It's not fact, it's an assumption. You have nothing to back it up.

Taking Sky for instance, you have totally misunderstood offering new products to me giving out offers. Sky offer new products ALL THE TIME. Sky Anytime Plus is the latest. They aren't "happy with their lot" (a quote by you). I'd like you to quote anywhere I said "avoid customers" as it appears to be the basis of your argument. I have simply said they value certain customers differently. And they do. And that is how it makes it relevant to the topic about Richard Lewis.

Why do I feel like I'm back in the Sin Bin?

Where's Mintball?

During his reign best and worst:

Best:
Raised RFL income and kept it in the black
Got rid of P&R
Brought in 4 nations
Success in getting Govt support for the game

Worse:
Failed to expand the SL competition sustainably
Failed to lift the games media profile
CC lost its prestige
Changed GB to England and ditched the Ashes 3 test series

Overall I'd give him 7/10

Good example, I recon we should disband cas and move the whole club to Birmingham. Imagine the youth system, sponsors and attendances......

The real scary thing is fans of some clubs (Wigan, wire, saints, Leeds, hull) literally think that would be great

No, you've missed smokey's point entirely there. He's saying % of population attending games is irrelevant. There is therefore no follow-up point relating to locating teams only in big cities.

You are aware that #4 in your first list is directly linked to #4 in your second list aren't you?

The "government support" is from Sport England and not Sport GB, there's a rather big clue in the name.

The second part of point four in your second list is also rather spurious. The Antipodeans did not have the appetite for continuing with such a competition, the Four Nations is in my (not very) humble opinion, a far better substitute

They do, but it has nothing to do with a person complaining or not. It is more to do with what a person is worth to them financially. A club who has some paying £50 a game but moans is worth more than a person paying £18 but is happy. I agree.

Depends on the level of complaining.

But the second part I agree with and again have never disputed. Customers are often categorised in to four levels.
Cat D, being low paying high attention (the complainers that want something for nothing).
Cat C, being low paying low attention (the non-complainers that want something, have it and are happy).
Cat B, being high paying high attention (the complainers that want something, have something, but still want more for less).
Cat A, being high paying low attention (the non-complainers that want something, have it, and could potentially have more).

Someone who is paying more but moans is more valuable than someone who pays less and doesn't. But I never said anything different.
Someone said to me that someone that pays £20 a week to p*ss and moan is just as valuable as someone that pays the same and doesn't. That is a complete and utter lie, and anyone that runs their own business values (or should value) the ones that give them the least amount of hassle as these are the ones that are likely to grow your business.

And again, that does not mean you should ignore complaints (which you keep using as an argument even though I've never said it). It just means you should put more effort into your more valued customers as these are the ones that are going to help your business grow. Less effort doesn't mean no effort. The RFL have enough people working for them to be able to try and deal with complaints, but some complaints are undealable and quite frankly illogical. Perhaps the RFL should spend more time trying to educate certain groups of fans so that they understand the situation rather than trying to make them "happy", as the latter is an impossible feat.

As for the population argument, I don't particularly think the given size of a town/city, etc. is the be-all-and-end-all and definitely not as important as some are making out. London being in a population of about 8million is hardly helping. Castleford being in a population of less than 40k gives them a false impression that they've marketed to a good proportion of their town and nothing more.

What matters is that you reach the people within a certain radius of your club. It's easier to bring people in that are closer to the ground than it is further, so the further away you get from the ground, if you're still heavily populated you have a better chance of drawing people in (and by heavily populated, I don't mean "Leeds has 800k pop and Cas 37k so the further you go the better in Leeds, as there are also people from outside Castleford within the same radius as Leeds' size that would come to Wheldon Road, meaning you can increase that 37k catchment area massively).
One of the most important factors in this however is being attractive to the people in that radius. If more people in say Brentford are more connected to being from Brentford than being from London, then they are more likely to form that attachment with your club and come and support you. But at the same time that can shrink your potential from further afield. It's getting the balance right. It's why clubs don't just name themselves after the largest conurbation they're based in every time. We don't have Yorkshire Tigers, England Rhinos and GB Warriors for these reasons, and it's why I don't think Welsh Crusaders (as suggested in the past) was ever a good idea, and why I don't think New Zealand Warriors is the best idea (not to mention it could affect further potential for NZ based NRL teams IMO).

London might be a big place, but it doesn't mean that being called London is what they're attracted to. There aren't exactly many London-named football teams are there?

