Quote bren2k="bren2k"I find myself in the uncomfortable position of agreeing with pretty much all of that.
What I would add however, is that whilst franchising does indeed provide the framework within which clubs [ishould[/i be able to grow and prosper, to do so they are still required to be managed and run by competent people. Moreover, those competent people need to be overseen by an extremely robust governing body. As it stands, too many clubs are poorly run and the governing body appears to lack the courage of its convictions in terms of enforcing the franchising framework in a consistent way. Organisationally, there is a rather immature feel to the RFL, in that it lacks honesty about the things it gets wrong whilst making overblown claims about the things it gets right. I'm not advocating BBC style naval gazing and public flagellation, just honesty, a willingness to learn from mistakes and a bit of tough love in terms of allowing those clubs who insist on failing, to do so.
As for JP - I have terrific respect for him as a player; as a RL futurist - less so.'"
Im not sure its an immaturity, I just think that the RFL try and present the game in the best light they can. As they are paid to do.
The success/failures of franchising are I think, a bit irrelevant to the problems we are facing. We wont magically sell loads more tickets by going back to P+R, we wouldn’t have better sponsors had the criteria been changed slightly or judging system was a little different. Realistically the problems the game faces are pretty much the problems it has faced for years.
The success/failure of franchising is also difficult to judge because its supposed to give clubs time and space to grow. If those clubs don’t do that, is that down to the clubs or franchising? If clubs make a mess of their finances is that franchising or the clubs?
Right now, I see nothing in the structure of the game which stops clubs selling more tickets or bringing in better sponsors. The clubs do that, they are responsible for it. If clubs do that poorly what can the RFL do? We aren’t exactly besieged by clubs ready and capable knocking on the door of SL.
And i totally agree that we are dependent on clubs being run by competent people, Clubs need to get out there and sell tickets, actually sell them, not take orders for them, go out and sell. Make people who weren’t planning on buying a ticket buy one. Make those who were planning on buying one, bring a friend.
Clubs seem to think that sales and marketing consists of putting up a poster or a billboard if we are lucky, maybe a few things on facebook and the orders will come rolling in. How many truly innovative campaigns do we see from clubs? We seem to have an attitude within the game that if only the league structure was this, or if only club A got some success, or if only we got a tv ad, or more space in the papers, or on sky sports news a bit more, crowds will just turn up. They wont. The opportunity is there, clubs need to go and grab it and stop waiting for it to come to them.