True, but then there isn’t a chairman in SL that could spot one. By that I mean a sustainable one that does not rely on a rich benefactor. A Leeds or a Wigan has to start somewhere, the key is spotting where that seed will grow and we have not seen a good track record of this. I’d be all for replacing half of the clubs in SL to bring in a few “Birminghams”, “Bistols”, “Edinburghs” and turning them into “Leeds and Wigans”.

Heck, it would be nice if all the other clubs in SL could get near Leeds success (on and off the field) but they don’t, and I get the feeling some won’t any time soon.

RL needs a strong willed leader with a vision and the drive and contacts to make it work and even then he (she) will have to drag half the SL chairmen kicking and screaming all the way.




Like who? They would only be sharing a larger amount if the club(s) were immediately successful otherwise they would take out more than they put in.


Don’t agree. There would be less difference between an SL division 2 and the "third tier" than the current SL and the Championship.

I wouldn’t disagree with that, I think it will take someone with a great deal of strength to do that, and some clubs will need to be railroaded into it. That’s a bit of where Lewis failed in my opinion. Though his ideas were in the main, right, and he conducted himself well, his issue was, at times he didn’t take a hard enough stance. There wasn’t enough of the like it or lump it about him. He took too much of a collegiate approach and we ended up with some fudges which pleased no one.

Whoever is appointed needs to be confident and strong enough to make some enemies of some clubs chairmen, he needs to call them out on their numerous hypocrisies and failings (Neil Hudgell’s letter is the perfect example, he should have been called out on his nonsense, he should be called out on the fact he has admittedly, massively overspent on what was sustainable for his club, he has done it bringing in some pretty average overseas players. He is in no position to lecture anyone on the sustainability of SL) and explain why we are doing what we are doing and how we are going about it.

But if he is doing what he needs to be doing, he is going to take some stick from the usual suspects, we need to make sure he is prepared to do that, it is integral to the games survival it really is.



I can see the logic in that, but I think there are some (not all) SL Chairmen who can see the bigger picture. If you listen to GH’s criticisms of the RFL over the Crusaders, they are less that Crusaders were given a shot, but more that they weren’t supported when push came to shove. At the beginning of this year the North Wales Crusaders were invited up to Leeds to train at the Rhinos training ground. So there was support (at least from one big hitter) from other SL chairmen for Crusaders, I think we would see similar support for Toulouse and Sheffield. But it would take a commitment from the RFL to make it work, even if it meant more money for those sides initially which brings us back to my point above.
A 2 division SL would simply be SL and the Championship by another name, it would have all the same problems we saw before and it would make it nigh on impossible for anyone to break the stranglehold of the big clubs.

But Hudgell has not overspent. If he wants to put several hundred thousand pounds into HKR good luck to him. His money and his choice. if some player selections have been poor, so be it. few clubs get it right 100% of the time.

The idea that sustainability only applies if wealthy backers are excluded is plain daft. A lot of sport and the arts operate 'sustainably' with wealthy backers putting sizable money into an organisation. they have done so for decades.

Hudgell's point it that some clubs cannot operate in this way. They do not have wealthy backers but still spend as if they do. Then when the going gets tough Wood and lewis take it upon themselves to interfere using RFL money. Good money poured after bad.

Wood and Lewis pumped a fortune into keeping 2 clubs afloat in a 14 team competition. Hudgell is suggesting that a 12 team comp may be more sensible and that it is not the job of the RFL to prop up teams who cannot run themselves.

As a result of Hudgell and McManus etc I suspect we have seen the last of Wood proping up clubs with huge amounts of rfl money. Good.

Hudgell has admitted himself that HKR cannot be sustained on crowds of less than 10,000, they have been haemorrhaging over £200k per year since they came into Superleague (he's responsible for 25% of his quoted £8m losses across the game). He's also indicated that he is no longer willing to bankroll them for much longer.

Your statement about pouring "good money after bad" needs some explanation. Where have the RFL actually lost money?

Can you imagine the impact that a Superleague club folding mid-season would have on the game? Quite apart from the negative publicity, what happens to the league points? The simplest solution would be to simply expunge them but that would be unfair on teams that had already played them and banked the points. You'd also have clubs with blank weekends, not just disrupting playing & training schedules but impacting hugely on gate receipts and the bottom line.

I think the Lewis Luddites on here still don,t get it, they just won,t accept there needs to be change and assume because the RFL make profit then the game is OK.

Hudgell and McManus in my opinion are correct that the game is not sustainable due the weak profile of the game. Our sponsorship achievement is embarrasing, Stobart and Big Soup is "amateur" when we should be marketing the game to attract the Banking Institutions, Global Comms Markets, Electronic Groups, Brewery Organisations etc.

We once had a page of rugby league in the National Newspapers, then we went to column inches, now some days its a paragraph stiched on the side of the racing section, our Media performance is a disgrace.

Its the responsibility of the RFL to give our game some profile and stature, so that the clubs can endorse the product and develop revenue streams, the clubs can't do it as a single entity if the RFL don,t fight and give the game some "backbone" to compete in a business sense with other sports.
This is the major failing of the RFL (Lewis and Wood), maybe some of the club chairmen has exposed this and Lewis has escaped just in time.

I assume that prior to Lewis the big corporate sponsors were queuing at the door where they.

