Hmmmm......Sir David Hughes at London has never been a fan of marketing and therefore when his toy....sorry, Team were eventually be watched by 1,200 fans after 20 years in SL, you'd have thought that the penny would have dropped and he'd have understood that if you don't invite people to come and watch your side, then the chances are they won't.....there is no marketing department at the Broncos any more, only a part time/freelance media guy who also call the game at London Scottish......there's an advert for a part time commercial person which when you read the description, it's actually an office manager they are looking for....so there is very little in the way of any work towards lessening the reliance on the health of our single benefactor....because as it stands, when he goes, so will the club. THIS IS NOT A BUSINESS MODEL THAT IS SUSTAINABLE.

Mr Davy is of a similar ilk. His team struggle around the 6k mark and unless he spends considerable funds on marketing then that is where they will stay.....if they won the GF I suspect they'd still hover between 6k and 7k as an average...he's tried free/cheap tickets and failed, so thinks that there's no point.......so he'll continue to fork out a couple of mil a year for a side that nobody really wants to watch........rather than concentrate on what will happen once his 2 mil isn't available....THIS TOO IS NOT A BUSINESS MODEL THAT IS SUSTAINABLE.

Ian Lenegan at Wigan however, as continued to try and grow both the commercial and attendance revenues at the 2nd biggest club in the country because he understands that a modern RL club is ultimately a Business first......this is a sustainable business model!


If you don't market, then how in christ's name are you supposed to grow?

That's a fair point, but if you've effectively saturated the market with a product then marketing becomes a drain on costs rather than an asset. We need to be realistic about the game. We've tried moving into other parts of the UK and failed dismally every time. Why should it be different now, whether it's in the south of England, Wales, Scotland, Canada, USA or Timbuktu?

Ready to be shot down in flames, but what the heck's wrong with strengthening what we have now (from grass roots upwards) rather than chasing the holy grail of northern hemisphere sporting dominance?

What does "strengthening what we have" look like? What is "success" in that regard? That's what it comes down to.

In my view, the potential of "what we have" is waning by the day. The value of our TV rights and commercial opportunities will continue to fall if we keep on offering audiences that potential sponsors aren't interested in. And that will accelerate the talent drain to the NRL and rugby union, it will impact what we can invest in youth development to replace that talent, and that will see crowds and revenue fall further and further.

At some point, several club owners -a Pearson, a Lenaghan, a Hetherington or a Moran for arguments sake - may, just may, get a bit bored of this "happy with what we have" mentality. And that opens up a whole new can of worms. If the smaller clubs think that life is hard now, what on earth does their future look like if the sport's few big draws for broadcasters and commercial partners decide that they don't want to let the tail wag the dog any more?

LOL, does it matter anyway? Wigan generated crowds of 20,000+ in the 80's with a mixture of p/t and full-time players. The game would still be good to watch without needing full-time players. Admittedly, this would mean that we'd never be able to beat Australia & New Zealand, but tbh we can't now regardless. We need to live and breathe within our means.

The difference was that back then, most sport was part time or semi-professional and there was much less competing for your average punter's leisure dollar. Times have changed.

I want to watch the best players competing with each other week in, week out. Not the best of what Australia has decided it doesn't want. And I want people to be enthused by the sport, not one of the million other things they can do at the weekend.

There's a big difference between "living with our means" and "being devoid of any vision".

Indeed they did (albeit 20k only on a couple of occasions)....as they swept all before them, until other sides tried to copy their model and "buy" silverware which nearly bankrupted a few of them.....AGAIN, NOT A SUSTAINABLE BUSINESS MODEL!

If Wigan, Leeds, Hull, Wire, Saints and Catalan decided to leave the SL/RFL and join with a North American/French consortium including Toronto, Toulouse and maybe even London, what would be left "to strengthen"?
Those 6 SL sides averaged 11,775 per regular season game in 2017 between them....the other 6 SL clubs averaged 6,154! Are SKY going to continue to pay top dollar for a league made up of Castleford, Wakey, Huddersfield, leigh, Widnes and Salford combined with Halifax, Featherstone, Batley, Barrow, Hunslet and Whitehaven? Are they heck.......and god only knows how low that average attendance would plummet to.

BTW....I don't think for 1 second that North America is going anywhere in a hurry....Toronto are a shambles compared to last years bluster and stories of debts and misbehaving players are rife, but the simple economics of it dictate that without expansion, the game will contract, shrink and become worth less to advertisers, sponsors and Broadcast companies.......and without the TV money we slip back to semi-professional with Union and the NRL able to plunder at will......

I guess we'll never agree about this, as I'll always have a "fans" perspective on the matter, and was very happy, nay passionate, attending games in those semi-pro days to follow my team. The players were certainly less fit and less athletic then, but had a skill and guile that is maybe devoid in our game in many ways now. Is it better now? Could it be better now? Who knows, but it's certainly a different game.

Income is important for all RL clubs whether from TV or gate receipts, but for the fans it's all about what happens on the field.

