Quote: Exiled down south "And there lies the problem. We need a centralised forward looking direction/strategy from someone or a team that is independent, has Sport management or business experience and who will listen to the interests of the 12 SL or even 30+ clubs.'"
I'd tend to agree. At the moment, the clubs tend to have power in the wrong areas, and don't have enough responsonility / culpability in others. It was one of the reasons I supported the principle of franchising, but the way it was implemented was all wrong.
There needs to be a clear vision for the sport in terms of where we see ourselves in 5, 10 and 20 years time, about the sorts of sponsors we want to be engaging, the crowd growth we want to see, about the audience demographics we want to reach and the levels of revenue we should be generating from media, supporters and commercial.
Where the big disconnect lies is that such a vision then needs to be handed down to the clubs to deliver on, and that is the key point of failure. Franchising should have been used as a way of addressing that - any club that doesn't make a significant contribution to such a vision is at risk of losing their place - but franchising was never implemeted in that way. Instead, we had criteria that was based on the wrong things, and encouraged the wrong behaviour - attendances criteria that only encouraged clubs to give out cheap tickets rather than actually do some proper marketing for example. The clubs should have less power to vote for things like real-terms salary cap reductions or the abolition of reserve teams because again, it encourages the wrong behaviour.
Personally, I'd like to see a proper franchising-based structure that really focuses on raising standards off the field. I don't think we'll get that, because too few clubs want to make that effort and investment, but it's what the sport sorely needs. People clamouring for a Hearn are simply clamouring for an easy answer.
Until we have those higher standards, the RFL is marketing the sport with one hand tied behind its back. It's going to broadcasters like Sky with an audience that is falling, and is made up of people that advertisers don't care about. I don't care who you are, that's a hard sell when the TV rights renewal comes up.