Well argued. No really. Well done on countering the points I put forward. That appears to be your stock answer when you feel like you should disagree but you dont know why.

If you seriously can't see the effect national media, be it newspaper, radio or TV has on people and what they take an interest in then I suggest you open your eyes and take a look around. There are kids that I coach who can name more of the England rugby union team, more of the GB Olympic team, more of the England Cricket team than they can Leeds Rhinos first team players. You only need to go into a non-RL pub and see how few if any times rugby league is mentioned during people's normal conversation. Yet national topics that are in the national media, are. You only need to look at the huge rise in popularity of international rugby union to see the effects of the imbalance between regional and national media. Domestic rugby union is of similar popularity to rugby league, yet international union is popular nationwide but has only become so due to it being widely reported on by national media. If people cared as much about regional sports they would be off to see Wasps v Gloucester as much as they do England v anyone at all.
The only regular media exposure RL gets is regional in local papers and local radio. Even then it's patchy. With thr move to more internet forms of media Less and less people are consuming local media, I walk into my local supermarket there are around 10 or 11 national or international newspapers and about 3 regional. Most people pick up a national newspaper. I switch on the tv, its all national programming. I turn on the radio, most of the stations are national and no-one under the age of 50 listens to regional radio except for specific local sports coverage.
When there are plenty of people living in the so-called heartlands of rugby league who have never heard of the sport (or if they have they have no idea who plays it or what it is) then how do you think a truly regional sport would survive with a full time pro league?
In the end, for the non-diehard fan there are plenty of other things to do and watch that are reported on. When there is Premier League football, International Rugby Union, International Cricket, Euro 2012 & the Olympics all with high profile, nationwide status why would people put the effort in required to actively take an interest in a sport they barely know exist?

Quote ="bewareshadows"This discussion seams to have gone from 'has SL failed'? to more of a discussion about the championship. If we are comparing RL to attendances in other sports then if you look at SL attendances, and compare those to say football. SL would equate to the bottom of the Championship playing the top of the league one clubs. The Championship in RL would equate more to a league 2 football competition in terms of attendances. www.football-league.co.uk/static ... 057,00.pdf In the end we can all wish for more people to watch the game, but wishing will not make it so. Now that posters have show SL attendances to have actually grown, the doubters then change tact and go to the championship and ask for evidence that these have not suffered. What I'd say is if you want to say P&R has reduced attendances in the lower leagues, then it's down to you to show the figures to prove your own point. Anyone can throw out statements and say prove me wrong, but the necessity of proof always lies with the person who lays charges.'" I'm not actually reading this thread post to post or making a point to favour an argument but surely if the highest Championship attendance is just about 2,000 it's more comparable with the bottom half of non-league football than it is league 2.

Quote ="bewareshadows"This discussion seams to have gone from 'has SL failed'? to more of a discussion about the championship. If we are comparing RL to attendances in other sports then if you look at SL attendances, and compare those to say football. SL would equate to the bottom of the Championship playing the top of the league one clubs. The Championship in RL would equate more to a league 2 football competition in terms of attendances. www.football-league.co.uk/static ... 057,00.pdf In the end we can all wish for more people to watch the game, but wishing will not make it so. Now that posters have show SL attendances to have actually grown, the doubters then change tact and go to the championship and ask for evidence that these have not suffered. What I'd say is if you want to say P&R has reduced attendances in the lower leagues, then it's down to you to show the figures to prove your own point. Anyone can throw out statements and say prove me wrong, but the necessity of proof always lies with the person who lays charges.'" I'm not actually reading this thread post to post or making a point to favour an argument but surely if the highest Championship attendance is just about 2,000 it's more comparable with the bottom half of non-league football than it is league 2.

I have thought about this today, I would not say that super league has failed, I would say though that super league has failed rugby league. This has more to do with the people running the RFL than anything else.
I will use the football example, sky and other TV companies pay for the rights to show the premier league, they also pay to broadcast the championship, and lower divisions. This money is then put into one big pot and divided throughout all of football right down to subsidising the running of kids’ football and pub team football. The higher the league you are in the more of a percentage you receive. The football association don’t give TV companies games for free; they also don’t give sponsorship rights away for free.

