The issue with allowing the SL teams to retain the power and decision making is that the likes of Wakefield and others potentially wouldn't be part of a bigger extended game and as such they will prevent expansion at every opportunity. Hence the need for an independent central long term strategy.

but clubs have had 12 marketing men for over 20 years and the problem is that if they are ok in their jobs within each club then nothing progresses. The game has shown no real signs of saving itself from within for as long as i can remember (with the possible exception of getting rid of Wood), so the alternative is to get someone in from the outside, a new broom to sweep through the sport if you like. whether Hearn is the man is open to much debate but at least he's prepared to give it a go, unlike a lot of people from within the sport.

the problem with RL is that it is too insular, full of people who don't like change, love the heartland and s*d everyone else. you only need to look at all the sniping about toronto to see that, or alternatively just look at a lot of posts on this forum

That's because the sport has been engaged in this 'race to the bottom' for those 20 years. There can be no consequence for failure if year by year, the club's keep voting and acting in a way that keeps lowering the bar between success and failure.

Can't generate revenue growth to be able to compete with the top clubs? Just vote to keep lowering the salary cap in real terms to make it harder for top clubs to retain and recruit talent! Chairman fed up of underwriting operating costs? Instead of looking at revenue opportunities, save £300k by pulling the plug on the reserve team! Need to meet an average attendance target for your franchise application? Just slash the price of season tickets to unsustainable levels!

People pointed the finger at Wood for a long time and whilst he had undoubted faults, he wasn't the cause of the game's biggest issues. His departure solves nothing in that regard, and I don't see how Hearn will bring anything more to the table than a gimmick.

The game has the power to address the vast majority, if not all, of its biggest challenges. The question is whether each and every club is prepared to pull their respective weight.

Look at it another way. If the Hearns do come in, and if they don't take this sport to the level it needs to be at (because not everything that they've touched has turned to gold), then what? Who do we turn to as our next saviour or messiah? What does it actually take before the sport is motivated to address the root cause of its problems?

would be interesting to know what hearns ideas are but they will be a secret for now

what it would be we dont know, would we like it as fans? dont want to see anything like changing the points in games for a win and a draw or bonus points

Agreed. I see where Bramley is coming from but carrying on doing the same things and expecting different results is a sign of madness. The 12 SL clubs that want th power, are the same people who voted in the Stobart, scrapping of reserves etc Lenegan has already upset the L1 and Championship clubs with his proposal of making L1 amateur without bothering to consult them, creating divides straight awayl and felt like a proposal through the back door approach.

It's a discussion worth having, is spending the limited funds we have on someone like Hemel who are effectively based up north, playing in front of 112 people the best use of resources? To counter that, is taking money away from clubs like Keighley who bother to run a reserves, and York who got a bigger crowd than some sl teams (due to excellent marketing...fancy that) and giving extra money to someone like Salford who aren't getting great crowds and don't run an academy going to benefit the sport?

Gareth Walker also made a great point in the paper. Sport is cyclical. Is it right that just because a team is currently in SL at this particular point they should have such a big say in the direction of the sport?

Nothing wrong about speaking with Hearn

That's all it is right now.

Did Wigan go to Australia for the benefit of European SL or for the benefit of Wigan?

Why not both?

If Wigan (and Hull and Leeds for that matter) generated a return from their trips to Australia, if they engaged new audiences and commercial partners, then that is potentially beneficial to their clubs. The stronger our leading clubs are, the higher the standard gets set and stronger that should make our competition as other clubs strive to reach that standard.

Do the other nine Super League clubs see an immediate direct benefit? No, but why should they? They weren't the ones who found a backer, took the risk, jumped on the plane and put in the effort.

So nothing centrally coordinated for the benefit of the game. Just add hoc short term arrangement's that may bring small benefits to some.

See why we need something central.

I'm not disputing that there needs to be a central vision. My argument is that without actually having a way to enforce a level of standards, any central strategy is doomed to fail because ultimately, we have 12 individual businesses with 12 individual owners, 12 individual business plans, 12 individual budgets and 12 different mindsets.

What we currently have is a series of ad-hoc club-led initiatives precisely because we don't have a joined-up approach that every club is equally bought into. We have a centralised brand, we have the RFL doing some decent work on digital media, but different clubs then go off and do their own thing to different degrees. Some see that there are opportunities out there to tap into, whilst some see marketing or media relations as an expense to be controlled, and others either don't know how or can't be bothered to capitalise on such opportunities.

