A bit worrying that the chief executive said London had engaged with the framework fantastically after the play off game. He is easily pleased if it just involves doubling the amount of facebook posts you put out.Not sure waht sport it was , but i was watching a minority sport last week from overseas and they said to engage the local community they let everyone in free for the first two games and those fans kept coming back.
Plus i am sure the club would reap the rewards by gaining some back in food sales and merchandise if they got there ass in gear and got to produce some affordable quality clothing.Last years training shirts they sold were embarrassing. You could pick them up on the Errera website for £5 without a London badge.

You can still pick coach tickets for the Featherstone game on the club website.I might book one as i think we might get a result up thereicon_smile.gif

BT, how much have you been drinking?

Always! BTW any update on the proposed move to yet another ground?

On the topic of shirts and Sponsorship. Given we will have 27 games next year, each shown on TV, with an guestimated SKY average audience of 20k/250k, if we can't cover our shirts in sponsors, then there's something very wrong with that! At the high end of my guess, that's close to 7,000,000 people over the course of the season. Double down and get hoardings up for all our home games. It really shouldn't be difficult to sell.
I'm of the opinion that anything other than bring a mate and free kids with adults to the locals is about the length of the marketing for 2024. Getting spanked isn't going to bring anyone back.

Speaking of DELUDED. Taken from the clubs Twitter Feed....

....was there a Hockey section?

I think Hughes' comments immediately post the Toulouse game are illustrative of his broader ambitions and thinking;

"I just hope next season we get more fans, more support seeing the big games and the big teams".

"HOPE" springs eternal in the canyons of Hughes' brain. I believe next season he is bringing his neighbours to help swell the crowd.

Back to your o/p DC.

Our glorious RFL CEO says, rightly, that we are in the entertainment business. But that doesn't need to be comedy all the time. Fans of other sports are splitting their sides over this new "system" just when their stitches were beginning to hold after the hilarity of us re-introducing the farce of our scrum after a forced but successful ditching during the height of Covid.

Delusional maybe, misguided definitely, plain 4 King idiot quite possibly.

There is another explanation but not worth a ban from this FORUM for expounding it.

A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum: Tragedy Tomorrow, Comedy Tonight!

The system wasn't working as it was. The grading system rewards the club's that can sustain a decent product. I have no problem with it. As far as supporters of other sports laughing at Rugby League, let them. Their opinion is irrelevant.

Not sure you are correct Curtism. What do you consider a decent product? Are half of SL reaching that level? I would suggest not. The grading process would at the very least is arbitrary, looking at 3 years only favours under performing SL teams. You could argue that 5 or 10 years would be a better metric.

There are a number of irrelevant metrics whilst some important omissions if this process is to have any credibility.

Attendance growth at women's football has certainly been down to the national team. Sadly, our national Rugby team plays in half empty stadiums which tends to suggest teams in the North are not able to expand the supporter base much.

Most people that try a new sport, tend to have some sort of sports watching history so if they are all laughing at us, that view may well be relevant in trying to grow crowds.

Still maybe full house signs will be put up at Leeds on Saturday but that is still only 19,000.

I honestly think that the 7 Grade A Clubs deliver the best version in the current climate. As more clubs reach Grade A the sport as a whole will benefit.

I don't believe promotion and relegation is right for rugby league in this country. I believe franchising is.

Interesting, Curtism, (good evening, hope you are well?) that you think the only teams that present the best face of RL in this country are the exact same seven that IMG picked as Grade "A"s. Are you a bot?

Save for KR's lickle 'ollidy a few seasons back, those seven have feasted at the top table for years.

Has the game grown?

Morning
No the game hasn't grown, but one could argue a number of factors for that. Now that clubs have a clear(ish) roadmap to teach Superleague that isn't entirely dependent on survival, they can invest in infrastructure etc to make Rugby League more appealing.

Curt. Agree with you the game has not grown, personally am not really convinced it has the ability to grow, London aside the last 50 years has shown that.
Even with IMG there should still be prom and relegation of a sort, but they have to build in on field performance as well as the off field stuff they are currently concentrating on. Will img raise overall profile of the game, we shall see. 50 years from now will RL be a nationwide sport, not a chance.
Hope we can pull off a shock or two next year though and we can enjoy the ride.