It was mentioned to me from a very reliable scource , a nice little sweetner to stop them from squealing.

Crikey...don't come on here being positive, you'll get shot!

Well I am convinced that will happen because the relegated clubs income will drop alarmingly as will their attendances when they lose their franchise and their fan base realises they are going nowhere for at least 4 seasons. This is something I warned about when this ridiculous franchise system was introduced.

RL seems to be me to be run by people who have big ideas but seem to be incapable of realising the consequences of their decisions. It is similar to performance related bonuses given to mortgage brokers in banks. Short sighted managers at banks want to see their buisness booming so they tell their brokers for every mortgage you sell you get a bonus.Well we know what happened to our banks.

We also know what has happened to the Governor of the Bank of England who oversaw this catastrophe. He is still in his job as will the guy who is running the RFL will be when it all goes wotsits up and I would guess neither of them know the LSV exists even though one has actually been there.

Professional RL in the North of England has 3 clubs making a profit.None in London none in France and certainly not one in Wales.

I live close to Wrexham where the Crusaders play, every home game cheap tickets are on sale plus loads of free ones available. The first few games the people of Wrexham turned up, but after that the crowds have decreased. Next season they will be in the top three of worst supported clubs in S.L. Its only a matter of time before they go bust.

Sorry I didn`t mean to post this so had to wipe it off I am not deliberatly witholding who told me it`s just I cannot remember ,as I had a similar conversation with 2 people at the same time .

Not a bitter thread, a thread started with a bunch of facts. Oh and on your TV argument, how many tv stations wanted the football, how much coverage gets sold from one station to another. Now compare that with RL, Sky doesn't even have to televise the championship, it certainly doesn't pay for it, the co-op do. Is anyone else interested, no.

Has it not occured to you yet that people are slowly starting to realise the mess we are now in, due to sponsorship being almost 100% from one source, and therein lies the problem as pointed out earlier in the thread. What will the clubs do in SL when the next SKY deal is 10 mill down on the last one because they certainly won't be able to replace that elsewhere, and if they try to the Sky will just pull the plug. They regularly get less than 90,000 viewers for the SL games. Put it this way, if Sky was my business, I would have realised by now that, if I wanted to I could destroy SL. The championship clubs however, would not be massively affected as they are raising far more of thir own funds as a percentage of what they need

Badly out on viewing figures Dexy, even the Championship GF got 131k, the prestigious Union on the same channel the same time the day before got 110k.
The SL play offs were 250-300k, League massively outdraws union but we give it away. Sky need RL, more than RL needs Sky imho.

Think my point was on sponsors yand would the rather see a reminder of their product seen by 100k or 2 million

Either way, the way things are, like it or not we do need sky because without it, the fallout doesn't bear thinking about

Would help us no end

I agree

Then join me on the 'get sky out of RL' facebook group

think you should get your facts right regarding viewing figures before you spout off

Giving an opinion for discussion is spouting off, interesting. I also acknowledged my error.

Anyway my point is not any less diminished for the sake of 80000 viewers in the grand scheme of things. Live football on Sky gets between 1 and 2 million viewers, live rugby league generally probably gets on average between 80k and 200k

I would appreciate your view on the state of the game rather than just a criticism of an error on viewing figures. That error hardly takes it near the figures which terrestrial TV would give anyway. I know that terrestrial TV can not offer the money SKY pay us, however can't the RFL insist that more RL is sold to terrestrial at affordable prices by Sky, thus widening and vastly increasing the viewing figures and increasing the chance of more high profile sponsors backing our game.

Oh nearly forgot Mr Field. Have you stuck by your 'no season ticket for me next year' and joining the people of Leigh who you had a go at for not getting down to watch their team......sorry couldn't resist

Not disagreeing but I think the big difference here is the games governing body recently (and relatively) approved this club as fit to 'win' a RL Franchise so you would have thought (with it being a new club) they'd have gone through the club with a fine tooth comb.
Its apparant to me they have scimmed through things (not once but twice !).
In the meantime we have fans in Bridgend saying 'what happened' now joined by those in Wrexham saying 'what happened'.

