Salford are getting crowds that would meke me, a London Broncos fan., embarrassed.
Mergers are the best way to build a sustainable top tier..... But the lower divisions will never let that happen

The fixtures for this part of the season were announced on 1st August. Even if we assume that Wakefield didn't know about the fixture list before it was made public (which is unlikely, but nevertheless), are we honestly saying that 16 days is not enough time to sell an event - an event where a large amount of tickets are already pre-sold?

The more I hear this argument, the more I think Hetherington was right; too many clubs are using the format as a convenient excuse for their own poor commercial performance.

Salford are getting where? Into administration again

Though I understand and to a certain extent agree with the theory of mergers they simply do not work. Fans do not have the affinity with new teams and in a lot of cases would rather not go than follow a merged team.

There are a few locations where there is an outside chance, perhaps creating a Cumbria ‘Lakers’ team with Whitehaven, Workington and Barrow feeding it.

Agreed. I think there would be little to lose by forming a merged 'Manchester' team from Salford and some or all of Swinton/Oldham/Rochdale. Manchester Regional Arena (next to the Etihad) could be a potential venue for them, maybe requiring some work to be done eventually to increase capacity if it worked out (currently 6,500 according to wiki though, more than Salford ever get). They all have hardly any fans anyway, so the risk of them walking away is smaller than the opportunity of attracting new fans IMO. There are three big universities in the area for them to exploit.

Agreed. I’m a Trinity supporter and a massive Carter fan, he’s made huge steps towards making the club viable and competitive. But - I don’t see a great deal of marketing going on. Perhaps I’m just not looking in the right places but I shouldn’t be the one who has to go looking. As an example; I live near Birmingham and have occasionally bought tickets for the T20 at Edgbaston. Warwickshire CC now have my email address and I regularly - 2 or 3 times a week - get fixture reminders, updates and ticket offers for upcoming matches plus a thank you for attending games. I was a season ticket holder at Trinity for several years and now regularly buy tickets on line but I’ve never, ever had similar marketing emails from the club. How hard is it to keep a data base of everyone who’s ever bought a ticket and keep in touch with them? And yes, 16 days is ample time to bombard people with the fixture list and publicity.

The thing is, a true fan of a club will not change his allegiance. For example if Hull and Rovers formed a superclub, some fans might attend, the otgers would wait for their club to be reformed in the liwrt leagues or just quit the sport. I'm sure that's the same fir Salford fans as well. The new superclub woukd then nred to attract mainly new fans and that is a massive gamble. Fans of a club msy watch neuteal games, but if their team didn't exist they would drift away.

It always seems to be Leeds, Wigan or Warrington fans that are all for it. Yet suggest that Wakey, Cas, Leeds and Bradford all merge into a West Yorks club playing at Elland road and they simply say there's no need. It's very easy to have big opinions if your club is financially safe. One day they might not be.

Abandoing clubs to force new superclubs into existance is not the answer. People won't support them and it'll be a financial disaster. That is almost as guilty as the Keigh charman throwing money in an all or nothing approach that needs immediate results. The only way to grow is to KEEP what you've got, generate interest in the game and then people will WANT to join. For all the moaning at Toronto, that's what they've done and done well so far. Will it last? Maybe.

Back on topic......

SL is going to 14 teams next year anyway. The only people that seem not to see
this is the RFL itself. I don't care what has officially been said so far, all the signs are clear to see.







Of course, I've been wrong before.

It would be a big gamble if Salford etc had a lot of fans to lose. They don't. Even if 80% of them walked away, I'd argue that a brand new heartlands club in a big city could still reasonably expect to attract better crowds and sponsorship than what Salford get, as well as more away fans if the ground was more conveniently situated (as Manchester Regional Arena is, for example). It's easy for me to say, but if Wigan had 3k crowds every week and were in dire straights, I'd still support them if they moved to Manchester to make it work (not Liverpool though *spits*)

But if Wigan merged with Leigh and became Manchester Moles or something, different shirts, logo etc whilst a new lower league Wigan was created which game would you regularly attend? It's not a case of moving, it just wouldn't be Wigan at all.

