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.

frog RL sure has similar views to someone else on here.

outed.

why would i argue when people are backing my argument!

if saints or leeds dont win another SL title for 5 years that will be good for SL.

these clubs should worry more about upgrading their grounds tbh

looks like the SC is working even quicker than i thought with cas upsetting leeds at headingly.

great result for SL.

well done giants too!

FFS get a grip

i think your grip is a little tight.

leeds being upset by cas is exactly what im talking about

the giants now beating bradford. that wouldnt have happened a few years ago

its the SC doing its job

sorry.as much asd i want to agree with you nothing will change. leeds/saints.maybe wigan & wire might throw a spanner in the works but in the end i think the status quo will be kept.PS
if you think cas are going to win something cos they beat leeds in the first game of the season you really are bonkers

rome wasnt built in a day.

Pompeii took two days to disintegrate in 79 AD.

Aye, just look at what happened to Santorini



I think they went a bit too far in clearing the ground for a new stadium

I would suggest that the Leeds-Cas game last night was a good counterargument to the 'David/Goliath' effect expounded by FrogRL.

As a Cas fan of many years I'd always have looked to get to our opening game. This time, despite it being quite local and me having nothing else better to do (a rarity these days!) I had no interest in going to the game having gone to last years game and seen us destroyed by Leeds in a very one-sided encounter.

Although I was aware that playing a game this early in the season gave Cas a better than usual chance of upsetting the odds I wasn't sufficiently encouraged by the slim prospects of it happening to go along.

Part timer

Indeed, they don't.

The figures might suggest that they do though. If Blackpool play Swinton then they will get a much lower crowd than Blackpool versus Widnes. The stats will then show that "David and Goliath" games are what Blackpool folk really want. This is of course nonsense because the crowd will have been largely made up of away fans.

I think it does in the short-run. There is no question that the came against <profinity removed> will get a higher crowd and the tickets will be more expensive.

However, teams like Sunderland used to win the odd trophy (against Leeds as well

) and this would have a permanent boost to their crowds (as Warrington will probably get this year and for the next few years). Now their wins will be few and far between leading to a gradual reduction in crowd sizes.



A fair point.



It does to the reduced number of people who still care. The Aussies have beaten us so consistantly at league that even they don't care any more.

The reverse happened at cricket. The Aussies had beaten us in every series for 17 years and the usual broadcaster dropped the Ashes series as it was no longer a big event. England then won what has been described as the best series ever and suddenly the Aussies cared a great deal about it and the old rivalry was reignited.

Sure, an absence of real competition is not desirable. The paper addresses this point too. It argues that there is no evidence that competition is unlikely to go away without salary cap and that revenue sharing may be a better solution:

"Sixthly, the RFL and the clubs consider that in the absence of a salary cap, a club will dominate the competition because it can afford to pay for the best players and 'stock pile playing talent'. Rottenberg stated that talent accumulation on one team would be limited by a club's profit motivations. Additionally, in the course of the interviews, players were asked to identify the factors considered when deciding whether to enter into an employment contract with a club. The factor most frequently identified by the ten players interviewed as of primary importance when choosing to contract with a club was: the opportunity to play regularly for the club's first team. Therefore, in a free market the ability of a club to stock pile talent may be restrained by the value a player assigns to playing. Players may be more likely to move to a team where the opportunity to play is present, and such opportunities are less likely in a team filled with many players.

Sevenly, in a professional sports league where the objective of clubs is win maximisation [... revenue sharing would achieve competitive balance by ensuring less affluent clubs are provided with additional income in order to compete for professional players. Revenue-sharing would provide teams in financially weaker markets with extra income and likely increase the number of financially viable teams. It would also be a means of achieving competitive balance without distorting competition in the market for playing services. The clubs share SLE revenue and profits, although gate receipts from Super League round-robin games are not shared."

saints losing to hull
bradford losing to the giants
leeds losing to cas

well done salary cap

this is the kind of competetion people want to see