These people have a knack of producing KPI's to support their increases and often paint the game in such a light as to make out its gone from strength to strength.
My own opinion is attendances do look down from the outside, depending on how far you look back, I think some of the sides 10 years ago would beat the current sides, and the game at the top is a little stale, barring a few exceptions the game is pretty much hand to mouth from bottom all the way up to all but a few elite SL Clubs, and a few clubs with stir crazy owners.
However, Nige would point to increased sponsorship, expansion of the game to other countries etc etc yawnnnnnnn.... So in their world he's worth every penny and is doing a great job.
The game sold its soul quite a few years back, its been a steady move towards a tv game and a wider subscription paying audience. My own preference would have been to do more at grass roots and buck the greedy trends of sport and business, and actually do something for the good of all RL folks, something to stand out and be proud of, but I appear to be an old fashioned out of touch fool who doesn't have an MBA, and doesn't know any soap characters or any acts in the top 10 music charts. For some reason im ok with that and will keep my soul in tact and remember the game is predominately played on muddy fields with club houses that have a few broken showers and a bar of their own if they are lucky.
Give yourself a big pat on the back Nige, the graphs look fantastic the presentations are all using Bluetooth and they've got them being professionally produced by the same people who made the Kings new magic clothes, oh and were on target to get a blue chip sponsor any decade now.
RL is in reality no different to a large number other business, its a great gravy train if you blag a decent seat, sod the peasants.