Do you think that the game has advanced or declined during Lewis' tenure?

Here,s another Luddite going back into the past, during the Lewis reign he has not achieved any big corporate name sponsors, but we do have "BIG Soup". We have not progressed in this department to give the game some precense.

The game has declined in Profile and Stature under Lewis, we,ve already voted on this forum with only 27% think that Lewis and Wood do any good. I work in Cumbria with loads of rugby fans, there they are 100% saying ..............Good Riddance.

If only we had gone out and approached big brands, not small ones, but massive ones, ones valued at, i dont know $16.94Billion or $182.29Billion, you know huge corporations, they would definitely want to throw loads of money our way and it would solve all our problems, maybe Richard Lewis could have gone out and found specialists in sports media and sponsorship sales, a worldwide company with an unparalleled reputation in its field that would have helped.

Why oh why oh why didnt Richard Lewis have IMG approach companies the size of the Heinz Corporation or Proctor and Gamble, there loads of rugby fans in Cumbria, they would 100% have been able to get Heinz or Proctor and Gamble or Stobart to pump millions in to the game. What company doesnt want to associate its product with working class men from pit villages in northern England and spend loads of time effort and money selling to a very small proportion of the country who like and watch RL.

Well said Smokey. Whilst all of us think there is nothing like Rugby League, we should bear in mind that in the great scheme of things we're a minor player. Football is worldwide number one, Yawnion has its corporate links and Rugby League has what it can beg from companies/people willing to give it a hearing. Of course we all want mega-sponsors pouring money into the game but realistically it ain't gonna happen.

Another Luddite going back into the past, Thought Lewis and Wood had an expansion model to showcase the game, we now have our special weekend offerings...................let me think.............Oh, its in MANCHESTER.

What was i thinking judging people on their words and actions

So Hudgell stops funding HKR and if they cannot find the money elsewhere they return to the chamionship.

The money loaned to the clubs could have been wisely invested and provided a return with no risk. That has been lost. The money put into the bulls could be 'lost' if they go bust. A long lease on an empty stadium - so stupid for a sport with such limited funds.

Your comments about the impact of a club going out of SL would carry some weight. However the extensive advances were made to the bulls in 2011...so why give them a licence in 2012? The lease had to be taken over in January 2012. Late but still time to withdraw the bulls. Wood and Lewis have the gamblers fallacy...keeping putting the money in. And dont forget it was the Crusaders who pulled out of SL...Wood and Lewis were ready to award alicence.

This is why McManus has asked for transparency and control in the future. Another example of incompetence, Lewis and Wood (RFL) did not have any creditable control or transparency of a certain Club when certain players were operating a season on Holiday Visas.

Credit to McManus for raising the issue publicly. Wood and Lewis much prefer secrecy!

Do you know what a Luddite is? I'm asking you to explain whether or not you feel RL has advanced or declined , I've not offered an opinion on it and yet rather than answer the post you incorrectly label me a Luddite. I'll try again on both points and make it easier for you

1. What were the major sponsors that have been lost as a result of Lewis being in post?
2. Do you think that the game in general has advanced or declined since Lewis took over.

If you don't have an opinion or answer just say so it's not an issue.

You have to be one of the most economically illiterate people I've ever seen post on here.

Are you George Osbourne?

We also used to see regular gates of 20,000+ but that was mainly because there was buggerall else to do. Few people had a TV, even fewer had a car. The modern game isn't really competing with RU or even soccer, it's competing against games consoles, multi-channel, HiDef TV, car journeys to other attractions and any other number of sports & pastimes that were never within the imagination of a northern working family.

You label some of us Lewis Luddites, yet you are the one who keeps harking back to some mythical golden era

Yet another one going back into the past.

We have a RL deputy chairman who is a director of a football club who if you are correct has to compete with other markets, yet this club manages 70 000 home fans, why has he not passed this on to Lewis + Wood.
If you really believe we are competing with games consoles and other attractions maybe Wood could come up with a wacky idea of having the magic weekend at Alton Towers.

You should seek help, you're borderline psychotic

A season? Try 3 seasons

Is it your illiteracy or economic illiteracy that leads you to write Osbourne rather than Osborne?

I thought distributing it to Super League clubs counted as established clubs to be honest. Obviously not.

As a franchise fairy, it gives me great pleasure to be the one to inform you, the vast, vast, vast, majority of that £30m was distributed to heartland clubs.

TBH i dont think it has advanced.

I know your on about sl and not the rest of the pro game so hear goes.
The fact the sport needs franchising/licensing when no other major sport has it tells me the sport has failed in the last ten years or so,' especially when more than half the the clubs in the licensed league are no bigger than half a dozen of those stuck outside it.

The fact that people on this particular board keep banging on about how attendences or on the up when we all know the attendances are being artificially raised through ridiculously cheap season tickets or even worse giving tickets away for nothing in an attempt to make there average atttendance look good come the end of the season'.false economy springs to mind.

The fact that we are no closer to the aus/nz teams and 'IMO' all the kids coming through are no different than what they were in years gone by IE no No1s 6s 7s 9s 13s of any real quality.
I'm not saying anything is worse i'm just saying nothing at all has changed which is pretty ridiculous considering sky have pumped tens of millions into the game in the last 17 yrs, which is money that wasn't there in years gone by