I think a bit of both on first point mind you Hunslet have just appointed a full time employee to work in community and there has being a more concerted effort in trying to get people to come to games,the problem is the club don,t have the money to advertise like for a example against Blackpool a couple of week ago a adult could get into the game with a child for 5 pound but the club relied on word of mouth or volunteers to pass the forms round rather then advertising it in Yorkshire Evening post which would be due to lack of money i would guess.
On second point i really not sure if thats the case or not the Rhinos did pay for the scholarship scheme but that finished last season Hunslet get 100,000 a year from Rfl so i think it comes out of that. Iwould agree with that third point if you drive through Hunslet you would have no idea there was team based there who are semi-pro

Ah, hence the marketing comments.

That's fair enough, the admission fees are getting a bit out of control.

Personaly I dont believe they do , IMO they want the heartland clubs to continue to struggle to make it easier for any new expansion clubs to compete

The whole ethos of the RFL seems to be for clubs to find sugar daddy investment to survive

And good as your idea is Gutterfax we dont need SL fans to ' adopt ' us , we need the people of our towns to want to watch us

How can this be done ? , well it isn't easy and when you have fans talking about ' marketing departments ' then you realise how little they understand the problems these clubs have

Marketing is the key , but the clubs dont have the resources to do it , it needs to be organised and funded by the RFL

But as that wont happen it needs the clubs to start to work together and to find the finance

What would the response be to a Championship weekender? Something like Magic, but held at 2 venues like Leigh/Widnes, on 2 days...with a 2 day ticket costing no more than 30 quid?
I understand the lack of funding for lower division clubs and the apathy that the RFL may feel towards them, but if they want Superleague full of English players, these clubs are where the players of the future will cut their teeth. The RFL need to centralise the marketing for CH and CH1....allocate resources, negotiate bulk advertising rates with the local rags (most are cntrally owned by only 2 publishers) employ a PR company to act on behalf of the clubs....all of this isn't rocket science, it makes good business sense. Superleague needs a strong second and third division......clubs like Leigh and Fev to name just 2 have strong community based histories and this should be key in the creation of sustainable clubs at the lower level. Sugar daddies are all well and good, but getting the community to buy into a club is far more secure in the long run. I understand that there is only a finite amount of money available, but to use it centrally would get a bigger bang for their buck.......more initiatives like Oldhams free entry to games are needed......there is no reason why teams like Leigh or Halifax shouldn't be running at 5k average gates again...it just takes a little effort and a constant campaigns...

I think Gutterfax's idea about the hundred quid is absolutely brilliant and I'd go for it. I've got 2 Chp clubs within 20 minutes and i'd definately be up for that. In fact, it's such a good idea I think you should contact the RFL about it.
I'm not the Championships biggest fan but if I had to put a hundred quid upfront and be allowed into any game id do it in a shot, simply to fill up some sundays as wire dont exactly play many sundays.

Very poor I would guess

Something I have been arguing about for a few years now , the RFL do have the money , they offer it to us with strings attached , I'd rather they actually spend it on us than give it to us in a vain attempt for us to find a ' benefactor ' , which just isn't going to happen without P and R

If I were Bazza...that would have made my signature

If you were bazza your mum would be your dad and fanny would be your aunt.
Oh, and you'd be a yorkshire man

This can't be true – Championship 1 is the only division where there's Something To Play For. And we know from multiple threads in the past that it's [ionly[/i the possibility of playing for a promotion spot that attracts crowds.

I think a lot of it is the cost. £12 to see a game. For a team that is around non league standard in football its £7.

If you look at a lot of grounds most of them are the quality of non league grounds. Ok Doncaster, gateshead and hunslet have good stadiums.

It also doesnt help having massive gaps in the fixture list.

Hornets' ground is better than most in SL, too.

Really don't think ticket price is the main reason. Near me, it's £13 to watch Histon United in the conference (and £14 to watch Cambridge, also in the conference). Histon's "stadium" is capacity 3000 odd, comparable to plenty of lower division RL grounds. RL teams play considerably fewer games than non-league football clubs, so the total cost over a season is still quite a bit less.

As a thought experiment - if Hunslet (or any other C1 club) had free admission for a game, what difference do you think it would make to the crowd? I think you'd still see less than 1000 people there.

I don't think you can really apply the same solution to all of those clubs. The problem at say Hunslet, Swinton or Rochdale (it seems to me) is one of long-term decline; most of their fans seem to be people who were introduced to RL several decades ago and the problem is how to reconnect to the local community. Even the "expansion" clubs - Skolars, Gateshead, S. Wales don't have the same issues when it comes to building a fanbase. Most people currently watching Skolars are people who play RL (& their families) and/or people from a RL background who live in the south east. Most people watching S.Wales are (I suspect) people who watch Rugby Union in the winter.

Agree that the fixture list situation really does no favours to Championship 1 clubs.

As I said earlier

Marketing is the key , but the clubs have neither the money or the knowhow of where to start

... but the fact remains that the public of Doncaster seem dis-interested.

I think your mistaking Rugby League with soccer.
However, I live 2 miles from the Dewsbury ground and you really wouldn't know they existed if you weren't a league fan already.