The problem with licencing (going on the last time). Is that it didn't raise the standard, it didnt lead to more younger players coming through (you could argue that more have come through in the 8's), it didn't bring the crowds in. And it didn't improve how clubs marketed themselves (they got lazier). And the sponsorship wasn't as good. And it nearly killed the lower leagues (exaggeraten slightly I know).
And there's nothing to say this time will be any different.

We need something that includes promtion/relegation otheerwise the sport stands still. I like the 8's, but if not them then how about a 14 team SL, bottom team relegated/1st promoted. 13th enters into a play off with 2nd,3rd,4th placed teams?

As for expansion, if done properly like Toronto are doing then it's fine, ie building the groundwork, giving fans a look at what the sports about, and of course winning. If we just drop a club into SL like Paris, that's were I think it goes wrong. As after initial excitement, there's no groundwork to fall back on. And if there losing fans will soon leave.

You can measure that in many ways, but it certainly raised standards at many clubs off the field. Warrington, St Helens, Salford, Leeds and Catalans (off the top of my head) all moved to new stadiums or undertook significant improvement works during the licencing period. That's just one example.



I'd be interested to see your working on that one. I don't have the figures to hand, but one thing that did decline during the licencing period was the number of overseas-trained players in Super League.

And what I do have figures for are participation. When licencing was introduced, participation in Rugby League stood at around 132,000. In 2016 it was 67,000. That might not be due to licencing alone, but there's no question that many clubs have neglected this important aspect in their local communities and I believe that there needs to be much more of a drive to force thinking in this regard.



I agree. And that was one of the problems with the way licencing was done in my view, rather than licencing itself. We all know certain clubs gave cheap and free tickets out like confetti in the run-up to licencing. What should have been done, and I still believe should be done, is clubs given a ticket revenue target. That would force them to market themselves properly, not to under-sell the product.



And that again is a failure of clubs, not the system. The clubs aren't marketing themselves properly, they aren't engaging the audiences that advertisers and sponsors want to reach, and that makes it very difficult for the RFL to sell the sport.



All of the problems you cite with licencing are simply there in another guise with the Super 8s or any other P&L model we've tried. What's needed is a mass of 10-14 clubs that can all broadly compete on a relatively equal footing both on and on the field. Unfortunately, we don't have that and I suspect that we never will - because I simply think too few clubs are capable of rising up to the standards they need to reach.

I think you make a valid point. But would argue that the way football is (TV wise etc), it's harder for clubs to market themselves more. You have a core support (at Rovers it's about 7/8000). The problem is marketing to new support. And then getting them to stay, that's part of my problem with Licencing. 2 many games become a dead rubber, and it's harder to market as people will come to games that have meaning, and that's when you try to get them to come back. That is also the clubs to a degree.
Weather you like the MPG or not, you can't deny that it's one of the few times all major media outlets took an intrest in RL.

Sorry. Some of my replies are in your original post. I'm about as good with technology as the RFL are at promoting the sport. Useless.

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.

The NRL is a closed shop league, they seem to do alright without promotion and relegation, why wouldn’t Super League be as successful with the same structure.

The England team that got within a gnats pube of lifting the RLWC was developed during licencing....and London shifted LMS to Saints and Clubb to Wigan...if anything, Licensing delivered development of payers.....

Yes it did...we had fewer overseas imports and we started to export players....

6 Years of Licencing delivered 9,276 across the board with a 5 digit average in 2012.....crowds are on the decline again under the middle 8's......down 15% this year compared to 2015!

No argument from me here other than the clubs have always been at marketing themselves.....

That's down to the RFL......nothing to do with licensing.

No it didn't........but dropping "names" like Bradford and HKR back into them has definitely given the 2nd tier a shot in the arm......but I suspect once Toronto (and maybe NYC) pass through we'll be back to park footie crowds....

Yes there is.....there's new money on the table and the owners of this new money will not stand for any of the flat capped bullcrap of woods et al......binning licencing was a mistake, but sometimes mistakes can produce a better outcome and if done properly with an independent management of the licensing system, it could make the sport more stable, more noticeable and more attractive to both sponsors and spectators......and I'm sorry if that means that clubs like Barrow or Hunslet miss out on the big time, but this is the reality of 21st Century sport.

Abolish the “cap” part of the salary cap so clubs with the necessary levels of turnover can spend more. Like a percentage of turnover with no ceiling. That will do more for the game here than any licensing or P&R. As it stands we aren’t raising the standard, we are dumbing it down so lesser clubs can compete

Regards

King James

well to get back to the original topic,two championship clubs with a mini bus full of fans between them.i wonder how many people will be watching this one.yet another bird brained idea from the rfl.

The problem I have with this, is the blatant favoritism of 2 sides. You either play all the championship games, or non at all.

1) you could argue that as most ply there trade down NRL. And the intense nature of there competition is why we did . Leeds side was before then.
Given that only 7 sides have played a GF (4 won it). And that only Warrington appeared during licencing, and only those 5 finished top of the league. could argue the other way.

2)I admit I could be wrong about this.

3) one of the main reasons we left licencing was because of crowds. Yes crowds are down, but that's a problem year on year. Most clubs don't do things to improve. But a personal view is the Thurs/Fri games. I can't go to a home game due to other reasons Work etc. This effects a crowd, both home (people who don't live in the city/area), and obviously away.

