If we banned everyone for not sticking to the topic, there would be no one left. Ignore his childish ramblings.

The trouble is we live in a capitalist society and sugar daddies compete against one another in all big team sports; football, American football, cricket- whatever. My local teams Wigan, Saints and Warrington all exist because of sugar daddies so this current system has made no difference to us at all in that regard. This is also the same scenario with my local football teams in as far as Manchester and Liverpool.
The marquee system is rubbish if all we can do to attract a Ben Barba player is to wait for one to be banned - so for me the issue is to raise the salary cap & create a better quality product to attract viewers and advertisers. In the 80 & 90s we had decent advertisers and recently, well it's been abysmal. Would you want to fund Superleague? Well if the answer is no then something has to change. We walked into the summer rugby sky deal thinking things would get better but be honest with yourself....
We need to attract big backers to the sport but look at how people ridicule a backer who tried in a difficult area i.e. " the good doctor".

You make very valid points, however that has bugger all to do with the salary cap, and more to do with the imbeciles we have in charge of the sport!

Its a tough choice and what you have written in this thread is very true...everyone wants the top quality, to see the best players and the NRL has a much higher cap...if you want the best you have to pay....you get what you pay for.
But some people also don't want the salary cap at the same time since,lets just face it,their clubs and attendances just don't have the depth to support it....so they whine and complain (Leigh would be a good example).
The simple truth is we need to increase the salary cap to be near or at NRL levels...people can't have their cake and eat it too....spoiled brats just having a tantrum really.

I'll have some fries with that please.

I'm reminded of the widnes player applauding James Child's decision making here.

And you’re not Jean?.. Pathetic

the Halifax statement is a real eye opener

Batley, Fev, Halifax & now Hunslet all spilling the beans on Lenagan & Co .......

1895 anyone ?

300 anti expansionist idiots slag off Canadian and French rugby. 3 pro expansionsits support it and are then claimed to have the same ip. Grow up. There is a thread at the top of the forum about it

Regards

King James

Bless, calm down Queen James..... Pro Expansion Idiot

Quote ="kobashi" The myth that higher salary cap will bring in NRL stars needs to stop'" This is absolutely correct. The gap between the NRL and Super League is only going to get bigger financially. There is no way Super League will ever be able to attract the world’s best players from the NRL again. Even with a $9.1 million (£5.1 million) salary cap, the NRL is set to run with $45 million surplus this year. https://www.theaustralian.com.au/sport/ ... a7f2c593fa

Quote ="kobashi" The myth that higher salary cap will bring in NRL stars needs to stop'" This is absolutely correct. The gap between the NRL and Super League is only going to get bigger financially. There is no way Super League will ever be able to attract the world’s best players from the NRL again. Even with a $9.1 million (£5.1 million) salary cap, the NRL is set to run with $45 million surplus this year. https://www.theaustralian.com.au/sport/ ... a7f2c593fa

What are you talking about ?

First of all, how many clubs are spending the full cap AND using the marquee players exemption ?
Also, how exactly do you propose that we match the spend on the NRL clubs.

I know that you are "new to RL" or, maybe just a pseudo Canadian but, really



Like it or not, there are maybe 4 SL clubs that could realistically spend the cap + the marquee players and unless you have a magic wand or a Kerry Packer type character that is happy to throw £millions at the sport, it just isnt going to happen.

We keep chopping and changing the structure, number of clubs in the top flight etc and the reality is that the sport is just not attractive to the wider public and until we can fin the answer as to why not, RL will remain a small time sport that just says that it's "the greatest game".

The same ip/multiple log in lie got boring a long time ago. It’s all the flatcap fools have.

This is what I find frustrating. Fans who say raise the cap and then expect that super league is gonna be awashed with top NRL talent. It's pie in the sky stuff.

Let's generate more revenue streams in the competition first which hopefully the new CEO achieves.

How's about producing the talent rather than buying it. The whole point of the salary cap is not only a level playing field, It should be forcing clubs to invest in youth in order to keep their Salary caps down. Some clubs do invest, but still use the cap to pay daft money on imports.
This is where the game has failed,as clubs are given a free reign now and the import will always take priority over investment in future players.