The RFL have to be more accountable with the decisions they make, whilst its true its nothing but a really bad business decision by the club owners its also looking increasingly likely our governing body didn't carry out the required work before approving this club to ensure we didn't get to this situation.

This is not acceptable from a governing body and questions need answering honestly.

It is fascinating, sometimes, seeing where the RL public put the blame, and where they put their faith.

Consider:



Every one of these things is as a direct result of the actions of an independent business, i.e. a CLUB, and it's board of directors.

The RFL, remember, has run at a profit for the past few years, has been in a position to bail out Crusaders and Quins, and actually a number of other heartland clubs, too. But the conclusion??

But the conclusion drawn from this evidence?



It is very strange.

The RFL makes money. It has the biggest TV deal RL has ever had. It has six figure sponsorship from Gilette, Engage and Irn Bru, and five figure sponsorship from Co-Op... all major national brands. There are three RL games on TV most weekends. We get 7 showcasae matches a year minimum on live terrestrial tv, and have a highlights show broadcast on the BBC every week throughout the season.

It was the first NGB visited by the new government. It has been granted EXACTLY THE SAME financial guarantees for the League World Cup as the Union World Cup.

Its showcase events - Wembley and the GF - sold out this year. The RFL invented Magic Weekend. It sold thousands of tickets (more than we have ever done) for a mid-season no-contest international at Leyth against France. It runs the NR Cup Final and the Championship Finals day. It has an award-winning junior development programme.

It scored £30m from Sport England - behind only cricket and footy, on a par with kick'n'clap. Unlike football, cricket, rugby union, we are a growing sport, with vast, barely-tapped markets to expand into. There are development teams in every region of England from Penzance to Berwick - as well as improving national teams in Wales, Ireland and Scotland. It's also supporting development around the western world... Jamaica vs USA, Germany vs Serbia, under-18's matches in Saudi Arabia...

The RFL is very far from perfect... it tries stuff and sometimes fails; the jury is out on franchising, and it mis-handled the first round of licences badly... the national team, and the international game, has a long way to go.... etc etc... but the game is in a better shape now that it has been at any point in modern times (I'd say since the late sixties, an era of 3 tv channels, no computers, internet, mobiles, PS3's etc, that we will never go back to).

If the clubs were run like the RFL, they'd all be getting 30,000+, be comfortably in credit, and be expanding year on year. There would be three full time pro divisions, and no need for licensing the top flight.

If the RFL were run like the clubs, the sport would be dead.

Well a 'little bird' has whispered to me that the Welsh team are in dire straits and is expecting a visit from the administrators, now lets see if the RFL will stick to the rules re sooooooper league clubs going into administration if it all goes upsy downsy, and no Im not an anti expansionist - though I suppose moving a team closer to the M62 corridor was supposed to be 'better' for them - just a believer in fair play for all.

I'm led to believe they have signed one of the clubs biggest ever sponsor deals, and they are donating £1,000 to Help for Heroes every time we win. Sorry if it's not quite Orford Concrete.

Good. So about £10000 a season.

Wish they'd sponsor the team I support.

Not a very good comparison to highlight..................For the record I thought there was an excellent % of Leythers for that game, in comparison to a lot of folk from opposing clubs who could nt make the journey through a lack of a rail link.

Can you tell me which heartland clubs the RFL have helped bail out and the England France game had a bigger crowd than two of the 4 Nations games in an area where RL is their national sport. Not being nasty Wembly because you say a lot of good things to say but your view of the RFL is a little rose tinted sometimes. This next season will see if the decisions that they have made are going to be good for our game because there are more and more clubs every season that are finding it harder to survive and you can't just plonk it in the clubs laps when the structure of the game is biased against them.

Some sympathies with the structral comment... though a 3 year licence was supposed to help clubs in SL and Championship to plan more effectively... but I think you can ONLY plonk it in the lap of the clubs, because they are independent businesses with a pretty good idea of what central income they will receive from tv and sponsorship deals.

Running ANY business is simple - spend less than you bring in, and you'll do well. Spend more than you bring in, and you'll go bankrupt. It baffles me that club directors, who make their money doing this, suddenly forget when they take over a club.