There is quite a lot of people throwing hands up saying the RFL or Chairmen are letting down the game of RL or they are underselling it.

But I've heard little in the way of actual ideas that could translate to better revenues, just lots of hopeless THEY must do better.

So does anyone have an idea that could be implemented that could actually increase our revenues given our game being as it is today, not some idealised version of it.

My current off the wall idea is TV ads. If we could allow SKY more TV ads, then SKY could pay us more, regardless of the fact that the TV deal is undervalued as we see it already. If we could double the TV deal, would fans go for a mini-break around the 20min mark.

I would not want teams off the pitch, but a longdrinks break around the 20 minute mark. 15-25 mins would be an acceptable window. Either following a try, penalty, 20 m restart. The TV company signals to ref, long drinks break and a 1-2 min window for ads, drink and maybe even a timeout style team talk for coaches.

Surely more ads means more money. Cricket and Darts can do this, the nature of our game does not allow for long breaks and any break whilst the game plays on, may lose viewers. So a mini pause, could it work?

Like I say ideas that could generate real revenue?

Leagues clubs, with bingo, hot pot and slot machines.

Simple, work harder.
Its the same for all businesses in hard times.
The strong businesses will be clever in managing their costs and looking after their customers properly.
So for SL and Championship clubs alike, they need to be realistic in how they market S/T's and keep knocking on doors of local businesses
that may be sympathetic to their cause.
There is no magic solution or easy answer, just plain hard graft.

Yes I'm sure that if with a few more adds we could double our sky income we would definitely take it. That's a pretty massive 'if' though. There's no way we'd get anything like that. Sky pay us because a lot of people subscribe to sky so they can watch the rugby, they don't pay us because they think rugby league fans are great targets for advertising - dont' believe me? take a look at our sponsors (Irn bru, heinz big soup), and compare them to the blue chip companies which advertise on sports such as football, rugby union, cricket, etc.

If you want the chairmen to get ideas how to improve revenue, they should pay Gary Hetherington to teach the other chairmen a thing or two. Obviously Leeds is a big city with a successful team so he has an advantage, but imo there's no reason clubs like Hull and Wigan shouldn't be turning over a similar amount, not less than half as much as Leeds they currently turnover.

OK I accept the double is OTT, but lets say a significant increase. Also if the TV deal is based on subscriptions then surely others like ESPN and BT vision would be more competitive when bidding. Did anyone bid other than SKY last time?

Meaningful competitive regular season games

This!!

Seems strange that we werent turning people away at the doors when we had the champions decided by the top of the table then really doesnt it.

Meaningful games does not seam to be the issue, though. We have bigger attendances than when SL started. Yet our revenues in real terms are falling.

Saints had more fans than ever last year, despite a lot of people at Saints fans saying it was a very dull year to watch.

I'd like a more meaningful league or a disparity between league and playoffs, but how that would effect £'s in the pockets of SL clubs does not seam to be that direct a link.

So what happened in 2010 when you posted a pre-tax loss of 40K on the back of £11.2m sales and a Challenge Cup final appearance?
Leeds also happens to be the biggest metropolitan area in the North bar Manchester with many other smaller towns close by, the fanbase is huge.
Wigan does very well and has traditionally drawn a wider fan base than the town of Wigan itself, Hull whilst the city itself is fairly populous is in one of the most sply populated areas of England.
The turnover also reflects the fact that both Hull & Wigan lease their tenure.
Hull FC made a profit 6 years on the trot until year end 2010 on the back of 2 & 3rd from last in the league 2008/9, going out of the CC at the first round several times and getting past the first round of the play-offs once in that 6 year period.
We don't want to learn anything from Hetherington, he's an underhanded scab worse than Maurice Lindsay.

you dont pay much tax on a loss, if you could maybe move some of your profit from your profit making arm to your loss making arm you might do




And we dont what you learning anything from him either, these trophies are nice, we like to keep them.

Having a sponser that actually pays out and not just puts pretty pictures on a few vans?

why on earth can we not get better and more sponsors we have a good product we just need people to sell it

Rugby League is a small mostly northern based sport, we get very little in the way of publicity from the papers, in years gone by we had plenty of sponsors, but they most came from brewery's and smoking, such as the silk cut challenge cup & the john player, tetlys & john smiths, now that you cannot get sponsorship from cigarettes, we have struggled to attract much in the way of sponsorship, at the end of the day we are in no position to pick and chews, we had a alternative to stobarts, but for some reason the people who run the game thought being sponsors by bookmakers was bellow us and we turned them down, if the football premiership are not too proud to take there cash, why can't we.

it must take effort to be that bitter.
Leeds recorded a £39k loss in 2010 primarily because provision was made in that year for the HMRC issue and it was Leeds worst season for a while in the middle of a recession. There were also a few redundancies made during that year which would bear fruit the next year when Leeds made a £596k profit. Leeds are also owed £1.4m on a loan to the union team, plus an increase in assets of over £1.2m and over £2m sat in the bank account.
But go ahead and take the mick if you want

As noted by Him, that was the year provision was made for the one off HMRC issue (somewhere in the region of £525k by my estimate).






