we risk more simply because of how the season is. People want to see the best players.
Also by less games, marketing, hospitality have less to chose from, so clubs can up the prices slightly.
As I put before, until we get a proper known international calander, we are not going to attract a newer ordinance as it will always be perceived as a local northern sport. As has been shown when games are on the BBC there is an ordinance to tap into. Maybe we should look at taking a game on the road again.
I will stick up for Rovers here, as we do make alot from mmerchandising. But I also feel that as at most clubs the match day experience could/should be improved.
To a degree in agree about America. My worry is that should they establish a proper league there. America will follow Australia's leading and go insular. Which would lead us back to were we are. So I don't want to put faith completely in it. As you say, there is a massive market there, and if we start attracting other markets maybe the RFL will be in a better position to promote the sport. But again we need a proper international map.
We are making slow progress in other countries, but we need to get the ground work going. Getting clubs going, leagues rising. And then we would open up a bigger market. Bigger audiences. Clubs going into partnership with developing clubs in Scotland etc would promote the clubs more (instead of the stupid duel registration we have at the moment).
Until we start laying the groundwork, until we prove that it's not just a northern game with the odd club from somewhere else thrown in. We are going to struggle.