I'm sure we would all agree , but ultimatley our sport is and was born of the use of proffessionalism to compete with each other , you cannot change that , the only way your utopia would work is when all clubs either revertto the type of union club competition they have had for the last century or you have all clubs so financially rich that they dont need to be competitive with each other to survive

What you want is not viable at the moment , and is unlikely to be viable for a long time , if ever

Unfortunatley no it isn't , just as in football I'm sure the Arsenal fans will be more than happy if their ' foreign legion ' win the premiership this year and in the future , eventually premier football could quite easilly become a completely non british competition , will it affect the fans going through the doors or the sponsors contributions ? , no

Quite simply the Bosman ruling has removed all need for any proffessional sports clubs to produce it's own players , for many many years big rich clubs like Leeds and W1g4n in RL and many others in football profited from buying in the best players produced by smaller poorer ' selling ' clubs , this made it important for all clubs to try to produce juniors , as they actually had assets that then could be sold

Now that incentive has gone , in fact it has reveresed , the big clubs have the profile and the money to attract all the best juniors from much further affield , but they quite simply dont have room for them all , so many end up moving on to other clubs ,

The poorer lower profile clubs get the 2nd even 3 rd level of juniors , making the process of producing top quality even harder , and therefore not financially viable

If you want to even out the production of juniors , cap the numbers each club is allowed , but you will not agree with that

in ten years time imagine where the game will be with every club spending the full cap and it being sustainable

the days of two or three clubs dominating the league are boring and bad for the game.

share the love around

bradford have had their go, so has saints and leeds

next i want hudds, wire and wigan to win it.

how good would les cats winning it be for the game?

For the bank books probably not very.
Old Trafford would be empty

wembley final a few years back, st helens vs les cats mate.

i was there too.

leeds vs saints GF aint selling out anywhere. neutrals arent interested in either team any more. we need some fresh blood, maybe your mob can lose the chokers tag finally.

you guys are the parramatta eels of SL. same colours too

Pathways are there. Probably more so than for any other pro sport. They just shouldn't be the responsibility of a pro club.


A contribution in interest, spectators and financially. Running a school should not be a prime requirement for them.


Well, in the absence of specififcs, I'll say: All clubs are ambitious.


The pathways are there. Don't be fooled into thinking that just because there are other pathways with different starting points that the pathways aren't there.

By the way, why are you linking an improved international side with a more stable footing for the league? Surely increased club revenues (which will not come from an international side) and decreased running costs will be the key to that.

No it isn't.
What keeps the league going is revenue. Revenue that comes from fans, both fans attending games and fans via TV. The top ties teams producing players is not a factor at all.

The real employees of the club in this respect are the first team players. That's why teams put their best coaching resources into that area of the club.
Academy players are like students on work experience. It's nice thing to do for the community, and you might find some talent, but it's far from vital to the business.

So where do these "finished" products come from?

If no one is training them then...........................

The shortage of trained personnel in my industry is causing real problems as more and more are chasing fewer and fewer but will not pay for training!!!

So where do they come from?

It was the first ever new wembley final, it was going to be well attended regardless of who played.
hudds and Wire was fresh blood this year at wembley and it was half empty, I was there...

so the crowd for the CC final was 45,000 then?

No but there was a hell of a lot of empty sections of seats. it was probably the lowest attended final in a while, I haven't looked.
Some teams are better supported than others, fact of life

and the teams that arent as well supported will grow their crowds by making and winning finals like clubs like wigan, st helens, leeds etc.

That's one theory but an unlikely one.

the giants crowds have grown from 3000 or so to 8000 or so. some because of the new ground and marketing. watch how much more they grow when they win trophies.

warrington will be the same etc

why are wigans crowds so good. sure RL has been strong there forever but the success of the late 80s/90s makes a difference.

winning a SL title should add between 3000 - 5000 to a clubs average gate if it hasnt won it before

over the next 10 years i expect at least a 50% increase in SL crowds based on the impact of an even salary cap on the competition together with better marketing and ground improvements.

hopefully as crowds boom more clubs will look to expand their grounds eg as Man Utd have done with OT.

i dont see the current situation is as good as it gets, more tip of the iceberg.

I must be feeling a bit ill at the moment , I'm agreeing with Dally

Interesting [url=http://www.thefreelibrary.com/Price-fixing+between+horizontal+competitors+in+the+English+Super...-a0212546229article[/url in the International Sports Law Journal.

It criticizes the salary cap for being an anti-concurrence price fixing scheme which could be challenged by European regulation on competition (though the specificity of sport clause could apply).

Interestingly it mentions that the idea that more even competitions increase crowds and viewing figures has been studied by several research studies, and that the results are a bit inconclusive:
"Economic research which considers the uncertainty of outcome hypothesis has produced mixed results. Of twenty two studies which sought to confirm the uncertainty of outcome hypothesis across different sports between 1974 and 2002: ten offered clear support for the theory; seven offered weak support; and five contradicted the theory. As Szymanski comments, 'even quite unbalanced matches, championships and leagues can be attractive to consumers'. Additionally, Szymanski notes that there are other reasons why the hypothesis needs to be treated with caution:
[i'First, while balance can be exciting, so can a contest between a Goliath and a David. Even if David seldom wins, the realisation of the completely unexpected can generate enormous satisfaction. Second, the performance of a perpetually successful team can also provide extra interest, either among those who support the dynasty, or among those who are rooting for it to fail ... third, even if it were true that a completely predictable contest would be unattractive, it is hard to say what the effect of a small change in balance would be, starting from a given distribution of wins.[/i' "

Precision: due to a publication bias in science (studies finding an effect are more likely to be published), these numbers raise doubt over the validity of the idea that even competition increase viewings (meaning that for 5 studies contradicting the idea, there may be many more who have been conducted but who have not been published).