I have no issue per se with expansion, but there is no visible and coherent plan to make it a success. Other than Catalans (who escaped by the skin of their teeth last season), we've just seen a catalogue of failure anywhere outside of the heartlands (Toulouse are limping along in the Championship). Let's have another club in France. Hey, one in Canada would be a good idea. What about USA next? No sensible plan and hence doomed to failure.

The thrill of attending was always the draw for many generations, but now it's so much more.....so very much more. The game was on its backside and semi-pro with little hope of surviving in a resurgent and developing entertainment/sports space, so the game moved to Summer and went "all-in" in terms of The Superleague.
Has it worked? I'd say it has, but not nearly as well as many expected or hoped. Paris lasted a heartbeat whilst other clubs such as Oldham weren't prepared for it....and after a few years of "bedding down" the new system" we ended up with about 14 sides that were worthy of a spot......Bradfords implosion showed that Heartland clubs needed to stay alert, whilst Wales showed us AGAIN that there is no quick expansion system.....it takes time and certainly more than the 3/5 years Toronto are working to.
If London Broncos exist in another 20 years, then I reckon they will be at the stage where you'll see 17 Local lads running out for them with plenty more playing at SL grade, but unless the game assists with marketing in these new areas, then the cubs can't be expected to foot the bill for running a club and developing local talent to an alien game.
Melbourne Storm is how you transplant a side into enemy territory.......but all we ever got from the North was unsubstantiated rumours and accusations of favouritism....distrust and lots of bitterness because we had taken the spot of a Pit Village team who had a "right" to be there.

As I have said, if anti-expansionists want to, then let them play among themselves, but I don't see the top cubs delivering 70% of the crowds being to enamored with paying for the bottom clubs to simply "survive".

I think you can still have a "fans" perspective on things and still appreciate that things need to change if the sport is going to improve.

I've been lucky enough to see some amazing players in this country. I'm someone who was introduced to the game just before the summer switch but I still remember watching amazing talents like Lauitiiti, Buderus, McGuire, Burrow, Sinfield, Schofield, Carroll, Morley, Peacock, Harris, Iro and Godden play for my own team, and talents like Steve Renouf, Trent Barrett, Andrew Johns, Jason Robinson, Jimmy Lowes, Va'aiga Tuigamala, Paul Sculthorpe, the Paul brothers and Jamie Lyon (off the top of my head) play against them.

My arguments for the sport taking a different direction don't come from me being some souless corporate shill. They come from me being a fan of the sport. They come from me wanting to see the sort of talent that I describe above more often. I don't want to feel that the only way I can see the best players that the sport has to offer is once every four years when the Australians tour here, or through my TV. And I want my young son to be inspired to play the sport. I want him to look at players and say "I want to be like him" and, if he's good enough, go on to achieve as much as he can in the game.

What worries me is that if things don't change, we won't be able to attract and keep those players because we can't / won't pay them their worth, we won't be able to inspire young people into the sport because we don't offer the facilities and pathways that encourage kids into the game, and I as a fan won't be able to see more of what I want.

I don't think you can compare the part-time era of the game, where RL was often one of the few tickets in town and when the 'business' of sport was so different, with the 2018 sport and leisure scene and say that we can go back to that without causing some serious damage.

It is a shame that Anthony Gelling has gone to NZ. He could make a pretty mean promotional video.

I also enjoyed it more than .
I feel the game has become to sterile in the way it's played (more sides seem to now to play 5 drives and a kick form), which is why Castleford were a breath of fresh air last year.
We need concentrate on sorting out the rucks, get the scrums back to being competitive. Possibly the side that kicks a 40/20 gets a tap rather than a scrum. Sort these things out added to the present rules about kicking we have a faster better game. Which promotes the product.
As no matter what you try to do off the pitch, or where you try to promote it what happens on the pitch has the final say on who you try to promote it to.
Have a system (I think you need to have p&r) that you are going to keep long term. Then you can promote to a new ordinance. Constant changing dosn't help in any way.
I would also like most games played on a sat/sun afternoon (I know most people will disagree, and that at some clubs it works). As I don't feel thurs/Fri games help bring in newer crowds, or attract away fans. Both of which I think are essential in trying to promote the product.

I think you're slightly wrong on the money thing. Fans do buy into the need for clubs to have more money, as look at the amount we spend on merchandising. On what we spend on at the ground. But you're right to us it's always going to be what happens on the field that's the be all and end all. And not for most clubs.

I also feel you're right about expansion. Until we have a system for the game that everybody buys into, and a philosophy with regards the game. Just dotting clubs in because there from here or there will never work.

That was the rule from last year re the 40/20.

These things are cyclical. Wigan won by wrestling. Other teams try to replicate the success of it. Game suffers. Over-reliance on physicality meant that Cas shook it up a bit, as it was different to the Aussie wrestle. Saints have pledged to follow, and I think Wire and Leeds the same. That will be the new style for a while, until someone learns how to defend better, and then its back to more biff and bash.

Competitive scrums is definitely not the way forward though. Scrums need rules to make them fair, which means technical penalties, and forever replaying the things. Scrapping them altogether would be real progress.