FFS, what's in my sig?

If they're taking away fans from your club, look at your club.
If they're attracting new fans, be happy about it.

This is absolutely despicable.

It’s a bit like Tesco coming on your local shopping parade in the middle of the council estate asking you to shop at Tesco rather than the local Off licence.

What the F()CK









Do you really believe that it is wrong for a competitor of yours to try to attract your customers away?

You think your horrified

?

I am more horrified that you typed your original post, checked it, read it back to yourself and then still pressed the post button

The parochial attitude is what has held the game back from actually pushing on to become a truly national sport. If you look at some of the marketing strategies employed by the Bulls and ask how much would they actually cost?

Getting your players to visit schools and give out free kids tickets. Most kids tickets are less than half the price of an adult one and a lot of the kids who got these tickets would require an adult to take them to the game. So right there, you've made money on that free ticket. Then once they're in the ground you've things like food and drink to buy as well as other match day items like Programs.

If you look at the early Bullmania days, none of what Bradford did was really that revolutionary in terms of marketing, it was just revolutionary in terms of RL. And it worked and earned them fans. But as for "stealing" fans? No, that's simply not the case. People saw a better option in terms of entertainment and took it. Damo made a very good analogy when he compared it to Tesco and the local off-licence.

Again, I'll repeat myself. Both the Batley and Dewsbury clubs have given out thousands upon thousands of free tickets to schoolchildren in the local area over the last 14 years. Do you seriously believe that we are so far behind the times the we haven't, and don't continue to use it as a tool? This is an attempt to expand our clubs and safeguard our future by attracting new fans at a young age. And then we get Bradford Bulls, a household RL name operating in the heavily publicised Super League offering the same people the same deal. As a potential new fan, what would be more attractive? The answer is obvious.
Rugby League is ostensibly a sport built around Northern conurbations, and if the bigger clubs operate in the way that Bradford are doing in this case, then smaller clubs will eventually die.
Maybe a good way to solve our so-called 'lack of effort' on the self-promotional front would be for the RFL to give us more SKY money, which would allow us to up our game in this area?
Of course, thats never going to happen, and the welfare of Championship clubs doesn't really matter as long as everything is all well and good in Super League.

So your horrified that I am concerned and upset about that fact that an organisation that has so many financial advantages over the organisation that I love dearly and have supported for over 25 years, making a blatant attempt to attract our exisiting fans and current fans whilst plonked less than a mile from our home stadium?
Shame on me.
I've no doubt that if the RU decided to start a Guiness Premiership club in Wrexham and made a play to snare Crusaders fans through a cheap season ticket deal, a lot of people, including yourself would be up in arms that an attempt was being made to kill our expansion club off.
You tell me what the difference is, especially given the fact that due to the franchise system and the likelihood that Batley and Dewsbury will never ever get to play in the highest echelons of Rugby League, we are playing a different sport to Bradford Bulls.

Sport is a business, get over it.

If any supporters leave then the small club is not doing enough to try and keep them in.

Yes.....was I not clear in my post. I don't care what my competitors do, so long as I counter their activities. I don't care what my peers earn at my company...so long as it doesn't impact on my ability to earn money.....FREE MARKET ECONOMY!
...not for you concern, but for artuculating it


...nope.....don't care less and wouldn't if it happened. FREE MARKET ECONOMY!

None!...and here's why
The guy who makes home made anti-dandruff shampoo...which is of a higher quality, better for the enviroment and provides employment for 5 local people with specialist skills (one of whom has a handicapped daughter, another will be a coach of a local team and another will have been doing this since Adolf Hitler fancied Dover as a holiday destination....with the other two being apprentices of this art) will always have a niche audience...but Proctor & Gamble...the makers of the worlds largest selling product to this audience, Head and Shoulders...will always be...well, head and shoulders above it!
Simple...FREE MARKET ECONOMY.
And...his better quality, more organic, eco-friendly product won't get stocked at Tesco either.......FME

If our soap guy wants to play with the big boys...he needs to ger Palmolive colgate involved......but if he does that...he won't be the independent supplier his customers like.......FME

Simple fact is that Bradford have gone from being trailblazers in SL to bottom feeders...they needed to address the loss of fans and have tried to do so....get over it

I have a lot ofsympathy for the OPs comments.

If Batley and Dewsbury who do a lot of community work in school, clubs etc then get shafted by a stronger and more aggressive powerful neighbour they will lose support. this then makes it harder for them to do that community work etc which brings new fans into the game.

