if you have 350 pro players and 150 part time players, and you make those 500 ft players you havent increased The player pool at all. You have just paid some a bit more. The increase in the player pool comes from the very very bottom. We could have a professional team representing all 11k parishes in the UK (and im sure some would see that as ideal) but if we don’t increase the number of players at youth level graduating through every level up to pro our player pool doesn’t increase at all.

Our player pool isnt the number of pro-players we have, it’s the number of players we have to pick pro-players from.

But how would they be full time if they're not at the moment? Are there 6 clubs currently outside SL that can sustain entirely full time squads? Plus the spending on facilities, coaching and sports science etc to make being full time worthwhile?

How about a similar idea to the nfl - have say Wigan vs Warrington played in Bristol or Huddersfield vs Leeds in Cumbria. Wembley sells out for nfl and lets face it no-one really went to see the Jags did they! A couple of big games in a few different cities could help bring in new fans

This is the 'On the Road' fixture in the schedule. A chosen development area to get a game every week, bringing in supporters from established clubs and allowing local interested people to see top-level RL on a regular basis. Held at the same ground, locals could buy a 'Season Ticket' for a vastly reduced price, giving them a game of RL to go to every Weekend.

I said last season when the RFL took that 600k from Bradford that we should have taken that money and put in to a pot and used that pot to put on some big ‘event’ games. Take Leeds V Bradford rent out Elland Road. The RFL guarantee Leeds whatever that game would have made at headingley, pay for the rent of Elland Road out of that pot, spend a bit marketing it, and sell it out.

So for instance. Leeds would get about 18k at Headingley, so lets say each fan spends an average of £20 on ticket and merchandise. That’s £360k the RFL guarantee for Leeds Rhinos. We then spend £100k renting Elland Road and spend £140k marketing the absolute hell out of it in Leeds. Total Spend £600k.

We sell out at Elland road so that’s 38k with that same £20 average per fan we bring back in £760k. The £600k outlay from the RFL is paid back in to that pot, along with half of the extra £160k profit made with Leeds and Bradford splitting the other half. That means the ‘event pot’ is now worth £680k. That £680k is then used for to put on the Hull KR hull Derby at St James’s Park and try and do the same thing, Saints v Wigan and Anfield, Cas v Wakefield at Bramall Lane

We do 6 games per year, each club loses one home game every 2 years, done on different weeks over the summer as the only game played that week. Best case scenario we have a self-perpetuating central pot for putting on these event games and marketing the game in general.

Don't you have to factor in the effect of season ticket purchases? It's not just a matter of saying 18k x £20 is it?

Yeah but that will work both ways in that would be income the RFL wouldnt need to remiburse the income from those ticket sales as the club would already have them as part of season ticket sales. THere would also be issues regarding concession sales and the logistics of how we would cost that out, each stadium is likely to be a little different (some wouldnt make a charge but take the concession income, some would rent out the whole stadium and you take the concessions)

I wasnt really trying to put too much detail in to it. Just more put the principle across.

I think the principle is a good one - I think it's pretty unlikely that existing stadia can grow attendances organically, after all most have been trying for years! So the idea of some BIG events at different venues that already have their own regular attendees, coupled with some imaginative and well targeted marketing campaigns must be worth a try.

I'd have a normal league structure but have a play-off between the bottom Super League side and the team that finishes top of the second flight, by doing that the likes of Sheffield, Featherstone and many other Championship clubs would surely raise their standards so they can beat Super League teams and it also gives the Super League team the chance to prove whether they are good enough to be in the top flight. It also gives us an exciting end of season game that people will want to see. I have mentioned this idea a lot but nobody ever responds to it.

I'd add to previous complaints about the need for sides to grow.

'A route to the top for any club' and 'Promotion and Relegation from SL' are not necessarily the same thing.

Given P&R requires clubs to gamble financially on both going up & staying there, while period licenscing creates the same problem on three-year cycles, it might be better to abandon both.

Instead have fixed criteria, assessed over multiple seasons, with any club meeting those criteria being included. E.g. if you can reach & sustain a minimum turnover, minimum profit, not be too indebted, have sufficient crowds & win a number of games, you can come up. Such criteria should be achievable (to get clubs to come forward) but stringent (so we don't promote clubs who'll never work as a business).

We should not be expecting clubs to go from amateurs to SL in five years. Fifteen years is more like it.

Absolutely true, and yet junior teams are left to fend for themselves, with their success often coming despite the dozy old duffers who administer the junior game rather than because of them; furthermore, professional teams are largely uninterested until U14's, when they suddenly appear looking for potential scholars to hoover up.

Add to this that coaches in the junior game are pretty much a law unto themselves and spectators are allowed to behave like football hooligans, and you're left with an unhealthy situation at the bottom tier of the game that sees many talented young athletes lost to football, RU or worst of all, cider and park benches.

If this is a long term plan to increase the player pool and improve the long-term health of the sport, then the junior game really needs some TLC.

Spot on!

I'd also add that whilst the junior game is (in my opinion) at best average but generally poor at developing players it's even worse at developing interest in RL. It's not entirely the junior game's fault because they rarely get enough/any support from pro/semi-pro clubs but they're still pretty bloody useless in my opinion.
It's one of the biggest factors that holds the game back.

What a pleasant well thought out post. Have to agree.

London, as as we have been, spent to the full cap in 2013.....it would mean having no or at least an equal cap in the Championship.....meaning more clubs reliant on benefactors.


London played Fev and Sheffield in 2013.....1,217 watched the Fev game, 2,459 watched the game in Sheffield........games that aren't included in the season ticket generally struggle for crowds.