If Wigan wants to partner with the NSW Tourism Board, plaster 'Visit Sydney' across their shirts and go to the expense of flying their playing squad to Australia, then they should be allowed to do that. But they shouldn't be expected to share the fruits of that labour with a club that thinks "marketing" is simply updating the fixtures board outside the ground and whose vision is to see everything on the balance sheet as a cost centre that needs to be controlled, rather than an investment that delivers a return.

You can have as many centralised plans and goals as you like, but the fundamental issue is that the clubs will never work equally towards that goal. That is one thing that any so-called "saviour" cannot fix.

All it's ever likely to be IMO. Can't see Hearn taking on the sport if he doesn't have control but no way I see him being given it. Boxing, snooker and darts are a little different as most stakeholders are individuals whereas all ours are businesses.

hearn didnt have control when he had leyton orient football club, that was the f.a . so he knows how it works with the r.f.l

Those 12 people can't sell a product to others, if the manufacturing is rubbish in the first place. The product needs to be entertaining, exciting and enthralling and there needs to be excitement about the sport before the marketing teams can do a good job.

You wouldn't expect 12 sales reps to sell loads of tickets to a theatre show, or for chocolate bars if the reviews were rubbish, or there was no interest around it at all.

The RFL need to get off there backside and show some professionalism. They should be selling the game whilst the clubs are producing the product, there is no working model for the clubs and thats why we have Wigan and Hull arranging a UK domestic league game over in another continent, not for the benefit of super league but purely for financial gain.

Its very difficult for individual clubs to "up the auntie" when the RFL are lowering the standard of our profile and stature, individual clubs can only promote and market locally towards there fan base, the RFL need to promote the game nationally outside the heartlands, the marketing team in the RFL are failing on all fronts.

The Hearn interest appears to be a publicity exercise, we will have to wait and see if it has legs, so we need to watch this space.

1. Currently, Leeds, Wigan, Hull, Warrington and St Helens deliver 60% of the crowds attending SL games. The other 7 clubs are the ones holding us back in terms of attendance and this is one of the areas that Hearn sees the game "on its knees".
2. Then there's the TV "spectacle'......it's all well and good taking SKY's cash and scurrying away with no care for production values of scheduling, but watch any other sport on TV and compare their production and "razzamataz' and we look like a sport for pigeon fanciers from the north......Gabby Yorath or Clare Balding....even throaty Powers need to be introduced, there needs to be wall to wall SKY TV promotion...there needs to be a build up to the games and then during the game get a commentator to call the game and analysis occasionally but none of the wittering drivel we get now.
Stop trying to reinvent the wheel with gimmick graphics etc, RL is a simple game so keep it simple and generate excitement through production.
3. Scheduling is a tougher call, but we need to engage broadcasters now in terms of the next deal.....FTA coverage is key, as is a highlights show at a reasonable time
4. Customer Relations......not just marketing. I haven't received an Email from the London Broncos for 2 years now and yet I have a long history of spending a lot in their on-line shop........it's not brain surgery, but so many clubs just don't do the basics right.
5. Commercial Partners. Collectively we are stronger than individually, so I would have a central Kit supplier across all 12 sides. We would be attractive to mainstream kit suppliers like Adidas or Canterbury and could negotiate a better deal.........

Hear may or may not be the answer but the last time we as a sport were seen to be doing OK was when we had a tennis administrator at the helm and what we don't need is another rugby league person running the sport, because there is no such thing as an impartial RL person.....Hearn has no baggage and would be 1005 about the dollar and that is what the sport needs.

Obviously we don't know what Hearn has in mind but we need someone to bang the on the door of the TV companies.
I know we complain about the quality of Sky coverage they give us quite a few matches each week.
The coverage on terrestrial TV is abysmal.
The Super League Show on BBC gets shoved around at silly times.
Ok RL fans are going to find if but it's harshly going to expose us to any new fans.
We need to educate the rest of the country that there are two codes of rugby. We need to get our star players in the public limelight.
We need better promotional videos than that painful offering for this season. The part-clip that Sky used didn't even use the players names.

The governing body is again tinkering with the format for next year but it doesn't matter what they do if we continue to "hide our light under a bushell"

The first question is what do the RFL want? Growth, stability, promotion, recognition, bigger sponsors, more money, a strong game in the heartlands, national success, global domination?