It is true that the Premiership, the Liga or the Champions League are very uneven, they however attract the highest crowd. In a Championship if some teams overly dominate (like Leeds/St Helens in SL) they increase their supporters. The supporters of lower teams often keep being interested because the challenge to beat these legendary teams attract the interest (like for the first Crusaders match).

In addition, the authors mention that the economic advantage of the cap is dubious:
- The only clear winners if any are the clubs who can make some profit by decreasing their wage bill.
- There is no evidence that these profits lead to a decrease in ticket prices for supporters
- It limits ideal matching between teams and players, which is bad for the show displayed for supporters and for players
- Players are the most affected as their earning and their mobility is restrained. This may be problematic in the long-term as it could affect choices of young players to go in RL instead of going to RU for instance.

Interesting piece which challenge the common view on the salary cap.

That article if you read it also tells Dally about who owns Super League

:w674qq9n
Actually the paper talks about this point:

[i:w674qq9nTo protect and nurture a broad competitive playing structure by preventing clubs trading beyond their means and/or entering into damaging and unsustainable financial arrangements [/i

The White Paper on Sport states that a legitimate objective of sporting rules will normally relate to the organisation and proper conduct of competitive sport and may include 'the ensuring of financial stability of sports clubs and teams'. (84) In the history of the Super League playing competition two clubs have encountered serious financial difficulties: Paris St Germain (prior to the salary cap's introduction); and London Broncos in 2005 (following the salary cap's introduction). Both teams were located in a geographical area which did not have a supporter base with a strong tradition of following rugby league. In the case of London Broncos the club was permitted to reform and continue operating in the Super League competition. Paris St Germaine was dissolved at the end of 1997. In both cases factors other than player wage costs, such as the geographical location of the clubs likely contributed to the difficulties that the clubs encountered.

Other rugby league clubs in competition divisions below Super League have encountered financial difficulties. In 2007 Widnes Vikings, a National League Division 1 club was placed in Administration following its unsuccessful attempt to secure promotion to the Super League competition. The Super League competition no longer operates under a rule of promotion and relegation thereby lessening the tendency for clubs to invest heavily in playing talent to gain promotion into the competition.

Additonally, the licensing regime recently introduced into Super League competition provides an incentive for clubs not to get into financial difficulty. From 2009 clubs require a licence to participate in the competition. Licences are issued for a three-year period and clubs will need to re-apply for a licence in 2011. The criteria applied for issuing a licence includes consideration of the financial stability of the club and its business performance. The licensing regime, therefore, provides a means of 'preventing clubs entering into damaging and unsustainable financial arrangements' which has a less restrictive effect on the market for playing services than the salary cap. A Super League club that gets into financial trouble is likely to face difficulty obtaining a Super League licence.

--------------
So I guess the argument is: there are other means to address this issue, and the salary cap is not necessary to achieve the aim of financial stability for the clubs.

@FrogRL.

It is indeed an interesting article, however, I would nitpick it.

If 17 out of 22 studies have strong or weak support for the theory and only five contradict then I think they are being somewhat dismissive. That would suggest that a meta-study that collated all the results might indeed find support for the theory.

Secondly I wonder whether the studies that contradicted were run over a sufficiently long period of time. I can well believe that a David and Goliath effect might exist in the short-run but I am suspicious of this in the long-run. It's not like we see big sell out crowds in international rugby league these days.

Thirdly while they argue that there is no real benefit to the fan, I would say that the benefit to the fan is not principally in the price of the ticket. Fans derive enjoyment from the game and can even derive vacarious enjoyment even if they didn't go to the game (and it cost them nothing). The value to the fan is in the product.

I don't accept the player's wage argument either. Players today are paid far more than in the past and this is because the higher income allows for bigger salaries. Restricting player income in the short-run may lead to big gains in the long-run because the more even competition increases team revenue (and thus the demand for player's labour).

They seem to imply that this means that players are "misallocated" among teams. I'm guessing that this means that talent is spread among teams rather than have super-teams (as Wigan were). I fundamentally disagree with this, super teams often have very talented players setting in stands unable to get a game and this is to nobody's benefit.

Just to follow on from you hedgehog, teams languishing at the bottom don't turn up in their droves for those David and Goliath encounters do they?
Having a fairly even competition over recent years has seen teams like KR, Hudds et al increase crowds as they become competitive

Oh, and I wouldn't expect any 'Dallybate' with that argument, the language used will be far too complex for him to comprehend

I am quite convinced by the David/Goliath argument. For instance if I am a Sunderland fan, I may find it more attractive to see Sunderland-Manchester United than Sunderland-Portsmouth.
Regarding the studies, there is a problem in science which is [url=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Publication_biaspublication bias[/url. This term designate the fact that scientific journals prefer to publish results rather than non results. Imagine 50 studies on the effect of even competition on crowd attendance. Twenty find a positive effect, while thirty find no positive effect. In the publication phase those with a positive effect are more likely to be selected (for instance 17 out of 20) than the others (for instance 5 out of 30). For this reason, when you do a meta analysis any significant number of studies with no effect should raise your doubts about the strength/validity of the relationship. In the paper it is said: [i"The data testing the validity of the uncertainty of outcome hypothesis does not suggest the theory is false but rather that the importance of outcome uncertainty may be overstated."[/i
When you see the imbalance in the Premiership, you see that if it has a negative effect on public interest it it is can't be that detrimental. In a another football championship, the French Ligue 1, Lyon has won the title 7 times in a row. Does it decrease the value of the championship? Don't think so, it makes any win against Lyon even more exciting.