But the thing is, they know that these games will attract next to no away fans. Catalans have been in the league for over 10 years now, so clubs should be doing everything they can to get more people in when they play Catalans at home. But instead, clubs stand still and allow for this lower attendance.

Get out in the community, give tickets to local businesses or schools for this fixture. School kids will have paying parents coming along, plus any money made from sales in the club shop or concourse.

Didnt the good doctor try something similar last season?

Was it a success?

I remember a few of the season tickets holders were not impressed

Clubs make far more from selling tv rights than selling match tickets. Away fans then make up a very small percentage of supporters at all games, clubs need to focus on growing their home support and not rely upon a few away supporters.

If we can sell tv rights in the UK, France, Canada and USA, the tv rights pot that gets shared out amongst all clubs, could be much bigger than if we just sold tv rights in Yorkshire and Lancashire. This is how UK clubs benefit from having teams like Catalans and Toronto in Super League.

People are also more interested in competitions with an international flavour, see the European Heineken Cup in Union or the Champions League in football, these competitions do very well with tv ratings, meaning the UK tv rights alone could be worth more with a competion that has Catalans and Toronto in it as opposed to Leigh and Featherstone.

That's a fair point, if the payments are substantial enough. For instance, how much do we get from beIN Sports for them to show SL games? From what I've seen, SL viewing figures are comparable with RU Premiership, but RU have brokered a far better deal with BT than RL have with Sky?

The Heineken Cup and Champions League are a different beast to what we're talking about. They are competitions that teams in other leagues qualify for based on league position in the previous season.

14/15 televised games a year is worth much much more to our game than a few thousand 20 quid tickets a year.

The Catalan games on a Saturday rate around the 30-50k mark so they are directly bringing around half a million viewers to SL and Sky. Which heartland club in the Championship could bring anywhere close to the value Catalan bring to SL if they were to be replaced.

I don't see how that makes any difference? Under the current structure, if a current Championship team replaces Catalans in SL, then they'll have done that on merit by winning games in the 8's and maybe the MPG. For the next season they would be a SL club, and Catalans would be a Championship club. Sky will still pay to televise the SL games regardless of whether they're showing Catalans or not. I also don't see that the 30-50k viewers only watch on a Saturday just because it's Catalans that are playing - it's more than likely that viewing figures would be slightly higher as there would be more local interest from paying Sky subscribers.

I get the point about selling TV rights to foreign TV companies, but it all depends how well the deals are negotiated.

Whilst not disagreeing with your point. The problem is that clubs rely/want supporter's on season tickets. And they can't really sell the game for 2 different prices.

Though I do think they should do more, kids for a quid, more things happening at the ground (food markets, bouncy castles, a French day etc). Instead of accepting a low crowds and hoping the other games will allow them to get away with it.
You only have to look at what York & Toronto achieved for there 8's game with successful marketing.

Great contribution.

But there would be no games on the Saturday so we would lose 500,000 viewers a season. That would no doubt affect future TV deals and League sponsorship.

Can you imagine the RFL going to Sky in 2020, yep we have lost you 14 live games a season and half a million viewers. But its ok because we have replaced them with Leigh who will take 500 fans to Wakefield on a Friday night. How about an extra XX million our new broadcast deal!

They are also self sustainable club which is rare in our game.

Truth hurting Sinny?