Why are you suggesting that Deloitte's Sports Business Group are wrong in their findings?


"Meanwhile, including the successful hosting of the Four Nations competition across six different venues, Rugby League's attendances reached 2.3 million in 2016, with Super League attendances up slightly compared with 2015"

Are you going to provide a full "William Eve" breakdown of stats to support your claim, can't you just accept the independent findings from a professional business?

Because attendances are Smokey's main argument against the current league structure, so any slightly positive news on attendances will be met with scorn as it doesn't fit in with their agenda. I also look forward to Smokey providing a full breakdown of attendances 2015v2016.

He's not interested in facts unless they suit his agenda.

Quote ="shinymcshine"Why are you suggesting that Deloitte's Sports Business Group are wrong in their findings? "Meanwhile, including the successful hosting of the Four Nations competition across six different venues, Rugby League's attendances reached 2.3 million in 2016, with Super League attendances up slightly compared with 2015" Are you going to provide a full "William Eve" breakdown of stats to support your claim, can't you just accept the independent findings from a professional business?'" Well firstly Deloitte's report doesn't say that. Notice the lack of quotation marks in the article secondly we know what the attendances were and helpfully they have been provided to us. In detail. the18thman.com/2016/09/28/super- ... view-2016/ www.totalrl.com/super-league-att ... last-year/

Quote ="shinymcshine"Why are you suggesting that Deloitte's Sports Business Group are wrong in their findings? "Meanwhile, including the successful hosting of the Four Nations competition across six different venues, Rugby League's attendances reached 2.3 million in 2016, with Super League attendances up slightly compared with 2015" Are you going to provide a full "William Eve" breakdown of stats to support your claim, can't you just accept the independent findings from a professional business?'" Well firstly Deloitte's report doesn't say that. Notice the lack of quotation marks in the article secondly we know what the attendances were and helpfully they have been provided to us. In detail. the18thman.com/2016/09/28/super- ... view-2016/ www.totalrl.com/super-league-att ... last-year/

So Deloitte are lying on their own website? https://www2.deloitte.com/uk/en/pages/p ... event.html Just accept that there might be a different methodology from the one you are using, and that each might have its own margin of error, and that within that the difference in SL attendance from last year to this is negligible. However I see no benefit in Deloitte suggesting there was an increase if there wasn't one.

So Deloitte are lying on their own website? https://www2.deloitte.com/uk/en/pages/p ... event.html Just accept that there might be a different methodology from the one you are using, and that each might have its own margin of error, and that within that the difference in SL attendance from last year to this is negligible. However I see no benefit in Deloitte suggesting there was an increase if there wasn't one.

Quote ="SmokeyTA"Well firstly Deloitte's report doesn't say that. Notice the lack of quotation marks in the article secondly we know what the attendances were and helpfully they have been provided to us. In detail. the18thman.com/2016/09/28/super- ... view-2016/ www.totalrl.com/super-league-att ... last-year/'" You do realise that second link is dated the end of April 2016 and is only detailing the games played up until that point?

Quote ="SmokeyTA"Well firstly Deloitte's report doesn't say that. Notice the lack of quotation marks in the article secondly we know what the attendances were and helpfully they have been provided to us. In detail. the18thman.com/2016/09/28/super- ... view-2016/ www.totalrl.com/super-league-att ... last-year/'" You do realise that second link is dated the end of April 2016 and is only detailing the games played up until that point?

Yes, which is why i included both. To cover both definitions of Superleague pre super 8s and post Super8s.

You do realise that we swapped leeds for Wakefield in those final 8 games of SL. Unlikely to cause the attendance to rise don't you agree?

I would fully accept whether up or down 1% the difference is negligible and is within a margin of error. Though I would question why an RL total figure should suddenly change to a vague 'SL up slightly' conclusion

Either way, we know we didn't meet the 5% growth and 15 Sell outs the RFL told us we would.

Can you provide links to there promises made by the RFL? I'd be interested to see whether they were indeed promises or guarantees, or targets.

I fully expect that those running a sport turning over £100milliom+ per year, should be more than capable of planning for the next year that defining as promises, guarantees, and targets would be a distinction without a difference. If they aren't capable of that level of planning they shouldn't be implementing major changes on what you seem to think amounts to little more than a guess.

What kind of business would publish clear and specific aims and objectives only to be completely ambivalent to whether or not they were met? Besides one ran by incompetents.

Ahh, so they're "aims and objectives" now? They were "promises" a few days ago Smokey.

Really or did you just not realise the mistake at the time.



That article covers around 10/11 rounds, completely useless as the regular season is 23 Rounds.

Choose whichever makes you feel better about the failure to meet them . I don't think it makes the rfl look any better that they made a major structural change on the basis of a 'hopeful aspiration' no one should have any confidence in. Makes them look more incompetent if anything.

Fortunately I included two options for you. -0.5% and -1.82%. Take your pick.

