exactly.

Transfer deadline day gets more ad time than we do for gods sake. Lets get some transfers then find a way to make as big a deal as we can about them.

Won't get into the transfer bit but completely agree the game needs to find ways of pumping out more stories and getting more personalities known of best players. I am sure much easier said than done

The last one was probably Fielden to Wigan in 2006 (although Wigan were WBSLR at the time).

I think the big difference is Chairmen are less willing to shell out a transfer fee - probably because they are all skint. Most of the best players are tied into long-term contracts - I guvess the fear their form will drop and will get shipped out so enjoy the safety net of 4 year contracts. It's only a short career tbf.

Transfer fees were a regularity in the late 80s and 90s for the top players - Schoey, Hanley, Offiah, Lydon, Newlove, Scully etc. all top players that went for big money between big clubs. They are much rarer these days and the only recent (last few years), "considerable" ones I can recall are Westerman and Lineham to Wire, Ferres to Leeds, Salford signing rabble like Hock and Hansen and S.Tomkins, Bateman, Taylor and Green to Wigan. None really between top clubs though as the OP says.

Players switching between SL clubs was APs spec, not "top" players and not transfers. Apparently it doesn't happen, which is why RL doesn't get press.

Stand corrected on Russell - forgot he briefly went to Aus.

OK then, one and all. We all know that our beloved sport generally has a poor following, and would benefit from more supporters. So.... what would make it appeal more?
Some suggest more headline stories...(But, given that fishing and gymnastics seem more mainstream sports than RL, would any newspapers run any headlines??)
Nobody in the South, (where I have lived for 30 years), have a clue what RL is. Many don't even realise there are 2 codes of rugby.
Transfers wouldn't make any impact as yet, as the general public wouldn't have a clue who was being transferred.. With the possible exception of Sinfield, I bet 99% of the population couldn't name a single RL player. Even names like Peacock, Roby, Tomkins, O'Loughlin, mean zero to most people.

I have no problem with someone like Koukash coming onboard and spending whatever the heck he likes. It's his money after all. Let him spend big on star players. The game is crying out for that kind of generated publicity.

We currently have a poor product on the pitch desperately lacking in star quality brought about by a salary cap regime producing a non-existent transfer market for players between the top clubs. The very best marketing team in the world would struggle to sell nothing in particular.

Stick to what you enjoy then.

Go fondle some spandex down at the gym.

The unfortunate thing is that, until we entice a wider following, and stop being a 'Northern' game, then we a bit scuppered!
I'd love to hear what opinions people would have to break that thought process.... (But i'm pretty sure the directors of the clubs have been working on that for some time. After all, they are all generally successful businessmen)

Spot on. Can't recall Sky Sports going crazy when the aforementioned by the OP move of Higham from Saints to Wigan took place or even the Peacock to Leeds move.

If we scrap or increase the SC, we MIGHT see a big name player switch between big clubs but we might also see it buried away on the news without hardly any mention if it falls on the same day of a footballer getting jailed for trying it on with a 15 year old, or a legendary player dying, or a sex equality row in tennis, or drugs issues in athletics etc.

What will definatley happen though regardless is the "big boys" will take the better players from the "lesser" clubs and those same posters arguing for a scrapping of the cap will complain about the same teams at the top and gap between them and the "rabble" ever increasing and complain about how ever increasing one-sided scores look bad when reported on the same news/press in which they were hoping to get some positive coverage from with their "lets have some big name moves" idea.

We can't increase the salary cap until the sport generates enough money to pay it's way. Otherwise we will end up with the sport having a cycle of bankruptcy for clubs that don't have a wealthy benefactor..... And there aren't a large stream of Saudi oil billionaires queueing up just yet....

And that's a decade ago, though IIRC a number of salary cap hurdles had to be removed along with a specifically arranged salary payment schedule for that transfer to take place. Wigan and Bradford were both desperate for the deal for very different reasons. One to avoid relegation and the other to offset financial distress which they hadn't owned up to at that stage.

