First two ideas are nicked from the NFL.

Sell internet subscriptions for viewing non-Sky games live. Got to get a start on this now because it's going to be a bigger and bigger factor. Now, I pay £100 or so a year for an NFL subscription. This should be a worldwide offering, with particular attention on Australia and NZ.

One round of SL should be a heritage round, played in old style shirts. Put a bit of marketing around that round and encourage fans to attend in old gear, bring old people and drink old drinks etc. Hopefully it pushes up attendance for that round but also sells extra replica shirts of those being played in. Change the year we're going back to each season.

Find more non-match day income. If we can do "League clubs" great. If not, each club needs their own cafe/pub/bar themed to that club, selling kit and with almost constant guest appearances by club players and staff.

More matchday income - earlier start and later finish. Get some kind of entertainment on before and after and encourage people to stay around & buy beer and food. Too often our games see everyone rush in 10 mins before kickoff and clear out 5 mins after the end (of often 5 mins before the end! )

apart from the artificial pitch sounds like penrith in oz been their they have cinema and restaurants and golf and pony and trap racing

Like the cafe/pub/bar idea especially for clubs like Huddersfield, Wigan and Hull and don't really have a social focal point in the way they would have had at their old grounds.

You can only have some many ad's in an hour and trust me Sky already use that up during half time.

Not really an idea to increase revenue but I'd like to see the presentation of SL freshened up, that would include replacing the likes of Eddie and Stevo. The same people saying the same things hardly adds to the game.

Also during the weeks when the football is in its off season play more games in their usual 3pm Saturday kick off time for possible better attendances. Try to have only the Sky game on a Friday night and not 3/4 fixtures, losing viewers figures if fans who would watch the game on tv are at their own teams game instead.

I cant see how an advert after a try is scored could do any harm. TBF the length of time it takes Sinfield to take a conversion Sky could play a couple of ads.

Actually, Martyn Sadler reckons that when League Publications has advertised on both SL and union matches on Sky, the SL games cost more because of the greatly increased viewing figures.

Some on here need to reread the title of this thread, it said ' Real ' idea's, some of them are less likely than a man walking on Mars

A membership model rather than just selling season tickets.

Get the game on fta, whatever it takes

Stop under selling ourselves. We have a great product we just need to market it better

How about a simple idea i put to the Leigh board last year that is low cost with great profit opportunity which would work tons better in SL with the higher attended games.

Fans vote for the "[uFans real time MOM[/u"

During the game a TEXT number is displayed on the scoreboard whereby you can text in throughout the game and vote for the "real time" MOM"

The results would be displayed in a bar graph at certain intervals during the game showing who was winning the race for MOM, i.e Half Time/Full Time

The players can see it adding extra motivation, it could bring in thousands per game in income as people could vote as many times as they wanted and it would be a Unique fan interaction and also could be sponsored.

A simple idea with next to nothing initial outlay, its not going to make millions but add to this various other gameday experiences coupled with TV exposure on SKY games for the Fans "Real Time MOM" TV viewers can vote form home or the Pub!

Another idea, SL to sign a sponsorship deal with a major coach company. All members/season ticket holders can travel to away games for 15pounds inc transport and entrance ticket. Would boost crowds, better atmosphere and make it more enticing to become a member.

Money follows media interest. Media interest follows star players. It doesn't follow nice new stadia. It doesn't follow commentators screaming that we have the best sport in the world. It doesn't follow good honest ordinary players dedicated to our great sport. It follows star names. League's media profile peaked with the likes of Offiah, etc. We didn't take advantage of that interest too well because we had a big structural problem, namely one(-ish) club buying all the good players.

So we threw the baby out with the bath water by deciding that a flat cap ( pun partly intended ) was right for our game ( not that its wrong for every game ). Didn't work, because the gap between clubs is sooooo big, you can only start to equalize things by totally crushing the ability of the top clubs to sign almost *any* superstars. This holds back the ability of the sport to generate media interest.

We need to put the baby back in the bath. Spend whatever you, your chairman and your sponsors like ... EXCEPT you can only pay big money to 13 players. That's it. No club can totally dominate with that rule in place, and *every* club that wants to compete will need an excellent youth system. In fact, if you're a lower club with weaker finances, you could choose to focus your efforts on the youth system and still do really well. The club that relies only on the 13 stars but has a weak backup squad will suffer very badly when the mid-season injuries stack up.

Well thats a little better, less ' pie in the Sky ' , but ultimatly and once again, it is hard to sell a closed shop sport to the british public, so no matter what else you do, you have to somehow find a way to put the emotion back into your regular season matches

What are you thinking of in "star player" ?
If it's RU converts, forget that, opening up the cap isn't going to bring those.
If it's NRL stars, opening up the SL cap isn't going to bring those either.
If it's talented and entertaining players, then we have a league full of those.

We watch different teams, for me (aside from Northampton Knights and Northampton Demons) it's Leeds Rhinos and London Broncos. I haven't noticed a drop in spectator emotion from the fans watching those.

You perhaps are the exception, few fans tend to follow several clubs and the broader sport, the majority are usually single club fans, and we are also discussing increasing revenue, which entails how we are percieved as a sport by potential new fans and sponsors

Being a regular reader of the Bronco's board, they dont sound overly happy on there

That wasn't a comment on my emotion at games, but on the emotion I saw from fans at games.

How we are perceived by potential new fans and sponsors is probably influenced by the attitides of current fans, and I haven't come across many groups as negative (and going over 30 years here) as RL fans.

So is that negativity the reason for RL s struggles? , or is it real? , can negative emotion be overcome ? And how?

It's been there as long as I've followed the game. It's a disease the sport has. You have it (no insult) how do you think it can be cured?

And yet strangely a few years ago I was very optimistic about the sport, but all I see now is the same mistakes being made over and over, as much at club level as at Red Hall

The answer? Striking a balance, inclusion, new idea's

Given where the sport has slipped to relative to those competitions ( and we have slipped - commercial growth of sport has been massive in the last 15 years, we've only grown a little bit ) you're almost certainly right in the very near term. But its chicken and egg. We need to create an enviroment that *could* attract exciting investment, at least as a start. A random, daft probably example, but if a rich guy can see sense in going after Johnny Wilkinson, say, ( reality documentary series "Johnny tries League", sponsors help with it, bums on seats, etc. etc. then we might think he's daft as a brush, but let him go for it. Wilkinson trying League for a season ( sure, he's past it, etc. ) would be worth far more than every bleedin truck in Europe advertising the sport.

Maybe its true that there's simply no money out there and never will be, but lets try to create opportunities for people to try to make some exciting deals. We've got to get a lot more realism in the game about what puts bums on seats.

I think almost any other idea (excluding "Wooden Posts"icon_wink.gif would generate more ROI than spending the money on a has-been RU player.

Balance between what?
We are inclusive.
New ideas? Whether at top level like extended playoffs, new territory teams....to the ground level with expansion of the game, usage of development staff, and increasing RFL involvement in player development. Or internationally, with a restructure of the european teams to try to enable european competition. There are a stack of new ideas out there.

But will all that cure the sports ingrained negativity?

And sadly, the game is run by people with as little idea as you about how marketing and the media work. Even Gareth Thomas generated more press attention than any 'marketing initiative' coming out of the RFL.

Fair enough, let's put some more ads on the side of trucks and go on and on and on and on and on and on about how we have the greatest entertainment in the world. Surely people will get it eventually.