I rest my case.

So you say the product isn't there? Of course it is, 13 home games a year, with entertainment laid on post game and loads of other things...that's the product and it's a great game day experience.

If, on the other hand you are referring to a "winning" team.....I suggest you look at the figures for the last 11 years with regard to London team performance and the crowds they achieved that year.

2003 play offs...3,545 average. 2010 possible last place but bottom 3 finish...3,494.

Yes...some fans will flock to see a winning team (Hull Kingston Australia have a huge amount of lifelong fans who must have been born 4 years ago

), but Quins RL need to give people the opportunity to make their own minds up.

I repeat...regardless of the results on the pitch, the club should be targeting at least 400 NEW (15% increase)
fans added to the average each season. If 15% of people who attend their first game return for more, then the club really need to be looking at 400 NEW fans per game. If 15% return, that's 60 .....and if that patern continued, you have added 5,460 to your seasons total.

In fact, I would go as far as to say that the club should have a target of 1,000 brand new LONDON BASED spectators through the gates for EVERY game in 2010 (if the club are still in SL). But, that's just my opinion and I am sure that the marketing department and senior management have more important things to consider (like getting their CV's up to date, just in case)

Surely as we are often told that the vast majority of SL fans are fans of the sport before their individual club , then Quins would retain the bulk of their support if they were to be relegated

as for the argument about marketing , it really is a no brainer , people buy all sorts of rubbish as long as it is well marketed , were there are some excellent products that have failed miserably due to poor or no marketing

Look at the crowds for teams like Widnes, Leigh, Hull Kingston Australians, Halifax, Salford etc in the Championship and then in Sooperleague. Regardless of being a fan of the game or not, it is a sad fact that fans stop going to games when their "club" aren't in the top division.
I have no doubt that Quins would be near the 1700 mark...but nowhere near the 2,500 required to bid to get into SL.



You know it, I know it, everyone apart from Quins RL seem to know it









I have quoted this before, but this is the transcript of 2 Australian ladies conversation, from cubicle to cubicle in the ladies loo after the Manly Sea Eagles game v Quins in 2009. (overheard by MRS GUTTERFAX before you ask

)
Sheila #1 "Jesus...that was fun"
Sheila #2 "Yeah...great game, live band, cold beer.....why wouldn't you come here for £12 every week?"
Sheila #1 "Dunno. We only saw the ad in TNT this week"
Sheila #2 "I didn't know they played league in London"

Now.....the RFL paid to promote this game and even though it was only a little profit, they made a profit. The showed what could be done with a little bit of negotiation, a load of hard work and an amount of forward planning......Quins RL Learnt nothing from this and the entire 2009 season went pretty much as usual, with no marketing activity and therefore a 6% drop in crowds against 2008 (a season by the way where they manged a 6% increase)
There is something fundamentally wrong with an organisation that looses £30K a week but does nothing to try to attract new revenue....and that is why the club are up the creek with only DH paddling.

And, before the club apologists surface to talk about the wonderful new shirt sponsors (a 2 bit SMS company and a local Hotel) et al....when speaking to a potential advertiser/sponsor, total attendance figures of 45,000 for a season with maybe 3 games on SKYTV isn't going to extract the revenue required to bail out the club......but 75,000 more fans a season spending 20 quid a game on tickets, beer, food and replica gear will. They may fluctuate in numbers from game to game, but I'd rather lose a few fans from a 9k average than 1 sponsor!

I thought travelling half way around the world would ease the passion I have for this subject (and most on here probably wished it had

) but it really is a disaster, wrapped up in a fiasco and topped with a good dollop of incompetence



IMO of course.

It is an even sadder fact that after the next licence application even less will be going , the RFL will not guarantee a club going up again , then it really will sink in at the main clubs , Leigh , Fax , Fev that the game is up for them

The only way will be a financial disaster for somebody else , so in that respect it would seem Quins are the bst bet for any of those 3 clubs to ever move up again

Not something I am personally happy with , they should be openly funded from RFL/SKY imo , ' openly ' being the key word here

But the RFL dont operate like that

For me, this has been "the product" at the Stoop this season (E&OE):
=#BF0000P12, W4, L8, F279, A348.

I think that the best way to market =#BF0000that is to keep very quiet about it, and instead to put the resources into product improvement for next season.

I'm not at all sure that the world in general agrees with you about the "great game day experience". Certainly a lot of people leave at the end of the game despite all the "entertainment" available.

But that is the point , the product is live sport , and as such cannot be completely controlled , nor should we want it to be , if that is what you want , go watching re runs of old films , you will then know exactly what you are going to see week in week out

It is a simple fact that for every winner there is a loser , when you lose more than you win , the games you win are all the ' sweeter ' , you tend to get a better class of fan at clubs that lose more than they win , clubs that win most of the time tend to be followed by ' t055ers '

Indeed results on the pitch ARE the point. That's exactly what I was saying. And this club isn't getting them. It's supposed to be a flagship for the game in the south of England, not an organisation that's struggling to justify its existence.

