Re: Opening weekend sees attendances soaring by 12.70% : Tue Apr 22, 2014 12:35 pm  

loiner81

In all those 4 posts I quoted, you made it pretty clear that SL was doing better than competitor sports (union and football). How the Premier League gets overlooked for the Championship (which does suit your agenda that SL is outperforming all its competitors) is anyone's guess.

Re: Opening weekend sees attendances soaring by 12.70% : Tue Apr 22, 2014 2:05 pm  

Worlds Apart wrote:

I was. P+R is a disaster for a game that has at most 16 competitive sides (and that's pushing it).

You don't make some of the sides outside SL that could be competitive better by giving them one season against teams that will be better funded, better supported, and have first bite at the cherry on newly available players. That's a route to teams getting hammered and going straight back down. It happened at Leigh, and it would have happened at Catalans and Widnes were it not for liscencing. Fast forward, Les Dragons & Widnes haqve produced a cohort of young local players, performing well in the league and growing their crowds.

Liscencing works, and 12s & 8s is a terrible bodge job of a halfway house, which will be dropped within 3 years at most, as it was in the Scottish Football League.

It's really very simple:

-Liscencing
-Fixed criteria for promotion
-Any team that meets the criteria is permitted in
-no competing for liscences, if there are 15 clubs that meet criteria there'll be 15 rounds.
-SC increase & star player rule.

I was comfortable with licensing. The real irony is that a club like Featherstone would have been odds-on to claim a place over Wakefield and/or London and/or Bradford under that system. This would have given them 3-years to establish themselves in the top flight and 3 years for the others to dust themselves down and re-group.

Re: Opening weekend sees attendances soaring by 12.70% : Tue Apr 22, 2014 2:42 pm  

Nightman wrote:

In all those 4 posts I quoted, you made it pretty clear that SL was doing better than competitor sports (union and football). How the Premier League gets overlooked for the Championship (which does suit your agenda that SL is outperforming all its competitors) is anyone's guess.

My first post 4-5 pages ago clearly stated championship football so why you feel the need to keep harping on about another league, and one that's barely showing a 1% increase compared to our whopping 1% decrease, is beyond me but feel free to keep grasping at straws. Let's hope you're as forthcoming with your waffle in a few weeks when RL is showing a + increase and overtaking the premiership's almighty 1%

And there's no agenda, I was just trying to be one of the few on here who're positive about the game by showing we're actually doing pretty well compared to some other sports (like championship football and union).

Re: Opening weekend sees attendances soaring by 12.70% : Tue Apr 22, 2014 2:45 pm  

On the SL attendances thread last season, the pro-franchising lobby were adamant that franchising, 14 teams and top 8 playoff system had nothing whatsoever to do with the double digit percentage drop in SL attendances. It was the economy, the weather, so-called fans deliberately talking down the game, etc.

These very same pro-franchising lobbyists are now desperately clinging to the view that the new P&R structure is ultimately to blame for the current marginal percentage drop in SL attendances this season, despite the fact the new structure isn't even in place yet and the game still operates 14 franchises and a top 8 playoff system.

They'll be deliberately talking down the game and hoping for poor SL attendances in order to furnish their pro-franchise agenda at every given opportunity. Just you wait and see

Re: Opening weekend sees attendances soaring by 12.70% : Tue Apr 22, 2014 8:09 pm  

The difficultly will be comparing attendances on the split over this years 14 team competition. Almost impossible to compare, so everyone will be picking and chosing next year to suit their pre-fixed agenda.

I'm marginally in favour of the new system, but would have no problem dropping it if it is a disaster.

Re: Opening weekend sees attendances soaring by 12.70% : Tue Apr 22, 2014 8:58 pm  

bewareshadows wrote:

so everyone will be picking and chosing next year to suit their pre-fixed agenda.

London Leaving SL is worth about a 7.5% increase in average attendances based on the 26 H/A games played last year. Bradford or Wakefield joining us will probably add another 2% to this.....SL will have a vastly improved average attendance in 2015 compared to any of the previous 19 years.....this will be announced with a massive fanfare by Knock Down Nigel and the Moonies on here will all bow in awe at the strategic genius he is.

The reality is that 12 is about the right number for SL and given the chances of anyone going up/down are minimal with the 888 system, those that survive the cull this year should be able to grow their businesses without the threat of a licence being revoked, safe in the knowledge that they will have a cap twice the size of their championship opponents should they be in the middle 8.

Re: Opening weekend sees attendances soaring by 12.70% : Tue Apr 22, 2014 9:10 pm  

[quote="]they will have a cap twice the size of their championship opponents should they be in the middle 8.[/quote]

Bradford (and London) has 4 times the cap of Featherstone now - but wouldn't beat them.

Re: Opening weekend sees attendances soaring by 12.70% : Tue Apr 22, 2014 10:35 pm  

Wooden Stand wrote:

Bradford (and London) has 4 times the cap of Featherstone now - but wouldn't beat them.

The top 4 from last years championship and the bottom 4 from last years SL would have given us Leigh, Fax, Sheffield, Fev, Salford, London, Castleford and Wakey. London were pants last year and yet dealt with the hub cap and grand final winners in the challenge Cup......the difference between full time pro and part time pro is massive.

Re: Opening weekend sees attendances soaring by 12.70% : Wed Apr 23, 2014 6:55 am  

That's why the Sky money's going to be divi'd up a bit more fairly in future.

Re: Opening weekend sees attendances soaring by 12.70% : Wed Apr 23, 2014 8:11 am  

bewareshadows wrote:

The difficultly will be comparing attendances on the split over this years 14 team competition. Almost impossible to compare, so everyone will be picking and chosing next year to suit their pre-fixed agenda.

I'm marginally in favour of the new system, but would have no problem dropping it if it is a disaster.

Well its pretty easy actually. The system is being sold on the basis that more ‘jeopardy’ will increase crowds throughout the leagues. That’s what it needs to do. If it doesn’t it is a failure. The new system needs to increase crowds from top to bottom so that overall more people are watching pro and semi-pro RL.

My expectation is that the very top of SL will increase quite a bit. The middle and lower will fall quite a bit. The top of the championships will rise but not by as much as the fall in the lower and middle SL sides. The other leagues will largely stay the same.