exactly. I think McManus has said that in 2015, for the first time SKY money will cover the full salary cap. Where is the incentive to pay for marketing staff, advertising etc...when you don't actually need that many people coming through the doors as the bulk of your costs are already covered.

The next step is to enforce a minimum investment in marketing, either done at club level or by a contribution to a centralised marketing fund. All the clubs put £100k into the pot (£1.2m in total), and then it is spent on advertising and marketing of club games at a regional level.

Leigh have increased their hardcore to around 2100 fans with the recent success and the RFL giving us some hope for the future.Our fans also travel pretty well this season.

I don't agree with a centralised marketing fund (the onus should be on the clubs, not the RFL) and I don't think that setting a minimum spend on marketing is necessarily the answer, but setting KPIs on increasing crowds should certainly be on the agenda.

It should be down to clubs to market in the right ways for them - social media advertising, for example, is much cheaper than buying some billboard space or ads in the local paper and could have a better return - the clubs should know what works best for their audiences. I also suspect that a £100k marketing budget buys a lot more in St Helens than it does on London.

Perhaps a portion of central funding should be ringfenced and only paid based on certain KPIs being met? Tie a portion of Sky money to things like marketing, commercial operations and community activity and you'll soon get clubs taking it seriously.

I'm still waiting to see some serious marketing strategy on how to increase memberships across the board in Super League as seen in the NRL.

There seems to be no 'league wide' strategy to address some of the issues we have such as low crowds and lack of sponsorship.

I can't help but feel there is a lack of a long term plan when it comes to these things, more of a "we'll leave it to the clubs attitude".

Wakefield at home against one of the premier teams can only muster less than 5k???

Comes to something when people would rather watch a load of men wearing hotpants cycle past them. "Cool!! I just saw someone riding a bike, im going to faint through excitement".

Our sport is on its rear end

Regards

King James

Marquee players, that'll help pull people through the turnstiles.

It should be down to the clubs though. They should know their businesses better than anyone else and they should know their audiences better than anyone else.

This year, Salford have marketed themselves as something of a "disrupter" in the game (the "Devilution", "Welcome to Hell" etc). Koukash's persona suits this branding very well and whatever praise or criticism you want to throw at him and Salford, there is no denying that they have got people talking. However, if the RFL is running the show, I suspect much of the effectiveness of that would be diluted. Salford, like every other club, would have to toe the party line - and that can do more harm than good. Fourteen seperate brands, all saying the same things, all looking the same and all (in effect) selling the same is a bloody terrible marketing proposition.

The other issue I have is that it limits clubs in targeting their marketing at the audiences they want to attract. Let's assume that the RFL set out to attract a family audience, yet a club like Leeds or Wigan decides that they have a good proportion of families already attending and instead, would like to focus on attracting high-value corporate customers - would those clubs still have to pay into a pot to attract customers that they already have enough of?

Well I know a family of Bulls season ticketholders, who chose to go and watch the TDF on both Saturday and Sunday.

They could not believe that the Bulls match was not arranged for the Friday. With a good bit of marketing they should have been able to put at least another 4K on that pitiful attendance.

Quote Lebron James="Lebron James"Wakefield at home against one of the premier teams can only muster less than 5k??? Comes to something when people would rather watch a load of men wearing hotpants cycle past them. "Cool!! I just saw someone riding a bike, im going to faint through excitement". Our sport is on its rear end Regards King James'" You do know Trinity's ground capacity has been reduced this year don't you? www.yorkshireeveningpost.co.uk/s ... -1-6407110 Which kind of explains why the crowd dropped from over 10k last year to 5k this year.

Quote Lebron James="Lebron James"Wakefield at home against one of the premier teams can only muster less than 5k??? Comes to something when people would rather watch a load of men wearing hotpants cycle past them. "Cool!! I just saw someone riding a bike, im going to faint through excitement". Our sport is on its rear end Regards King James'" You do know Trinity's ground capacity has been reduced this year don't you? www.yorkshireeveningpost.co.uk/s ... -1-6407110 Which kind of explains why the crowd dropped from over 10k last year to 5k this year.

I couldn't agree with this more. But the RFL should be putting together a strategy for the league to increase attendances at all levels which would include focussing on the target markets you have mentioned.

Some clubs have very limited resources and the RFL could assist them with communications, marketing materials etc. along with a 'league wide' strategy like they have in the NRL.

The RFL can certainly help put things in place to increase memberships at all levels, it is working in the NRL and in other sports.

I thought Wigan were getting it about right around 2010-2012 but it's gone a bit awry of the last couple of seasons. We got up to about 11k ST holders and managed to settle on an average of about 16k. This was helped by initatives such as the Big One, Heritage Day and St George's Day (admittedly all of which involved free/discounted tickets), alongside our big draws such as Saints, Warrington and Leeds. Since then ST holder numbers have dropped, our average has dropped by about 1500-2000 and the marketing initiatives seem a little less prominent.

There is a growing apathy amongst fans to the current league system, and I think a lot more fans are picking and choosing games rather than getting a ST. Moving games to first Mondays and now Thursdays for Sky won't have helped (the most recent one Wigan have had announced is HKR away which will likely see less than half that would have travelled for Sunday afternoon).

I hope both the RFL and the clubs are just going through the motions this year ready for a big push when the new structure kicks in (not holding my breath). For starters I think the clubs need to offer STs that cover both before and after the split (think I've read somewhere that Leeds are doing this, hopefully the rest follow suit). Hopefully with more to play for, a greater emphasis on finishing higher up the table and more games between the better sides there will be a natural increase in attendances anyway.

The real pitiful attendance was your lots appauling showing at Wakefield.

The Bulls got a bigger attendance despite playing Catalans and as you say on one of the days le tour was going through.