Bradford may pick up fans from othere areas but they will probably put nothing back into those areas. If they were planning to do schools work or community work they should be doing it in BRADFORD

they are a parasite feeding on the work of smaller clubs.

There is no symbiotic relationship betwen them . they are just feeding off them.


However that is the way of modern society and buisness and RL is a buisness for better or worse that is the way it will be.

....and the fact is that if the Bradford Bulls aren't advertising for fans, there will be a soccer club that is, or an RU club, or the cinema, or some poor TV programme or Mecca Bingo or whatever else.

Putting up an adertising board = shafting?

Hardly an advertising board

OK, it's a bus with a sign on it then. Still, hardly "shafting"
If they were following the Championship players in schools handing out Bulls tickets directly afterwards, there would be a case to claim that. If they had a bus parked outside the ground offering people transport to Odsal, there would be a case. Simply adverstising themselves in a spot another club seem to think they have reserved the sole rights for....no.

In which case there can be no question of anyone "poaching" the fans of your sport. Can there?

Edited for accuracy

Something people need to bear in mind: Odsal is at the very southern tip of the Bradford Met district. Much of the Odsal hinterland is actually in the "administrative districts" of Kirklees and Calderdale - where no Bull is supposed to tread. Even though it is a ten minute walk from Odsal and you are in Kirklees, and much of the Bradford traditional support lives "over the border". This is something no other SL club has to contend with - even Wakey and Cas are in the centre of their (fertile) hinterlands. Leeds of course had Bramley and Hunslet to contend with. They somehow don't seem to have to worry about them any mnore, and do I see anyone on here screaming because leeds might be (quite rightly and properly) trying to attract fans in the fertile rugby heartlands of South and West Leeds as opposed to say Alwoodley? Would there be this complaining if say Leeds sent a bus round Morley and Holbeck and Stanningley and Rodley? What the hell is the difference???

Protectionism never works in industry and commerce. It sure as hell doesn't work in sport. You can't force someone to go and watch their local club (including Bradford) - whatwever the sport.

Quite true. But it appears you can create a "closed shop" (read superleague) to strangle the potential competition.....

Normally the biggest set back to effective promotion outside of Super League is the lack of staff resource rather than lack of finances. As has been mentioned before promotion need not cost the earth. The problem is oftwen though some clubs will only have 2 or 3 backroom staff who spend their weeks donig everything else.

But as an example of how it can be done, on the last game of the season just finished the Dons made a big promotion push to get bums on seats for that game. The main aspects were, banners at key points around the town (which are cheap eough and can be paid for by a sponsor) and stall near the markey on the preceeding Friday manned by everyone from the office, some supporters volunteering their time and a couple of players. This was just a process of handing out fliers to passes by and trying to sell the reduced rate tickets to people who took interest.

The result was, for the last game the attendance almost doubled despite the fact we had already missed out on the play offs and in essence had nothing to play for. On the day, and after a good performance on the pitch, the club auctioned off the shirts 1-17 which had been made as a one off for that game which all went for about £200 each (nice promotion budget for the next venture) and had an offer on the season tickets for one day only (where the club sold more in that day than the previous season). And to boot the club gained a whole database of new and old supporters contact details to feed into the CRM contact list for future.

I'm not saying all of those new fans will be banging on the door next year but if 10% that is a good wedge and its a process that can be repeated for not much money.

The only shame was that it was the last game of the season as if wed had a game the following week I'm sure there would have been a noticable increase, but they had to link this in with the season ticket release.

Yes, of course. Because no clubs have entered or left SL since it's formation

So what has the franchise system done????

Do you disagree that it has protected some clubs at the expense of others ????

Incidentally my comment was made in response to this:



What are franchises if they are not protectionism?????

Do keep up dear boy.

Which is of course why the SL licences are granted for life, and no current SL club is concerned about losintg its licence, and no club outside of SL is gearing up an application to apply for SL, of course.

Oh but hang on...

Why would they stop supporting Saints? still a chance of the GF

Only in the same way that P&R based solely on one seasons results of a team protects some clubs at the expense of others.



I know it was. Hence my response.

Very true that franchising in superleague is not a [icomplete[/i closed shop.

Simple question:

What are franchises, if they are not protectionism.



Or don't you agree with what you origionally said



I am not arguing the rights or wrongs of franchising simply saying they are a form of protectionism.

Not sure what you mean about cas being in a central location, we are a couple of miles from leeds council areas and we are a couple of miles from another county, hardly central.