Real Ideas that will increase revenues???

Quote: bewareshadows "There is quite a lot of people throwing hands up saying the RFL or Chairmen are letting down the game of RL or they are underselling it.

But I've heard little in the way of actual ideas that could translate to better revenues, just lots of hopeless THEY must do better.

So does anyone have an idea that could be implemented that could actually increase our revenues given our game being as it is today, not some idealised version of it.

My current off the wall idea is TV ads. If we could allow SKY more TV ads, then SKY could pay us more, regardless of the fact that the TV deal is undervalued as we see it already. If we could double the TV deal, would fans go for a mini-break around the 20min mark.

I would not want teams off the pitch, but a longdrinks break around the 20 minute mark. 15-25 mins would be an acceptable window. Either following a try, penalty, 20 m restart. The TV company signals to ref, long drinks break and a 1-2 min window for ads, drink and maybe even a timeout style team talk for coaches.

Surely more ads means more money. Cricket and Darts can do this, the nature of our game does not allow for long breaks and any break whilst the game plays on, may lose viewers. So a mini pause, could it work?

Like I say ideas that could generate real revenue?'"

Money follows media interest. Media interest follows star players. It doesn't follow nice new stadia. It doesn't follow commentators screaming that we have the best sport in the world. It doesn't follow good honest ordinary players dedicated to our great sport. It follows star names. League's media profile peaked with the likes of Offiah, etc. We didn't take advantage of that interest too well because we had a big structural problem, namely one(-ish) club buying all the good players.

So we threw the baby out with the bath water by deciding that a flat cap ( pun partly intended ) was right for our game ( not that its wrong for every game ). Didn't work, because the gap between clubs is sooooo big, you can only start to equalize things by totally crushing the ability of the top clubs to sign almost *any* superstars. This holds back the ability of the sport to generate media interest.

We need to put the baby back in the bath. Spend whatever you, your chairman and your sponsors like ... EXCEPT you can only pay big money to 13 players. That's it. No club can totally dominate with that rule in place, and *every* club that wants to compete will need an excellent youth system. In fact, if you're a lower club with weaker finances, you could choose to focus your efforts on the youth system and still do really well. The club that relies only on the 13 stars but has a weak backup squad will suffer very badly when the mid-season injuries stack up.