Most RL people have at least a couple of ideas of how to improve the sport and its health. The ideas might not always be worth their own thread so I started this one.

Post ideas for the business side of things, marketing, rules, junior rugby etc. If you like, even include ones you aren't particularly convinced on - it might give someone else an idea.

To try to prevent the thread being de-railed, if you have a comment about someone's idea try think of something new to add as well.

A couple of ideas to get started...
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Schools growth
The Champion Schools comp has grow in numbers, schools and age groups (the comp didn't have all five secondary school age groups for both sexes at first). I'd like to see it grow into primary schools so that kids are exposed to RL when they are at the ages they begin to choose their sports. There are also more primary schools than secondary schools so there is a potential for huge increases in participation in time. It would be hard to do because of limits on the RFL's resources. Depending on how enthusiastic some primary schools are, town/district competitions only would be fine; there isn't necessarily a need to organise national and regional finals.

Junior rugby skills
[iI originally posted this in response to a Phil Clarke articles
At junior level, ages 5-11 perhaps, the RFL could promote a "swimming badge"-style scheme to encourage a culture of skills development. A rugby league curriculum almost. Players gaining a skill would be presented with a certificate and a badge to sew onto their personal training bibs. There could be XIII skill areas and several things to learn in each. Examples might be Support Play or Passing. During training sessions coaches would work with players on e.g. passing left and right and maybe later how to beat opponents with it. Once the players have learnt something in training they would then complete the skill and get the badge by applying it in a game successfully. Building a set of skills, as well as winning matches, would become the aim of the children. At these young ages each child developing their own skills and being rewarded for it would be especially great for any that are not the largest or fastest. The programme hopefully would support the many good coaches out there in their attempts to teach the sport and perhaps negate any poor junior coaching by those who are more interested in seeing their star (usually larger) players get the ball so they can win games. I'm not sure exactly what the situation is now in junior clubs at ages 5-11 (I played from 10 years old in a development area.) The scheme might have to work work around the various mod, tag etc. variants played at young ages. Some clubs might already work from their own 'rugby league curriculum' but I'm sure in many areas, especially new ones, they don't. Getting badges might help young player commitment and retention too.

Websites
UK rugby league clubs need to be efficient with money and rugby league fans often moan about the quality of club websites. The RFL member clubs should create a rugby league network of websites. They could split the costs of website development and perhaps work together on other things...unified ticketing system maybe?

Fantasy RL
I know that there is a RLfans (I think) version but I reckon the RFL are missing a trick by not having an official fantasy RL competition on their website like e.g. the rlPremier Leaguerl does. The RFL could make use of all the stats Opta collect for them.

better trained refs and touch judges

24 team league split into two division, east and west,
from the two 12 team divisions split them into three groups of four based on locality.
play each team in your own group twice and the remaining teams in your division once with a few randomly selected games from teams in the other division to pad out the schedule.
Get rid of points for a win or a draw and have it purely on win/lose record.
Top teams go through and the two best runners to the play offs with the winners of each division meeting in and East v West Grand Final.

Brings back elements of Lancashire/ Yorkshire cups and can have an "Origin/All-star" series if needs be. Also reduces number of fixtures and makes each game more important.

West

Saints
Wigan
Wire
Widnes


Salford
Barrow
Leigh
Whitehaven

Harlequins
Celtic
Catalans
Toulouse



East

Leeds
Bradford
Castleford
Wakefield

Huddersfield
Batley
Halifax
Featherstone


Hull KR
Hull FC
Sheffield
Gateshead


The three winners from each group plus the best runner up go through to the playoffs.
Playoffs would be reduced to three weeks too so season can start around the May bank holiday/ at the end of the Union Six nations. and finish up a bit earlier too.

We need to promote the sport in a way that costs little money but will get maximum exposure. Easier said than done of course, but here's a few snippets of what I feel the RFL should try.

Press releases - The RFL should ditch 'internal' marketing and outsource it, preferably to a well known firm that is London based. I say this because we've no chance of convincing the london based media to take us seriously, but a marketing firm with a bit of clout, and who liaise with the national rags on a daily basis should be able to get us in there.

They should oblige the clubs to subscribe to this, and make them liaise on a daily basis with the marketing firm, who will be able to put a 'spin' on, and 'sell' the stories far better than the individual clubs will ever be able to.

Sponsorship - we need to get away from the thought that we need to attract money for the time being, and look to do contra deals, where the sponsors in question promote us, in return for, say, 'free' advertising at ground, in programmes and so on.

Take Cadbury's as an example. Wouldn't it be great if Cadbury's were the main, say, Challenge Cup sponsor, and they were able to put the event on all Dairy Milk bars? Why have a main sponsor at all? The 'RFL Challenge Cup' with an official chocolate bar, official car, official this and that would be magnificent, in my opinion.

This is all about raising awareness, and if successful will attract more supporters to our game - the RFL can then prove that we're a dynamic, popular sport, and will THEN be able to start charging decent money for these things. I don't know how much Leeds Uni pays for CC sponsorship, but it can't be much.

Pre-Season tournament
I can't be the only one who can't be doing with meaningless friendly matches. They're meant to be warm ups, but they always end up being played out by reserve players. Pointless.