Think you are right about chairmen and transfer fees. There are more moves in aus which has a larger cap. I don' t buy all the culture club staying forever stuff but it seems to apply a it more here than down under ( albeit more coin to tempt the movers). Perhaps another factor is that a small set of teams have won titles here, whereas down under honours are spread round a bit more.

even accepting that as the spec, that list is hardly a great dismissal of his point. It happens rarely and on the fringes isnt really a a great repudiation.

GH is the biggest supporter of the SC, In his opinion it levels out the field and makes the competition tighter

Haven't the SL suits negotiated "record" Sky Sports deals the last few times, in fact the last one we jumped into despite the deal not being up for a few years because it was so impressive apparently. Where is that money even going? Clubs must be getting more Sky money than ever.

In the NRL the cap has increased by over £1m in the last 12 years while ours has barely changed in nearly 20 years. I'm not saying we should just put it up, but that just proves there are deeper issues surrounding our game and the administration over here.

The fact that most clubs couldn't be bothered registered a reserve side this year is ridiculous, and that sort of thing needs sorting before a cap increase. The RFL could try something like, allowing clubs an extra £250k to spend a year but it's mandatory to have U16s, U19s and a reserve team.

The SC has been set at a level which favours only a few clubs.

It has had a huge bearing on securing the amount of silverware that Leeds and a couple of other teams have won.

If it had the effect of levelling out the competition, we'd have seen more clubs than Leeds, St Helens and Wigan winning the comp during the last decade.

Only if you're naive enough to think the effect would happen instantly. Takes time for clubs to build teams capable of challenging established winners, and yes that time can be as long as a decade (how long did it take Leeds to win a championship again?)

Since the return to the new Wembley, 9 of the current 12 have reached a final there and of the other 3 Wakey and Widnes are beaten semi-finalists.

jesus, talk about scraping the bottom of the barrel, SL sides only had 3 games before the semi's. Widnes beat, Halifax Salford and Keighley and this is somehow evidence of the equality in SL.

that assumes a direct correlation between spending on wages and clubs going bust.

No it's not evidence of equality in SL. It is however a starting point unless people unrealistically expected the likes of Cas, HKR, Catalans, Widnes etc. to automatically start finding themselves in GF's after a few years of having a SC.

If Leeds, saints and Huddersfield maintain their less than flash standard perhaps Wigan and Warrington may be joined by 2 of that other wbsrl squad

a few years? its been 15. The next cohort of Scholarship players werent alive when we didnt have it.

in the 15 years prior to the introduction of the SC Sheffield, London, Halifax, Cas and Widnes all reached the CC final, the year prior to that was a Cas v Hull KR final, just 4 years before that saw Fev v Hull

Which I would imagine is almost certainly the case... look at the overspending football club in Leeds. They went bust trying to buy and pay players to keep them at the top of the tree....
Unless a club builds a new stadium, their general costs stay similar each year. Bringing in new players on higher wages would be the likely candidate for a financial meltdown, I think.

For me, the key to increasing the amount of media coverage, sponsorship and money generally flowing into the game is to increase the awareness of our sport to 'non-RL folk' - get more people to know about and take an interest in RL, and I think there's a fairly obvious way we can do this - but it will take a bold and risky move... Take less of a cut from Sky and insist on a level of 'free to air' coverage of the game - even if it's just 1 game a week and a highlights programme.

There'd be a significant drop in the TV rights money, but I think this would be short term pain for long term gain. The British public love live sport, our sport is great for TV, and there's minimal live sport available 'free to air'. A regular time slot on terrestrial TV could see us gain a huge national following....

But NRL is the 2nd biggest sport in Australia, after Aussie Rules. It is bigger than cricket and rugby union. Therefore it gets a bucketload more TV coverage (and money)
By comparison, RL is the a very minor sport in the UK, which cannot draw the same audience and advertising revenue.