We are all aware of Bradford's relatively recent problems but take a look back to when they first started playing in Superleague.

Opposing fans laughed at the music played, pitch announcements, mascots screaming around on beach buggies etc. But it worked: people came to see, especially families. They paid their entrance money, bought food, merchandise & lottery tickets, joined in with all the "fun" and contributing greatly to Bradford's coffers. And all this in a stadium that was hardly "state of the art".

What Bradford did do in the early days was to work hard at getting good news nearer the front of the newspapers than the back. Non-sports fans tend not to read anything on pages beyond the classified ads, so making sure news was printed at the front of the paper was paramount in attracting 'new' fans.

Print media is of course on the way out but the concept is still the same: get good news closer to the front than the back

Ian Lenegan doesnt think so. Nor Gary Hetherington. Nor McManus or Moran. These people regularly do turn up. Then again they arent strangely obsessed with Nigel Wood and his suits.

Apologies for repeating some of the points listed already.
Is this an idea that may have been established at HQ since the days of Lewis? if so are his previous plaudits misplaced?
Or is it that the ideas have come since his time ended from people who simply waited for him to go.
Have Barwick and the board simply felt that the existing system is unsatisfactory or needed to show they can be better? Is barwick too soon to the Greatest Game
I would like to see a list of those officials who put their name to these new ideas!
Who has been consulted or is the recent publicity part of the consultation process?
I assume clubs have already been consulted and if so who have been involved.
Just a comment - with very few exceptions the bottom four/top four two division suggestion would seem unworkable because of differing standards/funding/players.

When will the fans be consulted? We pay the bills after all!!!! If I dont like the outcomes SKY will be sacked and Premier sports will be purchased. I dont know if others will feel the same

What will be televised in future? I want to see at least the variety of teams that superleague has currently although perhaps the 12 teams proposed could work again.

I can see the support of championship clubs being gained because of P&R and I am sympathetic to some form of P&R. However, I support the increase in standards that has shown improvements in grounds - I dont want to settle for less!

Finally, I know the point has been made already, but I worry about overspending by a number of 2nd tier clubs leading to failure at promotion time and inevitable financial results.

Just read the last few pages of this thread and there are some brilliant posts which absolutely hit the nail on the head. The RFL actually does a pretty good promoting their end of the deal. I am forever bombarded with leaflets, letters, brochures etc in the post as well as emails. The other day I had a phone call from a bloke at Red Hall talking about offers for the Exiles game and World Cup.

Considering Warrington are owned by a promoter their marketing is dire and doesn't stretch beyond a poster stuck outside the ticket window for the next home game. No doubt it is the same at many other clubs. Contrast to Wigan and Leeds who really push the club. It is no coincidence that they are the two best supported sides in SL.

A club doesn't have to be winning every week, nor does every game have to feel like a final and be decided by a drop goal for us to get bums on seats. There are clubs in the soccer Premiership who have achieved absolutely nothing in my life time, yet still attract big crowds. I think a few club boards need to take a look at themselves and ask what they can do, rather than sit back and expect the RFL to run the show for them.

what a lot of poo, there is nothing wrong with the way it is now,of all the teams in the championship who would step up to replace anyone in sl no one is the answer fev,fax leigh just would not be able to cut it the support has gone to other clubs. we need to face facts we have only gone half way to the aussie model we need to go the whole way. new teams should be elected to join sl and then given 3 years to prepare for entry go from part time to full time,get finance/sponsers in place build their support up all with the help of the rl yoyo teams does not work P&R does not work in RL, it never has in the pro era and never will. this idea we are being given now will distroy at least 2 maybe 4 clubs just so the likes of leeds wigan etal can have a bigger cut of the cash.

Disagree. I can't imagine that Peter Deakin would have been better for the game at Red Hall than he was at Odsal.

SLE are responsible for marketing the competition - which is an entirely seperate remit to getting people through the gates at Headingley, Craven Park or Odsal in my view. The clubs should be making the job SLE / RFL easier, rather than sitting back and letting them take the flack.