Reading through this thread shows one of the major problems Lewis and his future replacement had/have. You've got half your fan base wanting the game run in a modern way that fits 2012, and then you've got the other half who want it run like its still 1972.
IMO Lewis did well in terms of always trying new things and i think that is why he is disliked by some who hate change and want everything to be like it was back in the 'good old days', however i admit his execution on several of the things he tried was quite poor.
People placing the blame at his door for the financial messes at Bradford and Wakefield though need to have a look at a few other sports during these bad finanacial times of the last few years. In football a club as big as Rangers in turmoil, Liverpool 18 months ago were in a real mess before new owners came in, others such as West Ham, Southampton and Portsmouth (who only just won the FA Cup in 200icon_cool.gif all suffered all well as several more. In F1 teams like Toyota, Honda and BMW all pulled out and a budget cap was introduced to stop teams spending too much. In cricket, counties are suffering from spending money on improving grounds for Test matches and then not getting them. If all these bigger sports can suffer it was inevitable rugby league's time would come and if it wasn't for Lewis i bet at least half of Super League would be in similar positions to Bradford right now.

In time for 5 clubs to vote in favour of it according to press reports. Are you suggesting that these clubs voted in favour of a deal that hadn't even been put forward?

That modern?

Ah, there you are.

You Lewis defenders still don't get it,the other sports you talk of don't have his beloved franchise system which is suppose to stop clubs going bust as they don't have to fight to avoid relegation do they???

Thats his magical franchise the one were more clubs have gone bust since it started

So lets have a roll call step up celtic and london not forgetting wakefeild and bringing up the rear bradford.

So it seems this system you talk of is not working ah but its not his fault its the clubs for lying well if they broke the rules chuck them out? but no its carring on as normal

If Wood can,t explain where this Stobart deal is potentially worth £2.5 million..................then I'm hoping he's gone by the weekend.

It will probably take about 5 years to get some proper global sponsors, aggressive marketing, media presence and credibility back in our sport. So whoever comes in has a massive repair job to do.

London have gone bust/into admin in the licensing period have they?

Do you think any of these clubs would have avoided this in P&R?

Don't avoid the questions.

How do you know that licensing hasn't saved other clubs from potential administration? I aren't sure what you're trying to get across here, and to be honest I don't think you do either.

Do we know how much the Elonex, Heinz and engage deals are worth yet?

Oh, and when you say media presence and credibility "back", I assume you can tell us of this amazing time where we had great presence and sponsors etc before the Lewis era?

1) When Lewis joined the RFL as executive chairman it was something like £2m in debt after a disastrous World Cup. In 2011, the RFL distributed £30m income throughout the game, mainly to clubs. His time in office has clearly been a disaster.



2) As I pointed out on Twitter when the Bradford issue broke and everybody seized upon it as clear and irrefutable evidence supporting the particular bee in their bonnet - too many clubs, salary cap holding clubs back, 'franchising' etc - SL licensing gives clubs the space to practice good management, it's not a substitute for it.

Stones Bitter. Raight global that wor!

So a few hours or (30 mins - rumour) is enough to look through the offer details from Betfair, especially as not all clubs attended the meeting and had already sent in their decision

The point I was responding to was that the Stobart deal was the only one [ion the table[/i. It clearly wasn't. I have no idea of the exact timing but I certainly recall the Betfair deal being rumoured widely before the meeting. Regardless of how much or little time was available, 5 clubs obviously had enough time and information to make a decision and vote for it.

Anyway ding dong the clown as gone which old clown the tennis clown

Can't wait for the blood letting to start because you don't jump ship unless you know you are doooooomed



Perhaps he can get tennis players painted on the side of wagons for renaming wimbledon the stobart franchise tennis league or better still lets have a magic tennis day and move it around the parks of this land,I will give it 12 months and he will says tescos have sold 250% more tennis rackets under his reign which really maens 6 more rackets

Sometimes I think that, against all the odds, the sport is making progress. A quick look at threads like this and I'm instantly reminded of what the sport is up against and how much work is left to be done. From too many backward, pillock parents to too many backward, pillock amateur coaches & players to too many backward, pillock fans to too many backward, pillock club owners/boards. Far too many people involved in the sport don't deserve the fantastic sport that RL is.

bravo!!

Re Lewis, nobody should need any more info than tb's first post on the previous page.

The issue now is getting somebody very good to replace him.