I think super league would be an overwhelming success if

A) The licence application rules were set in stone, no bending them at all. The rules are changed only by a majority vote of all clubs it would effect not just the super league clubs.

B) If you break any of the rules it automatically terminates your licence.

This would keep all clubs honest. If we brought going into administration back as a licence termination it would make clubs think about managing their finances better.

It would encourage the lower division clubs to improve as they will get a chance when / if a super league club fails.

This can only be done with money feeding its way down from the top. Better management of rugby league.

At the moment the whole structure of rugby league is top heavy with the support below it getting thinner and thinner, and eventually it will break, the top will come crashing down and it will all have to start at the bottom again, unless you start to strengthen the support below super league will have failed.

I would suggest that the RFL has failed superleague. Between 2000 and 2008 superleague was a great product and needed to be enhanced to the next business sporting model. Lewis and Wood became too blinkered the last 4 years with the Sky contract and RFL profit.
When in reality they were failing in global sponsors, marketing and national media exposure. I would imagine the RFL don,t have the people in place to address these issues to flaghip the sport, an individual club can,t as a single entity.
Marketing is EVERYTHING to give a sport stability and stature, this is one of the RFL,s total failings.
Maybe we need to streamline Superleague and use the RFL profits to give the sport the national exposure it deserves.....before its too late.

Super league has not failed it is the people that are in charge of our clubs that have failed when we get somebody to take charge of the chairmen and owners we will be better run and we might get more fans to watch the greatest game of all

You answer your own question, apart from the Premier League ( the most widely watched, supported , sponsored, internationally worker populated competition of the worlds most popular sport ) all your other examples are not club sport, but International sport, we dont have a competitive International aspect to RL, therefore RL will remain a regional sport, its marketing should reflect that, our only option is to build up our clubs local support

Australian rules is a regional sport, Gealic football and Hurling similarily are regional non international sports, yes we need to try to expand the International interest in RL, on the other thread I pointed out an idea several years ago when Russia were showing interest, but as usual RL never does anything properly, it is always half cocked, underfunded, our club sides ( all of them ) have no interest in building the game ( we see criticism of ' self interest ' by SL fans of the lower tier clubs, well the SL clubs are no different in that regard )

We are a regional sport, and that isnt going to change any day soon, until we can run a world Cup with 16 nations ' competing ' and 6 potential winners we will remain a minority regional sport played in Australia, Norther England and the south of France ( even in NZ the sport is seen as something the ' Coconuts ' , slang term for South Sea Islanders and the Moaris not good enough for Union play )

That would mean rich backers who have made there money from good business plans and revenue streams within the RFL contraints.
Can,t think of any people who is willing to buy and run a club in a sport with no stature, no global sponsors, very little media exposure and international status.
We do have chairmen from Wigan, Warrington, Leeds, Hull and St Helens with good business plans who have vented there concerns about how the game is run, but are being held back by the RFL or veto,d by the lesser superleague clubs.
The future might be to give the more successfully run clubs more voting power and not confined to superleague clubs only, so that the models of success is filtered down to the poorly run clubs.

More voting power? , meaning an increase in the salary cap, meaning a bigger gap between the top 5/6 and the rest, that will help

No, you are on the wrong wavelength. Its about getting the successful clubs to demonstate how to be more successful without effecting there market share. For example Featherstone Rovers might be better run and more successful pro rata than Salford so Featherstone would have more voting power.
On the subject of the salary cap we still have a lot of clubs who do not spend up to the salary cap limit because they do not have income revenue streams or business plans in place to achieve this. The more successful better run clubs need for the future existence of the sport share the business methods or have a bigger influence in this area by voting power.
The objective should be 10 clubs in profit spending to salary cap.......then looking at raising it according to the cross section finance of superleague, for the championships this would be filtered down and partly financed through RFL subsidy.

5 years ago Bradford would have been in that list. "Chairman stupidity" is a fluent market.

2nd and 3rd tier RL divisions have drawn sub 1500 crowds for the whole 30 years I've followed the game, how has SL made it any worse?

Thats correct, its because we have this "I,m alright Jack" mentality amongst clubs instead of integration and transparency we only react on failure. Think Mc Manus covered this early this season on the deaf ears of the RFL and his only avenue to raise the issue was with the media.

