Derek often speaks to the press and is always very cryptic and can be easily misunderstood.

"Beaumont said
Two bits of info from the opening statement - Leigh needs to be a unique brand, so by choosing a moniker from the Big Cat world Derek wants to achieve this, when already we have Castleford Tigers, Wakefield Trinity (Formerly the Wildcats) and from the Lupine world we have Warrington Wolves. In the lower divisions there is the Swinton Lions and Keighley Cougars.
Already we have Leeds Rhinos and Bradford Bulls with strong brands. Choosing animals is not unique in Rugby League or Sport in general, and besides Leigh Leopards does not trip off the tongue despite the deliberate use of alliteration.

A need to be different from Wigan seems to be overriding factor in Derek's thinking. The old joke goes along the lines about Wigan and Leigh merging to form a new club - called Wigan, that play in Wigan but wear Leigh's colours.
Wigan is not an exciting urban metropolis, it is like Leigh a former pit and cotton town in Lancashire, any superiority that the Pies might have is in the success of it's Rugby Team. If you want to better than Wigan, do it on the field not creating a franchise.

“People can say, ‘We were first with cherry and white.’ If we were, tough as we’ve been absolutely smashed by Wigan, there’s no denying they’re a much bigger club".
Who can say ‘We were first with cherry and white.’? Wigan formed in 1872 and Leigh in 1878, does Derek know what colours they originally wore, but I am guessing both chose Cherry and White, as was the pattern for most Lancashire teams (St Helens, Wigan, Leigh and Oldham). Who was first, is just minor bragging rights.

“What the rebrand has done has made us more appealing to a wider audience. Look at the NFL, it’s not the Dallas Cowboys or the San Francisco 49ers anymore, it’s just Cowboys and 49ers."
"Cowboys" does not denote Dallas, most people would have an image of John Wayne or Clint Eastwood, not the Dallas Cheerleaders. 49ers does at least link into a historic event based near to San Francisco. Leigh will never be synonymous with Leopards. "Go Leopards" is a chant that will never be heard from the North Stand

“People go on about the geographical spread of our sport – ‘we need to be out of the heartlands, we need to be here, there or wherever.’ - “It doesn’t matter whether you’re based in Leigh, London, Wakefield or France.
I am guessing this is the bit that spooked Wysiwyg. Essentially as Vanners pointed out Rugby League and Leigh are not on a par with the NFL and Oakland. The UK is not open to franchise moves, the only one I remember is Wimbledon moving to Milton Keynes. It was a good idea in principle but fans will not drift naturally with the franchise. Wasps RFC was initially successful but large loans to cover the move never got paid, resulting in administration this year.

If sport becomes about Television and not the match day event, then franchise sports teams becomes possible. At present Rugby League is about surviving on relatively small attendances and some Television coverage. With IMG I believe that all games will ultimately be available, with streaming of the less exciting fixtures appearing on Our League or an alternative service. Leigh TV will become a thing of the past (not that it is currently functioning). When Media becomes the main source of revenue only then will franchising to new areas become a reality. London have always struggled to maintain a solid core fan base because they are always on the move.

“The facts are in the figures. We’ve got our biggest ever sponsorship deal for the front of the shirt as they absolutely loved it and what it’s about. “Most of the other partners stayed on at increased cost and we’ve attracted new ones. There are also more memberships – we did 2,000 by mid-November, last time in Super League, we did 1,200 season tickets.
This statement from Derek, assumes cause and effect. Leopard re-brand is successful because of increased sponsorship and larger season ticket sales. The same could be argued that Leigh have a successful team, the majority of the team has been retained and some real quality has been brought into the club. There is stability with a strong management team and the team are not favourites to be relegated.

Leopard skin print clothing seems popular at the moment, but only as a female fashion statement. Plenty of other people believe that as a style it is a bit naff. If Leigh sell more merchandise for women and kids (and possibly the LGBTQ+ community), then I guess that is job done, on the side they might start a line in retro Cherry and White hoops for the adult male supporters.

"And as he targets a 10,000-plus crowd for their opening match against Salford, Beaumont is looking well beyond finishing 11th next year."
First game of the season against poorly supported local rivals Salford, with 10,000 on the gate and Televised on SKY sports. This sounds like Derek has been on the sherry again.

The packages to indeed look highly professional and a little note saying which player prepared each one is a nice touch.

When picking up my package I was told the queue was about an hour and when the pick-up-ee left with said packages the queue was twice the length as when joined.

I think I'd be right in saying that the feedback from other fans on this side of the rebrand has been positive, some almost verging on envy.

Plus I really want a cyan top to go with whatever my polo shirt voucher gets me in the end.

Credit is well due for this part.

Your right about the envy, my old MD (a pie) sent me a photo of a child crying as he’d been given a Leopard’s shirt for Christmas,

I sent him some photos of how we’d received our memberships.

His reply was a photo of his season ticket with the comment “WOW we got this dog e 3 of them in one envelope!”

While the question may linger in DB's motive regards Leigh's rebrand it must be remembered that Super League clubs were asked a couple of years ago to update/upgrade their rebrands and IIRC quite a few have (quite successfully i believe) and others are still in the process of doing so.

Not sure they asked SL clubs to update/upgrade their branding. Branding purely sits with the clubs interest. We are probably seeing the most ever successful rebrand in the history of the game. Success currently sits with Leopards on that score.

What/who are the other clubs who have successfully rebranded?

I was sceptical at this idea at first but nothing would suprise me any more