[urlhttps://www.theguardian.com/sport/2018/jan/07/super-league-clubs-transformed-adam-pearson-hull[/url
Apparently we couldn't see the trees for the WOOD!

"with the 12 CEOs instead appointed as directors to allow them to have a more definitive say in the competition’s direction."

The phrase "too many cooks spoil the broth" springs to mind.

Plenty of words - dont really say a lot

(wondered how long it would take to mention TW)

I was thinking more long the lines of organising a session at a brewery, but yeah.....agreed

Just looks like Super League Europe Ltd rehashed all over again!

A bit like the country we live in, it’ll be the haves deciding to take more and give little to nothing to the have nots

This worries me immensely. We already have an enormous disparity between the clubs, the direction in which they respectively see the sport heading, their level of ambition and their resources. There's a very real danger that we continue with a 'tail wagging the dog' scenario where individual self-preservation takes priority over collective growth.

With 12 SL ceo's running the show, there is every chance that they may go for some kind of franchise option, which would instantly preserve their status in the top flight and allow them to divvy up any Sky monies between themselves.

The comment about TW is interesting, in that, it mentions additional broadcasting deals.

It looks like. if you can bring something to the party, then, you'll get an invite ??
Tbf, IF clubs like Toronto (and New York) can bring substantial cash into the game, then, this can only be a good thing but, the big question is, will they ?

Sounds like desperation from clubs that fail to sell themselves already and may well take resources from the grass roots.

It seems that RL administrators can't win whatever they do. People have been moaning ( rightly, in my view ) about Nigel Wood's lack of ability. So, now he's gone, and the clubs are starting (only starting, of course) to set out a more ambitious and aggressive agenda for progress, and yet you immediately call it 'desperation'. In truth, we need a bit of 'desperation thinking', not in a panicked way, but simply for the realisation to dawn that RL is missing out on the big money and needs to adapt to win some of it.

I am an enthusiastic supporter of maintaining the sport's grass roots and helping the smaller clubs to survive and flourish. However, unless we think big at the top (and was it not great that the potential England/NZ match in Denver was included in the quote?) we will continue to lose ground to Union in attendances, TV audiences, sponsorship and all the other revenue vital for the game to progress.

11 cooks one head chef, the sleave Gary Hetherington, Gary knows best.

But the aggressive tone of the article and the obsession with Union will be self-defeating. Need to concentrate on the game itself and selling that not worrying about others. That's what I said it smacks of desperation. Both games can exist and flourish if each sells itself.

I also worry about the obsession with union.

They are vastly different sports appealing to a vastly difference audience.

Albeit Union has stolen the march in terms of grabbing the interest of many more casual supporters to their "event" games, and has turned their Six Nations contest into a nationally discussed annual obsession.

The six (previously 4) nations was always thus due to BBCs obsession. Not a recent thing.

It's not, but what are more recent things are Saracens filling Wembley Stadium, the Pro 14's 'Judgement Day' that gets 60,000+ crowds at Millennium Stadium, and the European Cup which packs out quarter and semi-finals at short notice, and next year will see the final being played in Newcastle - a city that is (supposedly) a key target market for RL.

The 'big events' thing is key, and we need more of these rather than filling the fixture list with extra weeks of poor quality fixtures that few people care about because clubs are convinced that they need a minumum number of games to survive.

I find it hard to believe that clubs like Leicester or Northampton are that different to clubs like Leeds or Wigan and week-to-week, they get similar attendances. But when those big games come, they're easily selling out 30,000, 40,000 and even 50,000+ seater stadiums. That's a fair comparison that RL should be making and asking "why can't we do that"?

Not a recent thing, however, it's profile went through the roof after the England world cup win in 2003 and "everyone" is now "interested" in the other code.
The BBC publicity goes into overdrive and the Broadsheet Newspapers cant get enough of it.
Even the utterly meaningless Autumn Internationals are raved about in most quarters and in terms of profile and media coverage, massively eclipsed the RL World Cup.

The only games that would be classed as high quality apart from some league fixtures between certain clubs, would be certain internationals (Eng vs Aus/Nz) or some sort of origin where 2 teams made up of the best SL players go head to head. However, this wouldn't happen as clubs would be reluctant to release players mid season for what they would see as meaningless fixtures.