The 14 Super League clubs are indivudial businesses. They're free to employ who they want, where they want and they have the same access to resources as every other club (in sofar as they are recruiting from the exact same job pool).

The only people who should be responsible for marketing the clubs are the clubs themselves. They're free to buy their own media, set their own prices and tailor their marketing to their own local audiences. The people who should be accountable for failing crowds or clubs struggling to make ends meet are the clubs themselves, not the RFL, and to say that the RFL should do "something" about failings at an individual club is letting the most culpable people off the hook. If those clubs could grow their crowds (both in terms of quantity and quality) and their revenue, the RFL / SLE job of finding commercial partners is a hell of a lot easier.

Anyone with an interest in marketing may have come across rlSeth Godin's idea of 'purple cows'rl. It's a principle that to make your business and your marketing work, you have to do something remarkable and if you don't, you just look like every other boring cow that's grazing in the field. It's not a new idea or theory, but it's a good analogy.

That's exactly what Bradford did. They created and marketed a matchday experience that had never been seen in the UK before (let's ignore the debate about 'stealing Cougarmania' for a second). They turned a "turn up for an hour and a half" event into an all-day family event with colour, light and music. They created a 'purple cow'.

The problem with these ideas is that suddenly, everyone is doing them and, when every cow in the field is purple, they all just look boring again. Unfortunately, nobody at any club has come up with that next 'remarkable' idea, other than mass discounts. They're playing it safe and as a result, nobody is talking about RL any more (at least, not positively).

Exactly. Some fans, and sadly some people within the game seem to have got it in to their heads that if only there was P+R, if only the play-off structure changed, if only the person who was in charge wore a nicer suit everything would fall in to place. Its stupid.

Get out and sell your bloody clubs, stop waiting on a silver bullet and stop blaming the RFL.

1 - 4 different divisions of 10 teams

2 - Alter the salary cap in each division to suit every team's capability to afford the full cap in that division

This may mean having the ability to increase the salary cap in the top league to keep the higher quality players from exiting the league towards Union/NRL.

This may also mean the teams who now play in Super League that will go down to the 2nd division that are now operating at full cap will have to lose a few of their better players to the top division. This will make for a better top division.

3 - Top 4 playoffs for each division, 1 v 4, 2 v 3 then the final of the winners.

Simplicity towards the end of the year will put emphasis on the playoffs as the most important part of the season, fans will no longer be dissilusioned with the playoff structure, and will be more likey to attend them accordingly.

4 - Season passes to accommodate the semi-finals, but not the finals considering they already sell tickets convincingly.

Fans will have an even greater incentive to attend the semi-finals, and treat the playoffs as the most important part of the season.

5 - The RFL should assess the salary cap differences from division to division, the team who wins their division should then go under a review of their finances to see if they're eligible to be promoted. The bottom team of each division should be relegated depending on the decision made after the financial review of the promoted team below.

6 - Games from the top two divisions should be televised to make up the lost revenue from Super League not having its overly-elaborate playoff structure anymore.

7 - Also, more representative games to fill the spaces left in the calender that should be treated as competition for places in the England team.

That should do it.

False dichotomy. Look it up, or ask your teacher to explain.

Given the gulf between our salary cap and the Aussie cap, raising our cap to within affordable limits for UK clubs wouldn't prevent our talent going down under. So when that fails, what next: maybe we could build a beach with heatlamps and wave machines to replicate the surfing experience? So forget raising the cap to make our game more attractive.

Fiddling around (again) with league structures won't do anything to make the game more attractive either and some of the proposals will be so confusing as to put many people off the game anyway. It's difficult enough trying to explain the current playoff system.

Why? Do you need someone to explain what one is to you? Because that clearly isn’t a dichotomy of any type, never mind a false one.

Maybe ‘learning what things are before I try and use them’ could be a SMART objective for you?