Liverpool is a bit of a stretch, even for me. Now Birmingham (Peaky) Blinders is an interesting idea.

I still reckon 14 teams starting next year.....

Quote ="Kevs Head"Agreed. I’m a Trinity supporter and a massive Carter fan, he’s made huge steps towards making the club viable and competitive. But - I don’t see a great deal of marketing going on. Perhaps I’m just not looking in the right places but I shouldn’t be the one who has to go looking. As an example; I live near Birmingham and have occasionally bought tickets for the T20 at Edgbaston. Warwickshire CC now have my email address and I regularly - 2 or 3 times a week - get fixture reminders, updates and ticket offers for upcoming matches plus a thank you for attending games. I was a season ticket holder at Trinity for several years and now regularly buy tickets on line but I’ve never, ever had similar marketing emails from the club. How hard is it to keep a data base of everyone who’s ever bought a ticket and keep in touch with them? And yes, 16 days is ample time to bombard people with the fixture list and publicity.'" Indeed. I mean, I know London Broncos have had a whole THREE days longer, but it doesn't seem like the part-time team there has had trouble finding the time to promote their game this week. https://twitter.com/LondonBroncosRL/sta ... 7545559040 I can only sympathise that 16 days was not enough for a full-time operation to do something similar outside Westgate.

Quote ="Kevs Head"Agreed. I’m a Trinity supporter and a massive Carter fan, he’s made huge steps towards making the club viable and competitive. But - I don’t see a great deal of marketing going on. Perhaps I’m just not looking in the right places but I shouldn’t be the one who has to go looking. As an example; I live near Birmingham and have occasionally bought tickets for the T20 at Edgbaston. Warwickshire CC now have my email address and I regularly - 2 or 3 times a week - get fixture reminders, updates and ticket offers for upcoming matches plus a thank you for attending games. I was a season ticket holder at Trinity for several years and now regularly buy tickets on line but I’ve never, ever had similar marketing emails from the club. How hard is it to keep a data base of everyone who’s ever bought a ticket and keep in touch with them? And yes, 16 days is ample time to bombard people with the fixture list and publicity.'" Indeed. I mean, I know London Broncos have had a whole THREE days longer, but it doesn't seem like the part-time team there has had trouble finding the time to promote their game this week. https://twitter.com/LondonBroncosRL/sta ... 7545559040 I can only sympathise that 16 days was not enough for a full-time operation to do something similar outside Westgate.

Lower tiers ? , so who do you suggest Salford merge with ?

They could merge with Swinton and ad another 250 fans to their weekly total


There needs to be more professional clubs in the sport, not less but, some of the clever ones just dont get it.

If we keep on losing clubs from the professional ranks, eventually we wont have any and the likes of Wigan, Leeds and Saints will probably end up converting to Union and that would be the saddest end of all.

Those that formed The Northern Union would be turning in their graves.

They could merge with Swinton and ad another 250 fans to their weekly total


There needs to be more professional clubs in the sport, not less but, some of the clever ones just dont get it.

If we keep on losing clubs from the professional ranks, eventually we wont have any and the likes of Wigan, Leeds and Saints will probably end up converting to Union and that would be the saddest end of all.

Those that started Rugby League would be turning in their graves.

I'm not sure that we've advanced our top tier a single iota by shrinking superleague and sacrificing Bradford and London. We've not enhanced the game a jot in fact we are in a commercially less attractive wilderness.

When I first joined these forums about 17 years ago there was some nutters claiming the game was dying. I thought they were tinfoil hatted loons. But now I'm staggered to find myself thinking we are in genuine trouble. The convoluted plans and lack of any consensus on this thread illustrates to me how adrift we have become as a game.

The Broncos would be very grateful if they could get 2,000-3,500 to home games yet they haven't done in years....