Then you have the early Super League season itself. The title is won late on and last season was marred by low quality matches where teams wanted to play 'safe'. All the hype of the new season is let down by matches that no one cares about.

A Pre Season tournament - say a simple knockout format in the spirit of the old JPS/Regal trophy - for me would kick the season off with a bang in the form of knockout matches and provide a great opportunity to 'big up' the forthcoming Super League season. Broadcast on terrestrial TV especially, this would get us vital exposure; how good would it be if we had, say, Wednesday night RL on BBC2, Channel 4 or five?

Our Name
Sadly it appears we'll never be able to reclaim the word 'rugby' as it has been monopolised by the fantastic Rugby Union marketing machine. So let's not try.

We refer to Amercan Football as NFL, and the Aussie league as NRL. People watch UFC and MLB so why not refer to our sport as simply 'RFL'? Or why not do what the Aussies do and simply refer to ourselves as 'League'?

This will take a while to ingrain, but if the Sky and BBC presenters and commentators do it, all RFL publications do it, and all press releases that are supplied do it, then it will soon catch on in the public conscious.

A few ideas of my own inspired by yoursA Christmas present from the Rugby Football League[/i'. In the week after, when many people are off work, there should be an attempt to schedule one match per day.

People in the grounds should be given really good prices, such as a pound to get in or all children free when they are with an adult and the adult gets in free themselves if they bring x children.

I'm not sure about this one but as it's a pre-season competition, the game could have 30 minute halves. It means crowds not getting quite so cold and could be more convenient for TV audiences who have Christmas things going on. Coaches might like it too - less wear and tear on players.

Clubs coaches might want to tailor their pre-season to suit their team's build up so perhaps some kind of a merit/percentage league could be designed rather than a knock-out cup format. The only requirement would be that if a team makes the top 2 then they have play in the final.

How about having the 9's tournament then? Terrestrial TV, sometime between christmas and new year, played over 2 days at Headingley, or Galpharm. Invite a couple of NRL teams, maybe the PNG/Samoa/Tonga national teams.

Anyone?

would be good fun but i'd get the feeling most clubs wouldn't take it seriously.

Well it would come in the middle of pre-season, so you don't know.

I think the 9's tournament has got bags of potential, the RFL should be pushing it big time.

A RFL freeview channel. They cost very little to run and potentially expose the vast majority of the country to the game.
It could run from 9am till maybe midnight. A Super League show/Boots'n'All/Footy Show programme twice a week (maybe Mondays and Fridays) which could be repeated on other days. Every night a classic match ala ESPN. Amateur club of the week.
The are so many possibilities with regard to content. I'm sure some of you could come up with more ideas than me.

Sounds good but this sort of thing would have to turn a profit. The RFL won't have the money it needs, even if it is very little, to throw at it.

Plus you have the issue with broadcast rights. If Sky don't want to be involved, then it's a non-starter.

On the plus side, you're not exactly short of content - Old games from Micron Video and the BBC archives, for instance, and it can't be too hard to get a few aspiring presenters together fairly cheapo, and old RL players keen to get into the media.

Certainly RL fans would watch it, I'm sure. Getting new viewers would be harder and the real expense would be in promoting the station to those who wouldn't naturally watch RL.

You going to train them then?

I'm reliably informed by people working in the media that these freeview channels cost very little to run.

Something that could be included in the next contract negotiations. It doesn't have to be Super League.

Exactly what I was thinking.

Word of mouth and pure chance. Sports fans will watch most sports. I've found myslef watching cycling, weightlifting and strongest man when there's nothing else on. How many people spend large parts of the day watching the same news repeated over and over again on Sky Sports News simply because it's sport?

Been thinking the exact same for a long time. We could big it up with historic test series documentaries such as the ones the Cricket showed before the Ashes. I hate cricket but even I was glued to them.

I have no bright ideas in terms of grass roots and administration, but I've a couple of ideas as a spectator that I think could go quite well.
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I'd like to see a third competetion started in place of the old regal trophy. It could start earlier in the year to give us something to shout about early on. Perhaps it could be a wednesday night floodlight trophy.

I would have groups that go into a knock out, a bit like the Football Champions League to make sure each team gets at least 3 or so games.
I would include the top 1/2 dozen or so NL1 teams.
The superleague sides would only be able to field a limited number of players over a certain age (say 24).
We would play the old 5 metre offside rule.
The extra games created may help us avoid playing other teams more than twice as in the past and the ridiculously longwinded playoffs (8 teams FFS!?)
I would look at getting it on Channel four or another non-sky sports channel (not sure what restrictions we'd have on this).
[iThe new dual registration laws may trump this idea to a degree.[/i
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I would change the playoffs back to the original 5 team set up. (i would look at perhaps excluding play off teams from the competetion mentioned above)
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I would organise Lancs vs France and Yorks vs France games mid season. This would give France some better games and give us a chance to compare prospective internationals.
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I would invite a Pacific Islands combined team to tour UK next year.
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I would, in vain most probably, try and persued the NRL to allow each club to have 1 european/SL trained player who does not count against the salary cap. This would see a few of our better players over there and competing at a better level, which would benefit us in the long term.

What do you think?

I like those two ideas. Not sure the others would work/go down well with clubs and chairmen.