There's no continuous plan and no goal to work towards. It's just a series of experimental ideas, gimmicks, tinkering and tampering. How does a club go about marketing a sport which in the last two decades has had multiple different league formats, play-off structures, end of season outcomes, and rule changes? Maybe if the RFL could come up with a long term plan for the game, and stick to it, the clubs might be more inclined to do their bit.

For a game that's been around for over a century, it couldn't be more in its infancy.

You'll have to explain that one coz i'm puzzled what extra money ?????????

...He's a Bulls fan. Extra Money always confuses them, especially when they have to PAY IT BACK

Its pretty plain that the sport needs a circuit breaker to be able to fundamentally change things for the better. Nobody, including Hearn, would be able to do much if all we are doing is going to Sky, sponsors etc and basically just presenting a rebadged SL. You might get a short-term blip upwards, but the longer term decline will continue.

That's why IMO if we are to make a change we might as well go boots and all, and to me the possible circuit breaker is expansion. Going back to sponsors with two French clubs, at least one in London and even one or more in North America would give someone like Hearn something to sell. But if we go that route there needs to be a plan, and some straight talking about what this might mean, including - horror of horrors - that some clubs would lose out.

Blaming smaller clubs isn't the issue though - we've seen plenty of times one or more of the supposed bigger clubs back moves that in the long run have hurt the sport. At Leeds we've seen Hetherington helping block increases to the salary cap and scrapping reserve grade without a proper feeder system to replace it, both of which have damaged the sport IMO. Some smaller clubs have undoubtedly help hold the game back, but I don't think any club is blameless for the current state of the game.

That is the nature of Professional sports......we've known this for decades, football are surprisingly late the realisation party whilst AFL and Rugby Union are learning quickly.......if you look at the GAA in Ireland, they rule their "amateur" sport with a rod of iron and it is such management that get results......even the AFL have a semblance of control over their game, but in League, the ARL are toothless and now the RFL are too......28 clubs run the game and
if you want to join the party then you need to bring something special to the table, be that TV, commercial Partners or other fiscal value....

I could not disagree more. Its those 12 peoples jobs to promote and maximise for their clubs and to worth with the SL authorities.

IF it were just down to the clubs, you would end up with far too much self interest and a situation like we had in the late 1980's / early 1990's where one club not just dominated, but effectively dictated the running of the league.

Your disregard of Hearn is clear, but I fail to see why you are not prepared to see what he has to offer / suggest. That attitude is indicative of why RL is in the state it is.

Nonsense!

Do you think football stadiums are full of high earners week in week out? Football (specifically the premier league) fills most of its stadia on a weekly basis on ticket prices north of £50 per person. This is in a sport where media income means that they could actually charge NOTHING to the paying spectator and it would not really impact on the financial side of the clubs.

Yet, they charge the prices they do as any perceived cheapness would devalue the image of the sport. In economic terms this is know as a "Geffin Good".

Another post on this thread suggested that £60 for two adults and a child is too much. £20 per head.

Go to a theatre production of any real quality, tickets will be north of £40 for a decent seat. I went to see a stand up comedian at a theatre in Leeds, so thats one bloke on stage, no other performers, ticket price was £28.

Is it really too much to ask for £25 to watch top level RL, on which that price has to fund the wages of players / non-playing staff.

Prices are not the issue, its fan apathy which is a problem. Football does not seem to have fan apathy, yet most on here would agree that even an bang average game of RL holds your interest more than the vast majority of football matches. How does football do this? Through force feeding (via the media) that every game is a huge deal. How often do you hear the expression "Another massive weekend in the Premier League". I can tell you, its EVERY weekend.

Just a coupleof throw away thoughts because the rest has been done to death. I cannot think of another major team sport with such a diverse demographic in terms of age and sex of supporters, surely we could play on that to sell the game. Secondly I was talking to the mother of a young (15 year old) casual fan who went to Warrington to watch against Widnes ??? because his team, Saints, were away. He got beaten up outside the ground by a group of Warrington fans and is unlikely to be allowed to continue his exploration of our game.

I don't think the meeting with Hearn had anything to do with him coming into RL. I do think it had a lot to do with Ralph Rimmer getting a selfie in order to try and get some profile and glamour to rub off on him as he tries to secure the permanent CEO job.