You know it to be true.

I played against Leicester back in the 1980's in the Pilkington Cup...there would have been no more than 1,500 people there. 30 years later they played all their 11 home games at Welford Road and achieved just short of a 22k average for their season, with no event games. Without doubt, they are the biggest club of either code in the country....a status they have achieved by ingraining themselves into the local psyche...they are in direct competition with Premiership soccer but thrive running at 86% Capacity of their stadium.....by comparison, Leeds run at 71% and they are our biggest club....we need to concentrate on re-engaging with our communities like Wakefield and get them up from 48% capacity to 75%.....they need to find 2,900 NEW fans or get lapsed ones back. Huddersfield need to play in a smaller stadium because they'll never attract fans when there are 80% of the seats empty....it just doesn't attract fans back. Both Uion and League have an overall AVERAGE capacity of 17,000 per club SL XXII ran at 53.7% capacity.......the last full Union Premiership ran at 88%......they have small town and cities as we do and we need to get back out there and become a key part of our communities.


The "event" games are the cream on the top....they shouldn't be the main target. 16/17 Union season had 5 event games that delivered 280,000 fans. Remove them from their total and they still had a competition average of 79% capacity. Bath, Quins, Northampton and Saracens all took games On the road in 2016/17....but once you remove these games they still ran at 96%, 99%, 94% and 96% capacity for their games at their main home grounds.....

By all means take Leeds v Wigan to Elland Road, but do it for 5 years running and make it an event even if you lose money for the first couple of years, but it would be far better to maybe spend that time and effort getting Leeds up to 95% capacity for all their games rather than artificially inflating the total?

The last full UP ran at 77% of capacity when removing the neutral venue games. You still gutted about what Whelan did to your beloved Orrell?

Maths again.....OK!
Capacity 203k...... divide by 12 call it 17 rounded up.
2.033,000 Attended 135 games. Remove the 4 OTR games and the DH (280,000) and you get 1,753,000 at 130 games...13,500/17,000 is actually 79%.....leave those event games in and it's 88.6%........


I have no thoughts about OrRell or any other union club. The direct comparison with union was contained in the original article and all I did was show thE chasm that we need to breach before we can expect parity.......and FWIW, I removed the event games to make the job look a little easier than it actually is.

Saracens now fill their 10k stadium when they were lucky to get half that in Watford, Bath sell out most games, as do Exeter, Northampton and Quins......regardless of whether you'd prefer to carry on despising union or not, you have to admire the sheer level of development they have achieved over the same period we've been scrapping over a place in SL.
Wasps went up by 4k last year...26%. They moved........but we whine when anyone suggests Castleford and Wakefield share a stadium......not ever to mention MERGE......

Sale averaged 6k in that 16/17 season.....making them better supported than Salford, Wakefield, Huddersfield and Widnes....and rather than whine like some obsessed bitter and twisted idiot, why not contribute to the debate or offer suggestions on how to change that damning statistic.

I really get the impression nobody reads your posts mate. they're pretty boring

I don't know, fairly interesting reading to me.

To grow the game needs to recognise how small it actually is. Pearson has simply spouted a wish list with (not surprisingly) any detail of how any of it will be achieved. Maybe someone could remind me how things panned out the last time SL chairmen took control of their own marketing, TV deal negotiations etc?

Roger Draper now gone. Interesting times. I think they will be a power grab by the SL clubs who will divvy up the money between themselves and the RFL will be left with Ralph Rimmer (who's even more inept than Wood) and will be as useful as a chocolate teapot.

SL clubs in charge would be a disaster IMO. These are the same group who voted in and ratified Woods ideas. Voted to give away our title sponsorship for a few painted lorries, voted to scrap the U21s/U18s.

We have some real problems in the sport at the moment, the participation levels at 44k is the main issue IMO. Yet the noises coming out, seem to be SL clubs main issue is getting a few more £££s from the championship clubs to try and compete with RU

10 years a go we were in a battle with RU, but now we can't even compete and taking a bit more money from championship clubs won't affect that. Wouldn't mind, but the average SL attendance as fallen by 800 fans i believe (happy to be proved wrong)