I can assure you that I know all about the joys and sorrows of supporting a club at the bottom of the pile. I did it for years. But that was a club with permanently low expectations, which description should not fit with the capital's only SL club. If it does, I see no point in its being here.

And I don't watch films, old or new, precisely because they are contrivances and don't have the unpredictability of live events.

Hilarious

Sifting out 'deadwood' fans... You are not worthy fickle fan who contributes to the clubs finances through the odd gate receipt or merchandise, food & bev

No fan should ever be considered a 'dead wood' fan

I doubt Quins add anything to the viewing figures. The name Harlequins never makes a game a must-see. I think you're overstating your importance, and being dismissive of a highly-populated part of the country where rugby league is big. And it isn't the fault of rugby league that you can't get people through the gates, and so I'm not sure why the game "deserves to suffer".

I wish you luck, but don't be so dismissive of your northern cousins.

He =#FF0000is one of our northern cousins.


Or brothers even.

www.sportexec.co.uk/descriptions ... 473351.doc Interesting read.

www.sportexec.co.uk/descriptions ... 473351.doc Interesting read.

"In preparation for the 2009 season...."

mmmmm... I was thinking that as well, bloody waste of 40 grand if someone was appointed and has sat on their all season

If it comes to it.........we should form a collective, collect £100,000 and take it to the Skolars with a view to an investment in 3 good players and some marketing. We could get the Skolars into the Championship and then build for SL three years later.

NIL DESPERANDUM

This may well be the job that I sent in an application for and heard nothing back. To put it into perspective, I submitted my CV to both the selection agency and the club directly and received NO COMMUNICATION AT ALL.


Regardless of whether I was aptly qualified or not is neither here nor there......I have applied for jobs in the past and always had a response, regardless of if I was suitable or not.....but Quins must have had thousands of people applying



The job went unfilled until after PB was selected as GM.

As it is, I believe the current Marketing person has worked with Paul Blanchard in the past (at the Brit Oval I think) and therefore, no search and selection fee would have been paid. Nothing like a bit of nepotism to fill a roll.......even though the particular role that needed filling is probably one of the hardest jobs in sports marketing and if I am honest, I am not that upset that I didn't get a look in. Thankless task with people having a pop 24/7 on RL Forum sites









So, there was nobody sitting on theit booty twidling their thumbs in 2009.

2010 on the other hand is a totally different matter

Looking at the role, responsibilites, environment and the remuneration it is definately one of the harder roles going aroind in sports management...

As for Blanchard bringing an ex colleague, I think nepotism might be too harsh a word. Its a common practice to bring ex colleagues and usually they are head hunted for a reason. That being said, the club hasnt exactly been kicking goals off field (or on) over the past couple of seasons

You don't say

And yet they pat themselves on the back for getting a local hotel and a 2nd rate SMS company on the shirts and getting a BELOW average gate for the St Helens game which was a double header. I seem to recall that the double header with saints was forced upon the club, yet the marketing manager actually felt ot was a success and warranted a DPS in RL world







I also pointed out when PB joined us his "colourful" CV........and tha fact he didn't hang around for too long in his previous roles........but was shouted down by the usual people. Anyone care to comment on his role in all this?

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHhh

I dont see the problem as long as there was a proper business plan in place for the club to be financially viable. We might win more games, still play some good historic clubs and be able to build.

Avg Att 2009 Avg Att 2010 (so far)
Barrow 2,280 1,805
Batley 895 1,018
Halifax 2,325 2,255
Widnes 3,808 3,061

Widnes and Halifax average league attendances look quite impressive given they are playing in the Championship.

Rugby League in London outside Super League is pointless.

So what is the answer if there is a problem ?

RFL central funding ?

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHhh f()cking what?

The club you and I support is close the edge and like it or not, it is close to the edge because of the inability to understand the need to market, then the inability to act on the recommendations of either the RFL or the RFL's representative on the best way, or at least one of the best ways forward.

Don't blame me for pointing this out Paddock. You were the one that told me to waste $7 on RLWorld.......and all I saw was a PR piece that did zero for the club but gave the marketing manager a pat on the back for getting a less than average crowd for the saints game.
I repeat...the saints game WAS NOT A MARKETING EXCERCISE BY Quins RL....it was forced on the club by Quins RU!

Let's say that interview etc took 1 hour...that hour would have been better spent melting the phones or trying to get some press that wouldn't be preaching to the converted........

96 home games since I started posting my marketing ideas on here in 2003..........if the club had managed to get 100 new fans to each of these games and 5 of these had become regulars we wouldn't be in the position we are now! Just 5 new regulars a game......would have added 500 to our average this season. If 20 had become regulars we would be averaging 5,500..........but hey, it's not something "we can" influence, so let's go back to "if I were the coach" posts



Last chance saloon and last orders paddock...and like it or not, it's been coming for a long time.

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH