What are you talking about ?

First of all, how many clubs are spending the full cap AND using the marquee players exemption ?
Also, how exactly do you propose that we match the spend on the NRL clubs.

I know that you are "new to RL" or, maybe just a pseudo Canadian but, really



Like it or not, there are maybe 4 SL clubs that could realistically spend the cap + the marquee players and unless you have a magic wand or a Kerry Packer type character that is happy to throw £millions at the sport, it just isnt going to happen.

We keep chopping and changing the structure, number of clubs in the top flight etc and the reality is that the sport is just not attractive to the wider public and until we can fin the answer as to why not, RL will remain a small time sport that just says that it's "the greatest game".

The same ip/multiple log in lie got boring a long time ago. It’s all the flatcap fools have.

This is what I find frustrating. Fans who say raise the cap and then expect that super league is gonna be awashed with top NRL talent. It's pie in the sky stuff.

Let's generate more revenue streams in the competition first which hopefully the new CEO achieves.

How's about producing the talent rather than buying it. The whole point of the salary cap is not only a level playing field, It should be forcing clubs to invest in youth in order to keep their Salary caps down. Some clubs do invest, but still use the cap to pay daft money on imports.
This is where the game has failed,as clubs are given a free reign now and the import will always take priority over investment in future players.

Quote ="atomic"How's about producing the talent rather than buying it. The whole point of the salary cap is not only a level playing field, It should be forcing clubs to invest in youth in order to keep their Salary caps down. Some clubs do invest, but still use the cap to pay daft money on imports. This is where the game has failed,as clubs are given a free reign now and the import will always take priority over investment in future players.'" You mean like this? https://northwalescrusaders.co.uk/crusa ... -reserves/

Quote ="atomic"How's about producing the talent rather than buying it. The whole point of the salary cap is not only a level playing field, It should be forcing clubs to invest in youth in order to keep their Salary caps down. Some clubs do invest, but still use the cap to pay daft money on imports. This is where the game has failed,as clubs are given a free reign now and the import will always take priority over investment in future players.'" You mean like this? https://northwalescrusaders.co.uk/crusa ... -reserves/

The salary cap is fine as a concept. But the value of that cap should not be fixed until every club is spending it.

For financial success there are a few different elements, one is controlling costs, the other is generating revenue.

Maybe there should be a revenue benchmark to encourage clubs to generate more money.
The old franchise system had a spectator target, but that encouraged clubs to give freebies and actually devalued the game.

The cap to should grow, maybe set a target to add £1m to the cap over the next 5 years. It will allow those who can to plan for stable growth.

Either way clubs need to grow and I'm not sure spending so much time on structures helps.

What you are saying is fine but, the structure is quite important.

If existing fans dont like the structure and "new" fans cant understand what the hell is going on, it's hardly going to encourage new converts, in fact, if "we" get the concept wrong or, keep changing for the sake of it, the current fans may also become disenchanted with the whole thing.

The cap should definitely increase year on year, at least in line with inflation (although this wont be enough to make ground with either NRL or Union).

However, first of all "we" have to decide what the best future is for our game and then set out a plan to achieve this.
Ultimately, RL suffers from lack of cash and whilst there are 4/5 reasonably well off clubs, the rest just aren't able to generate enough cash to moe themselves forward and either compete with the bigger players in the domestic comp or, with our far wealthier cousins (NRL & RU).

I dont know what the answer actually is.

To appease Sky, we have games spread over 4 days of the week, which has a negative impact on supporter numbers, which consequently, make the sport look less appealing for TV audiences and sponsors.

Perhaps we should negotiate losing Thursday evening games or show top Championship games on Thursdays, which may allow a slice of the Sky monies to be shared with The Championship clubs and which may increase physical attendances at SL games and give some exposure to the lower leagues.

The one sure thing is that if we spread the TV coverage any further, there will be nothing left to spread.

The salary cap should be variable on the clubs contribution to the game, if a club runs a reserve team, academy team and ladies team then the salary cap should be more for that club with a 50% subsidy from the RFL.

Some clubs don't run a reserve side, some clubs can't raise an academy team, the game is not growing because of lack of participation, that was one of the reasons why Sport England reduced our funding.

Spot on with the first bit. What's most likely to happen is that the better players from the bottom half of SL will be picked up by the top SL clubs and you'll just go back to a significant gap between top and bottom of SL.

As for the second bit, hopefully they can get better deals but what's is based on. Easy saying and thinking you can do better but I doubt Sky are quaking in their boots and will have read all what's gone on this week and wrt to we'll get a better Sky deal I'm sure Sky will be thinking "oh you bloody think so do you". Do we even know if Sky are happy with losing the 8's? They might prefer it or reducing the numbers of games?

No it shouldn't. What if you run a reserve team yet you don't actually see any more of your young players come through and you opt to go out and sign ready made players instead with your extra money?

The salary cap would be club based not in first team isolation. The RFL must reward contribution to the home product game, if a club wants to work around having 9 or 10 overseas players then that club would forfeit.

For example if the Bradford Bulls through there academy system provide 4 or 5 players to Castlefords first team and Castleford can't fulfil academy fixtures then financial reward goes to Bradfords Salary Club Cap.