Quote ="atomic"How's about producing the talent rather than buying it. The whole point of the salary cap is not only a level playing field, It should be forcing clubs to invest in youth in order to keep their Salary caps down. Some clubs do invest, but still use the cap to pay daft money on imports. This is where the game has failed,as clubs are given a free reign now and the import will always take priority over investment in future players.'" You mean like this? https://northwalescrusaders.co.uk/crusa ... -reserves/

Quote ="atomic"How's about producing the talent rather than buying it. The whole point of the salary cap is not only a level playing field, It should be forcing clubs to invest in youth in order to keep their Salary caps down. Some clubs do invest, but still use the cap to pay daft money on imports. This is where the game has failed,as clubs are given a free reign now and the import will always take priority over investment in future players.'" You mean like this? https://northwalescrusaders.co.uk/crusa ... -reserves/

The salary cap is fine as a concept. But the value of that cap should not be fixed until every club is spending it.

For financial success there are a few different elements, one is controlling costs, the other is generating revenue.

Maybe there should be a revenue benchmark to encourage clubs to generate more money.
The old franchise system had a spectator target, but that encouraged clubs to give freebies and actually devalued the game.

The cap to should grow, maybe set a target to add £1m to the cap over the next 5 years. It will allow those who can to plan for stable growth.

Either way clubs need to grow and I'm not sure spending so much time on structures helps.

What you are saying is fine but, the structure is quite important.

If existing fans dont like the structure and "new" fans cant understand what the hell is going on, it's hardly going to encourage new converts, in fact, if "we" get the concept wrong or, keep changing for the sake of it, the current fans may also become disenchanted with the whole thing.

The cap should definitely increase year on year, at least in line with inflation (although this wont be enough to make ground with either NRL or Union).

However, first of all "we" have to decide what the best future is for our game and then set out a plan to achieve this.
Ultimately, RL suffers from lack of cash and whilst there are 4/5 reasonably well off clubs, the rest just aren't able to generate enough cash to moe themselves forward and either compete with the bigger players in the domestic comp or, with our far wealthier cousins (NRL & RU).

I dont know what the answer actually is.

To appease Sky, we have games spread over 4 days of the week, which has a negative impact on supporter numbers, which consequently, make the sport look less appealing for TV audiences and sponsors.

Perhaps we should negotiate losing Thursday evening games or show top Championship games on Thursdays, which may allow a slice of the Sky monies to be shared with The Championship clubs and which may increase physical attendances at SL games and give some exposure to the lower leagues.

The one sure thing is that if we spread the TV coverage any further, there will be nothing left to spread.

The salary cap should be variable on the clubs contribution to the game, if a club runs a reserve team, academy team and ladies team then the salary cap should be more for that club with a 50% subsidy from the RFL.

Some clubs don't run a reserve side, some clubs can't raise an academy team, the game is not growing because of lack of participation, that was one of the reasons why Sport England reduced our funding.

Spot on with the first bit. What's most likely to happen is that the better players from the bottom half of SL will be picked up by the top SL clubs and you'll just go back to a significant gap between top and bottom of SL.

As for the second bit, hopefully they can get better deals but what's is based on. Easy saying and thinking you can do better but I doubt Sky are quaking in their boots and will have read all what's gone on this week and wrt to we'll get a better Sky deal I'm sure Sky will be thinking "oh you bloody think so do you". Do we even know if Sky are happy with losing the 8's? They might prefer it or reducing the numbers of games?

No it shouldn't. What if you run a reserve team yet you don't actually see any more of your young players come through and you opt to go out and sign ready made players instead with your extra money?

The salary cap would be club based not in first team isolation. The RFL must reward contribution to the home product game, if a club wants to work around having 9 or 10 overseas players then that club would forfeit.

For example if the Bradford Bulls through there academy system provide 4 or 5 players to Castlefords first team and Castleford can't fulfil academy fixtures then financial reward goes to Bradfords Salary Club Cap.

When there were Championship games on a Thursday on Sky last time round, the clubs got zip for the privilege. I agree with the idea of bringing back Championship games (or SL2!) into the public eye on TV, but there should be some recompense for the home club as it does affect attendances.

To be fair to Bradford, they do keep churning out the local talent