If one of your big beefs about the new system is that the RFL didn't live up to its promises/statements then I've got news for you, you're never going to like any system they introduce as they'll always make aims/claims they won't meet, even if you like personally like the new system.

Unfortunately you've included two useless options as one features unlike for like fixtures and the other is for only half the regular season. Any chance of numbers for the whole 23 rounds, no more no less? Might well be down too but it's the only real true comparison you can get.

"
I've enjoyed watching the evolution of the arguments put forward by the RFL Cheerleaders and Defenders of The Game in General. When the system was first proposed it was obvious to anyone with half a brain that 'jeopardy' would do the square root of sod all to drive crowds, that lower league clubs would be encouraged toward boom and bust, and the return of relegation would result in short-term panic decisions depressing standards.

But no, the RFL cheerleaders and Defenders of The Game in General, led ably by Field Marshal Printer told us

[i"this new system is brilliant, its a great idea, the structure will ensure more games have more meaning on them and this will keep fans interested and we will see attendances go up, it will mean investment and growth in the lower leagues and the threat of relegation will drive standards"[/i

Well Bradford and London have seen huge falls from being relegated and that hasn't been replaced with meaningful growth.

[i"well of course you can't include the falls we will see at Bradford and London that wouldn't be fair to include them in the comparison"
[/i
But fewer people watched an SL game in 2015 compared to 2014.

[i"well of course you can't compare 2014 to 2015, that's unfair. We should look at the new system on its own merits and against its own benchmarks"[/i

But we aren't meeting the benchmarks set by the RFL
[i
" Well of course we shouldn't judge the new systems failure to meet its own benchmarks, its only the first year, We should wait until 2016 and see the game grow then"[/i

But we still aren't growing

[i"well of course we haven't seen growth from 2015 to 2016. There have been 'variables' and whatnot"[/i

Err we STILL aren't growing, going backwards by most measures

[i"well of course its not a problem that new system hasn't produced an increase in crowds, no system can drive crowds"[/i

And the lower leagues are struggling, clubs are overspending 3 out of the 4 championship clubs from the first year are already in severe financial difficulties, Bradford may be liquidated

[i"well of course its not a problem that clubs in the lower leagues are going bust at a precipitous rate. No system could avoid that"
[/i
And standards are falling in SL as well, we were supposed to be improving. Relegation was supposed to make the league more intense. It just isn't happening.

[i"well of course its not a problem that standards are falling, lets just not bother playing the WCC or international games, all it does is give the NRL fanboys something to crow about"[/i

But the system isn't doing any of the things it was put in place to do and isn't meeting even the particularly unambitious targets the RFL set for themselves

[i"well of course its no problem that the system is failing to meet its own benchmarks, what are you crazy? I've got news for you, all systems ever will always fail to meet any benchmarks ever set by the RFL for some reason"[/i


So brilliantly we now have a new system where we should never have expected any of its selling points to actually happen and there is literally no bar for success. None at all.

the fact those fixtures aren't like for like, is not a bug in the system. It is a feature.

Wow so much garbage in one post even by your standards coming up with replies for other people dreamt up in your own head. As for "defender of the game".....hardly. Isn't at something you've been accused of being in the past when your system of preference was in choice? I do prefer this system but that doesn't mean I think it's all out amazing without flaws but it's an improvement on stopping with the old one which did a job at the time but we needed to move on from. You can carry on wetting your pants about this system like you have done for 2 years now and it still won't get you anywhere apart from looking like some jilted ex lover still pining for their ex (in this case the previous format).

Those are all arguments made on this thread and ones previously. You don't address this because you know it to be true. You know that this system has failed to do the things you argued it would and you know the measures you previously argued for, are measures you are now arguing against.

Only an idiot or point scorer like yourself would for a moment think it was a defender of the RFL. Licensing wasn't my system of choice, it was a half-way fudge that limited its own benefits by not being implemented as it should. I argued this at the time. Even the fudge we had, however, was infinitely better than the e we have and no amount of your strained and weirdly over-explained mixed metaphors masquerading as insults will detract from that

What a load of rubbish.

You can pretend you didn't make those arguments if you like. We both know different. At least now everyone accepts and agrees the new structure can and will achieve nothing.

Smokey doing his level best to cripple yet another thread.

You posted any links to those "promises" yet Smokes?

You're wanting to fog-knit about whether a benchmark set in a strategic and operational plan by an organisation charged with running a sport turning over more than £100m a year should be used as an actual benchmark because it isn't a promise but just an 'aspiration' and you want to accuse others of crippling threads?

We can use the actual word the RFL use to describe those benchmarks if you want? The RFL call them [ioutcomes[/i. The system is failing to produce the outcomes the RFL said it would.

Or hoped?

Yes, you do cripple threads, time and time again. You don't 'win' debates, you just bore the other side into submission whilst you spend your time moving the goalposts, changing the wording to suit your agenda and failing to ever acknowledge anyone else's point.

You've cleverly done it there. "Said it would". Did they specific say it would? Definitely? Did they "promise" it?