4) not giving clubs a chance of going up, hampers there crowds, how they can market the club. Gives them nothing to aim for. And possible new fans would find new things to do. Plus loses local sponership who could move on to bigger sponsorship. Plus it makes the game go stale after a couple of seasons.

How has this played out at clubs like Batley, Dewsbury and Featherstone? These are clubs that simply aren't going to make themselves into competitive Super League clubs under any model (indeed, Batley's board are on record as saying they're not interested), but the clubs don't - on the face of it at least - seem to be dying.

I went to Batley v Catalans a few years ago and what I saw was a vibrant community club with a lot going for it. Some challenges, yes, but a lot to be positive about and a lot to market to the local community.

I don't see the lack of P&R as this death-knell for the lower leagues - at least, it only is if the clubs want to let it be.

Jesus that's pushing it trying to back licensing with that. Had the luxury of not facing a good NZ team in the SF and still almost messed up against Tonga. And we weren't within a gnats pube, we failed to score a point, even then we'd need a conversion to just level and still have to find a winning score. And the same team failed to get to the 4N final a year earlier or the 2013 WCF.

What about when we did actually beat Australia last in 2006?

The attendance issues are more to do with the style of rugby, tired and injury hit teams from overplaying, frustration at referee standards and general poor marketing than the league structure. I think we'd be struggling more if we kept the old system.

Going back to licensing would see teams get comfortable again. See where Cas, Wakey and Hull have come since we introduced this new system as they've started to push themselves more and not just making up numbers in SL.

Featherstone could. The others I'd agree about, Halifax didn't want to go up last year. But in a few more.

If you want to go back to licensing (which as you may have noticed I'm against), the possible solution would be to return to 2 leagues.

will the game be on sky, as part of the magic weekend package, or premier sports who are showing all league games upto the middle 8s??

You honestly think that Featherstone, a club in a town of about 17,000 people, could be a competitive Super League club and cope with the standards that we really should be pushing clubs to attain?

Printer - we beat Australia in 2006 in a game they didn't need to win. Comparing that to a World Cup Final is nonsensical. As is saying we didn't score a point but ignoring the fact that the best team in the world, with several all time greats in key positions only managed ONE try against us. In the past twenty years I've seen two really top class performances from England/GB - this year's WC final and the semi final loss to NZ. Sadly both were narrow losses, which reflect the fact we simply don't have enough quality players in key positions yet.

Anyway, back on topic, I'd say the only realistic hope for growth in our sport in the near future is expansion in France and ideally a genuine north american presence (which again will need more than one team). Its a big if, but if we get a properly funded Toronto, with the ability to tap into a completely new market in terms of revenues, they at least should be given exemption from any threat of relegation for long enough to get them established.

It's a fact......6 points from a draw or 7 from the cup....when were England ever that close?

Yes.
I don't think it's about the population of a place. But about the ambition of the board. Who they could attract, weather they'd get 3/4 full or more stadiums. And I believe that Featherstone could be all those things.

France is an interesting one. For years there league was a mess. With new teams popping up, teams folding etc. But the last couple of years it seems to have sorted itself out, crowds aren't big. But from the sponsorship & media side, I'd say you could be right. Maybe do like before and have some of there clubs in the early rd's of the challenge cup? See if that works.

Personally I'd also be looking at Scotland & Ireland. Getting a foothold in these countries also opens us up to new markets and media coverage.

Number 6.

I would imagine that the game would be on sky. Otherwise what's the point of the game. Though I don't know this for sure.

Sorry, but I don't see that in the slightest.

I just can't see Fev attracting the sort of audiences that quality advertisers care about. I don't see them attracting the sort of audience that broadcasters care about and I don't see how on earth they could grow to the point I feel the sport needs to be growing at.

We need to be working to a point where 10k-12k averages are the standard for all of our heartlands club, not some unattainable ambition. I don't think that Fev, a tiny town in a saturated market with minimal corporate market to tap into, would ever achieve that.

Fair enough. We'll agree to disagree on this point, as your entitled to your view, as I am mine.

I agree about trying to raise crowds. But the figures you put rule out half of SL at this moment, and there's no gaurente that expansion clubs would be pulling in that amount regularly.
I think that we need to do it slowly. As if we dash into this and do it hap hazardly, we risk damaging RL more.

Until we up the exposure of RL, get it in the media, on TV, etc. We are not opening ourselves up to new markets. And until we get a proper international calender, we will struggle to do this. The international game is the top of any sport, and the hap hazard way we do it at the moment won't appeal to people outside of the sport. And this has a knock on effect with regards club rugby. We should be looking at getting an international calander in place now till the 2025 WC. Look at places to play the WCC (ie Canada,USA, France, Italy etc). Looking at on the road games, we should now where magic weekend is going to be for the next 5 years now.
And to be honest, we should know what format the league is going to be for the next 5/10 years now. Not debating what it could be.

There is 2 much going year by year. When what we should be doing is having a clear 5/10 year plan. With the games I put known (ie WCC being held here). And until that happens promoting the sport, trying to get in new sponsorship etc, is harder than it should be.

The Toronto v Tolouse game has been confirmed. It is on the Saturday at 12.45

Clearly designed to give exposure to 2 would be SL clubs and they (The RFL and both clubs) will be hoping that they are well received.
It does smack of favouritism and the fans of Fax, Leigh and Fev will not be happy about this but, in the grand scheme of things, this fixture doesn't decide anything and may provide Sky with some "filler".
The bigger issue is just what the short, medium and long term plans are for the make up of SL and how we can attract more fans and sponsors etc into the sport.