He's achieved more in the sport than any other administrator in the past 30 years.

Regarding ideas that will increase revenues - I like what Wigan are doing regarding making the match available on Wigan TV as a "bolt-on" to your season ticket.

Another way of reducing costs is to pay for a match day programme as view only on the clubs website - I don't know if anyone is doing this yet.

Title sponsorship is key. A good name next to the Super League could do wonders for the game. It was wrong to turn down the betting company for Stobart as the title sponsors but time has moved on and i have seen precisely 0 stories about who the new title sponsors may be. Looking at companies that have recently pulled out of sponsoring other sports you get names like Aviva and DHL. DHL sponsored Manchester United's warmup kit for £40m quid! Aviva sponsored Athletics for £8m a year. We should be attracting these companies that have been in the market. It's unlikely that we are going to get companies like Emirates etc to be title sponsors but lets not put ourselves down.

There are elements of our game that can also be sold. Going to the Irn Bru replay, going to the Heinz Big Soup big screen even the (sponsors name) sin bin! We have touch judges and referees that can be sponsored, corner flags etc etc. I know it is a lot to ask of companies to fork out money for this but someone, somewhere must be wanting to invest. Ive no problem with sponsors like Irn Bru and Heinz because at least theyre putting money in.

Its a slow process but surely they have to get it right sometime?!

Im not sure of the legalities of that kind of thing, I know there are restrictions on adverts and sponsorships during programmes, but if we can do it, look at the IPL and see how much they can sell, they sell pretty much everything.

The only way to increase income in the long term is to make the game part of of the fabric of peoples social life. by that I mean have families, groups of friends turning out by habit. Going to the game must be just what you do every weekend. In the far mists of time as a school kid we went into Hull every saturday to watch Rugby same bus, same time, every week, you did not have to think we just did it. To get back to that we have to get back to fixtures that dont change at the last minute, you dont have to buy tickets in advance, you just go to the game pay & watch. & finaly you get rid of groups of chanting youths full of drink & make it plesant for family groups to attend (I wont take my grand kids to hear the language in the crowds now). It is not rocket science but it needs a conviction from the clubs to make it happen.

Like the Love Rugby League video referee...

I'm a pioneer!

This is my idea and before i start i know this idea will never happen and is completely idealistic which will annoy some people and i am also aware that some people will also say that this idea "makes the game to artificial" but anyway it's my idea and i would like to share it.

It's based around teams playing in an arenas as opposed to a stadium, playing in a 10,000 -18,000 seat arena on an ipitch, you would always have good playing conditions, which is 1 benefit.

This bit is where teams would need to have the local councils involved. Around the arena, there are shops, bars, bowling alley, cinema McDs etc, i'm not talking about trafford centre size, but something that people can come to 7 days a week and not just when team is playing, imagine xscape at Castleford with an arena in the middle. The club owns the arena, and the eating franchises around it.

Commercial rental property in shopping centres such as meadowhall and trafford centre usually have quite good rental yields, which can attract some big blue chip investors and may encourage them to invest in the clubs as well.

But you could turn match day into a whole family day out, and if the wife doesn't like sport, she can still come with, go shopping catch a film with the kids etc whilst you watch the game. The clubs could do certain offers with season tickets, so you get discounts at the cinema, bowling alley could increase season ticket sales as people who catch 6 - 7 home games a season decide to get a season ticket because they will make use of the other benefits of having one.

Places like this need lots of staff, so that means lots of new jobs in the local area opening up.

Another benefit of an arena with an artificial pitch, could be the fact you could have live music on, the season may have finished and no rugby to watch, but it's ok, we have Muse, Snow Patrol and JLS performing over next couple of months, oh yea and that season ticket I've got means i get a 25% discount on the tickets.



It's just a thought, will never happen but I think it should.

Give the sport to a terrestrial TV company for "free" but with some big name sponsor behind the game who then get effective free TV exposure.

TV get a cheap product that the entire UK can watch and the sponsor potentially get lots of TV exposure and pay the RFL for it, plus club level sponsors.

Which "Terrestrial" company would want it (and I assume you just mean the main 5 channels not offshoots like BBC3 or ITV4). Bar possibly Channel 5 do not think any of the 4 channels would want it even if you paid them to show matches.

Saying that getting Crusaders and Scorpions games back on S4C is a possible avenue to get them more exposure and as S4C can be watched through Sky not just in Wales. Nationally can not see a way for your idea to work.