When there were Championship games on a Thursday on Sky last time round, the clubs got zip for the privilege. I agree with the idea of bringing back Championship games (or SL2!) into the public eye on TV, but there should be some recompense for the home club as it does affect attendances.

To be fair to Bradford, they do keep churning out the local talent

Shame we’ve only got 3 academy products in Castleford’s first team squad. As a club that’s gone bust 3 times and plays in division 3 we’ve only produced 18 current first team super league players (in fact the only club that has t got one of our academy products is Catalans).

Bradford easily have the best academy outside super league. In fact, it’s better than a lot of super league clubs.

The main problem with the finances is the poor deal we get from sky. We need to court some other companies so we can get more for what is a great product. We need some coverage of championship and those theams getting a fee for this. The NRL get a massive deal from TV in comparison.

You belong in Super League, it will happen...eventually. You are currently having to do a Rangers in Scottish football and 'work your way up' the divisions, but eventually you guys will be back where you belong.
And next season when you visit the Leigh Sports Village, at least you will bring some supporters. Fax & Fev have brought around 200 this season, the rest, less than a 100. PATHETIC

Couldn’t disagree more. The main problem with finances is that clubs don’t generate anywhere near enough revenue of their own. This is the reason we have so many games in the season in order to help clubs generate enough to keep going. Most clubs are very poor at using the facilities they have to generate revenue outside of a game day and most clubs are very poor at investing in these facilities in order to generate this income in the future. We are incredibly short-termist in RL. Even those clubs who are best at generating extra revenue are only doing what I would regard as standard.

Comparing the NRL TV deal vs super league is pointless. Two completely different markets.

Would love to know where you think super league is gonna get some huge TV deal from? People seem to think that you just need to call up a TV network and ask them to pay more money than sky. The reality is that BT and possibly Amazon prime are the only parties who could try and bag super league. Considering BT sport position at the moment I really would not expect to see them go big and blow sky bid out the water.

BBC would love super league coverage but they won't spend money to grab it.

Could the next deal be higher? Possibly if we see some competition to sky but even then it's not going to be anywhere near the NRL deal.

Talking about not using facilities years ago we went to Australia and stayed in Penrith they use their ground for everything they have a big restaurant and 1armbandits and golf and a cinema and lots more that’s were they make their money from for the rugby league team

Fax sold 550 tickets for the leigh game plus those who paid on the day.



Your attendance at the shay was not brilliant just like your performance on the pitch

This. I'd love to know how much these "Sky don't pay us enough" types think we're being short-changed by.

Sky knows exactly what RL is worth to them. They know how many subscriptions rely on RL, they know what advertising slots around RL content are worth and it knows how many people watch RL. That knowledge determines what they offer the sport.

And its important that the sport recognises that it needs to do more to add value to Sky if we want more from them. As a sport, we're one of the few in the UK that seems to actively dilute its own TV audience (for the two rounds after Magic Weekend, three games were taking place at the same time as our Friday TV game), we've lost our ability to attract the best box-office talent, and TV ad-tech is also going to hurt this sport - Sky Adsmart will devalue ad slots around RL content, and the sport and the clubs have done little to counter that threat.

We can't see it a Sky under-valuing RL. We have to see it for what it is - RL not adding enough value to Sky.

There's a debatable question in your comment. Value! Who devalued the sport ? The Clubs? Sky? Or the product. Probably accumulation of all. The art is not to return to something that has already failed previously. The change must cater for all in the sport,and must remain permanent.

I wouldn't worry too much about the finances, as the quite obvious plan is for SL to take all the cake, come the end of the TV contract. Yes its the start of the 'Breakaway'...

That just leaves the lower tiers to gain their own broadcasting rights of some form that will match or even better the amount of funding currently received.

When we went to Australia in February for the Hull tour we visited Penrith and it's a phenomenal set up now. There are several restaurants/bars, massive casino and outside area where you buy the meat and then cook it yourself. They were so welcoming and let us have a good look round and we were astounded by the sheer magnitude of it all.

Hull fans complain at the regular new shirts/merchandise that Hull produce (4 shirts so far this season plus related training gear), but they need to realise that merchandise is a massive bulk of club revenue and without it we'd seriously struggle.

Spot on and one of the big issues with all this carry on. Easy to come out and win people over with talk of bigger deals but are they really going to be able to pull it off? I think Sky might have a thing to say about it and I'd back them to get the deal they want more than what Elstone and chums want.

It goes further than that. The 'market' has devalued us as a sport.

It has got cheaper and cheaper to reach the audiences that we reach and on top of that, there are also more leisure distractions than ever before. The response from the sport, and the clubs in particular, has been to short-sell the sport to keep those people.

What the sport should have been doing is spending more time trying to appeal to people who are most prized by advertisers and broadcasters, appealing to the people who advertisers find hard to reach. Instead, we spent more time giving discounts to people who you can reach on Google and Facebook for less than £50 per thousand.

That's a lack of value that we are delivering to Sky. At a time when TV ad value is falling, we're giving them the cheapest audiences to advertise to.

And not only that, we're giving them less and less of that audience, because it seems that almost all of our clubs now want to play on Friday nights - clashing with out prime TV slot. That's a lack of value that we're delivering to Sky.

In short, RL is becoming less and less worthwhile to Sky. Why does anyone think that they should be paying more in those circumstances?