Theres not one club in SL that can survive without the income from SKY. They all got sucked in years ago and now the game is paying for others sins. The structure will change to again support the failings of SL.

SL as a product as now run its course, 12 teams with one up,one down isn't the answer either, they are just prolonging the inevitable. Holding out for the next fix of income and the cost will be the game.

Could any professional football club survive without sky money? Or any RU club?

It did before, it could again but on a dramatically reduced income level and players would have to adhere to this or find themselves a proper job.

Said it once, said it a 100 times but the CC final needs to move, yet again in the Super8’s we have two teams focused on Wembley rather than go all out in the 8’s, and like Hull last year Warrington have a very tough task of playing on a Thursday after a cup final.

CC Final needs to be where the Semi’s are now, in the break before the 8’s with the Semi’s in late May or June.

In what way were they sacrificed?

London got relegated and Bulls committed financial suicide. They engineered their own downfalls.

Th emain thing against expanding SL to 14 clubs is that the chairmen of those clubs only want a 12 way split of the Sky money. Similarly with the number of fixtures.

I agree with the SL clubs in that we need to go to 1 up 1 down with top 5 play-offs. But as soon as Carter said they would be loop fixtures i had my head in my hands. One of the main problems with Super 8s is that they are too many games against the same clubs. Wigan/Saints derby could end up playing each other 6/7 times.

I feel its being rushed through. This is half the reason licensing and the 8s didn't work. Licensing didn't have definitive rules set out. Wakefield, Bradford & Crusaders should have all been thrown out when they went into admin. But because this wasn't set out, the RFL ended up making it up as they went along. FAIL. The 8s, again many people had worries about the 8s, but the RFL only looked at the positives, didn't look at the negatives, waved a load of cash at the clubs and thry voted it through fail.

Its happening again. They're trying to rush it in for 2019, have come up with the ridiculous loop fixtures which we all know don't work, and could still see a wigan/saints derby 7 times in a season creating fan fatigue (which is one of the main flaws of the 8s.) we'll be back here again in 3 years wondering what went wrong when crowds shrink because they're bored of the same fixtures. I'd rather have a other year of the 8s, but take out time as a sport to get a proper structure sorted that will stay for ghe next decade

Carter wants loop fixtures because it's easy for him. The more he can flog the talent, with as many games as he can get away with, the less effort he has to invest in actually trying to sell the games he has. He says that the 'short notice' of the eights system makes it hard to sell tickets, yet there were 16 days between the fixtures being announced and Wakefield's first home game - ample time to come up with a sales strategy for that event (as evidenced by much smaller clubs like London Broncos, who have been actively promoting this game with a part-time operation).

Carter is undoubtedly good at what he does, which is bean counting. There is nothing wrong with that, but let's never pretend that he is in any way a visionary that can take the sport forward. His MO is protectionism and cutting the costs, not seeking out the opportunities.

And this whole proposal by Elstone and crew is about protectionism. It's about removing risk for the smaller clubs, allowing them to bumble along investing as little in business growth as possible and reducing their cost base without consequence, and for the bigger clubs it is about how much of the pie they can take, rather than how they can make the pie bigger. Anybody who doubts Ian Lenaghan's motives behind this simply needs to look at Wigan's accounts and take note of the reporting of an "operating loss of £605,286" due to a "significant reduction in sponsorship income" due to a "loss of a major sponsor" - on top of the previous year's £180k+ loss.

The Rfl and super league really need to get this right. Get it wrong and the game will haemorrhage more and more fans. Nobody wants loop rounds. Every fan simply wants straight round robin home away fixtures, nobody wants more than a top 5/6 play off’s. nobody wants any more than 1 up one down. Its simple nobody wants convoluted fixture list or convoluted play off p&r systems. I do not care whether its 12 or 14 teams but i just want a full home away fixture list printed in november so i can plan work/leisure/hobbies/holidays around my RL.

You need "loop" fixtures, because without them, you have 11 home games and 23 in total.

That does not give a sustainable income stream.