The successful clubs are successful partly because of historical support, Leeds have been the ' richest ' club for decades because they are from a large city, how can you change that?

Yes your idea is great, but it just wont happen, when licening was originally suggested we were told CLUBS would behave differently, those among the doubters suggested differently, we stated that coaches would still look for the finished article before a junior, tgat Chairmen would still demand succes, fans also would not be willing to wait to see if their junior development would pay off 5/6/7 years down the line

Are SL clubs giving young British coaches a chance? , no, we have an influx of coaches from down under

Clubs and their owners will do what they consider is best for their club, not the sport as a whole, their fans demand it

Has it made it any better?

And Mr Mc Manus would be just the same, he might comment about something, but if it adversley affected his club ( but was better for the sport as a whole ) he would do anything to change it

Sorry, I've just had a couple of days of shocked delayed reaction: did someone from the woe is us camp really cite MICK GLEDHILL as a reliable source???!!!!

Maybe, it sounded more like a principal concern from my viewpoint. Its possible we might have a "vacuum" within the RFL where nothing gets done and with the lack of transparency, the superleague is fragmented into individual success and failure.
The RFL without controlling individual clubs must be a sporting body good at business plans, marketing, sponsor links, media relations, development etc to project beyond regional areas. All we have is gimmicks and to a large extent silence from Red Hall when negative events occur.


You are in charge of the RFL, what would you change short to long term.

I would agree with that post

No and I doubt it ever will or could. To suggest SL is a failure because the clubs outside of it get low crowds and financially struggle is nonsense. It has always been that way and always will be as far as I can see, SL or no SL. In fact SL is merely Div1, The Big League, call it whatever you like. If you wanted to ask the question it should be is the RFL failing RL outside of SL or is the RFL failing to advance SL. It is not the job of the clubs in SL to sort out teh games problems.

Have you ever met Mick Gledhill? He makes Shaun Wane look like Stephen Hawking.

The guy's finest achievements include ending up in Cardiff nick after the Magic Weekend in 2007, and his attempts to besmirch other clubs' finances is an attempt to take the heat off his beloved Bradford's car crash administration.

Powell- London
Betts- Widnes

Two who would be out of a job with P&R. This not mentioning Wane and Agar who are British. Next season Paul Anderson will be coach at Huddersfield. Admittidly there are examples to support your claims such as the Hull clubs and Cas. As coaches change less and less it will be harder to see if the trend of employing foreign coaches is increasing or decreasing.

Short term I would keep licencing , but any financial or salary cap infringeents would result in revoking of that licence

I would take over the financial support of London and invest heavily in marketing them, no improvement in 6 years and that financial support would be withdrawn

I would appoint a Championship ' Director ' with a remit to double the attendances at all Championship clubs within 6 years

Basically in 6 years time a complete overhaul of the pro and semi pro game, if clubs want to remain in the top tier, they would have to improve financially, similarily if Championship clubs want to join the top tier they would have to improve

A decision then to continue the current licencing system, revert to yearly P and R , or to re structure to 2 F/T leagues of 10 teams each

On pitch performance would have no bearing on the restructure, it would be purely financially measured ( by that I mean ' real ' income, not director input )

I havent suggested it has failed, because unless you have a clear aim at the start, how can you judge sucess, however it was suggested it would ' advance ' the whole sport, I would suggest it hasnt

Since when has director input not been real money? Does it matter where the money comes from as long as it comes in? It only becomes a problem if clubs don't bother with other potential income then the director well dries up. I would be very surprised if there isn't any director that is currently putting their hands in their own pockets that are happy for the clubs to not try and minimise the amount of financial support needed.

In aly sport, in any league, in any country you will get rich teams, medium teams and poor teams. The aim has to be that the poor teams can still afford to compete, that rich teams are held to a realistic and true salary cap (cough cough SL) and that all teams have enough money to market properly, fund jnrs properly etc.

In NRL you have a team like Brisbane with a revenue of $32million and a team like Cronulla with $12million.

I can pretty much guarantee that franchising saved Agar's job at Hull. He was eventually released because our new owner didn't think he was good enough having had 5 years to prove otherwise. With P&R he'd have been gone years ago.

We've also got two other British coaches at sides that are at the lower end of the table. Would they be there if there was still P&R or would they have been replaced by antipodeans by now?