Re: Financial Troubles : Sun Aug 19, 2012 11:24 am  

Can I be in your younger percentage?? It is true though said it for a while. Where are all the beer swilling, shouting teenagers/twentysomethings? Apart from Joe and a couple of others they are not there. x

Re: Financial Troubles : Sun Aug 19, 2012 1:56 pm  

Stealth Comic wrote:

1. The economic downturn we've been in recent years has hit the town hard and the club hasn't adjusted it's business model to suit.

2. The clubs marketing is abysmal, mainly due to it over committing it's resources to the playing side of things. No point having a decent side if you can't sell it to the wider Keighley public.

3. Cheap Season tickets well marketed from Super League clubs. Especially Huddersfield and Br*dford. It's cheaper to watch Huddersfield than it is to watch us not only that their facilities are better and so is the Rugby.

4. Rugby League, like a lot of sports, have got greedy. Remember the halcyon days of Cougarmania? Remember how much it was to get in? Ticket Prices have more than doubled in the 15 or so years since the Cougarmania bubble burst. Wages haven't. It may not be as outrageously expensive as Football has become but £40 for 2 hours entertainment is still a lot of money. I'm sure I've mentioned this before but I can go to Cineworld as many times as I want for a month for the price it costs to pay in for a game at Cougar Park, and you know what? There are plans to open one in Keighley.

5. We are not attracting enough 16-30 year olds to games, they are our future hardcore support, our future life long fans. What little marketing resource we have is being targeted at kids much younger. Kids that age don't possess the free will that teenagers and young adults have. I'm 31 years old, when I look around the ground on match days I'm in probably in the youngest 25% of all the fans there. I'd love to see what the average age is of home fans at Cougar Park, if I was to guess I'd say around the age of 50. Our club is dying out........ literally.

I think you have hit the nail (s) on the head in that post.

The games are too expensive especially for this lower level. About 10 pounds should be the price. If that gets more people to attend then you recoup the money from food and booze sales etc at he ground.

I think your point about an aging fan base is also very succinct. Free or very cheap tickets given to schools should be a part of the marketing. I think many teams in the lower leagues are dying on the vine due to younger supporters not getting on board. Hunslet, Rochdale, Oldham, Swinton are probably in this group. Also Batley have had a great record in recent years and can't draw a decent crowd and their ground is pretty good to boot.

It's a shame because the RL teams put a town's name on the map. They should be a point of local pride and identity. The RFL and the other suspects who killed the Cougarmania dream have a lot to answer for. The club had pulled itself out of the very problems you identify and had seized the imagination of the fans and particularly the children . Its all gone now and I don't know if it can ever be rekindled and the team might have still gone bust in SL but they were never given the chance.

The marketing aspect of things is problematic. It's important but expensive and the budget must be tight. I have absolutely no expertise in marketing but it would seem to me that, in the absence of a marketing budget, it would be essential to use all the free opportunites you could get. The local and regional press should be bombarded with Cougar info. If you can get on TV with some angle or other, do it. Hand out flyers for the games in Keighley shopping centre, Print some cheap bill board type fixture lists and stick them everywhere you can get away with it.

Of course success on the field is the greatest marketing tool ever and the top teams, Fev, Fax, Leigh are slowly building their support base but at our level, it's very difficult.

Re: Financial Troubles : Sun Aug 19, 2012 4:04 pm  

Dominance wrote:

I've heard that Swinton could be struggling too.......Any truth in that?

With regard to the Cougars, as the previous posters have eluded to, we've been assured by the Chairman there is nothing to worry about. I just hope that's true. I've got a feeling there are certain individuals trying to unsettle the club which doesn't help.

This steamed from a listing in the courts for a winding up order against us. Like you the chairman responded and advised that it did relate to late PAYE payments and that the petition was thrown out of court as the matter had been settled.

Re: Financial Troubles : Sun Aug 19, 2012 6:39 pm  

This is a difficult one for all clubs but when you look around at a lot of other clubs in this league and the league below at least they are trying when it comes to commercial/marketing. Please don't read this as though I know it all because I don't but we are a million miles away from a lot of other clubs when it comes to things off the field. During my time at the club and I don't want to go in to all the details but I feel I have to say this just to try and clear up a few questions. I was pretty successful in bringing in sponsorship for the club which with all the deals I had sealed totalled 48k and I still have proof of what I achieved, now this amount was more than enough to cover my salary for the year and this wasn't including what I brought in regarding matchday hospitality and matchday through entertainment. For some strange reason the club have cut back that much and got rid of that much staff which a lot of it I do agree with because there was a lot of money just been paid out to every tom, dick and harry. The one thing you can't get rid of is the commercial/marketing role of a business wether its me or who ever, there comes a point when you have to speculate to accumulate and unfortunately the club is just living on and has been living on since I left matchdays which I don't care what anyone says this is not viable.

In my opinion things have gone great on the pitch for us, ok we have lost a few games that we should have won but not even the teams at the top can go unbeaten, we really need to sort out the stuff of the field and quickly. I don't think we will ever get back the cougarmania era and to be honest I don't think that would be good for us, yes them days were great and everything about it was fantastic. My first game was the wet good friday that was packed out and I will never forget that night as long as I live along with the wembley trips we went on as kids with Mary Calvert but I do believe we can create something new for 2013 and I have to say a massive chance has been missed in doing this with JD. It has been said on here that the likes of JD and korki won't be missed but honestly without JD last season we would have not won promotion, yes its team work but he won a lot of them games for us and to be honest as one of the players said in the last Q&A he has brought a lot of discipline and proffessionalism to the club that as actually laid a marker down for us.

The directors have done a lot of work of the last few years which ok a lot of it I might not agree with but at the same time with regards to the ground and some of the facilities they have revamped what was looking tired and dated. I just think they are missing a trick with getting the cougar namebrand out there and that is never going to happen until you have someone working on the commercial/marketing side of the club along with merchandise and matchday entertainment. This can't be done by the directors as they all have there own companies and I don't think volunteers for this position is the way forward because one of my biggest hurdles on meeting new or old sponsors was the continuity that they wanted and the amount of times someone said "how long are you here for".

It is all about cutting corners, doing things on the cheap because towards the end I even put a proposal in to have my salary nearly halved for a year but they still chose someone else on commission only that lasted a matter of weeks.

Sometimes when you look through out sport in general some clubs just come to a stand still and don't seem to be moving forward, then you have to ask the question is it time for a change, have the current board/management taken the club as far as they can. It is only the same as a coach, you might get a coach that can be excellent in championship 1 but is out of his depth in the championship.

Re: Financial Troubles : Mon Aug 20, 2012 4:44 pm  

That read's like a hostile takeover speech?

Re: Financial Troubles : Mon Aug 20, 2012 6:44 pm  

I have just had to read my post again and I would be happy for you to point out what part of it sounds like an hostile takeover????? Like many on here and across the town if I had just won the lottery I would be the first at the clubs doors but unfortunately until that day comes I would never have the money for an hostile takeover. If it reads bad then I am sorry to have affended anyone but I don't paint pretty little pictures of things that aren't pretty, I have praise for gary and the guys but at the same time I don't agree with everything that goes on.

All I tried to do in the last post was to answer some questions that keeps getting asked like why are we not marketing, who works at the club, where is the merchandise and so on. All I am saying is I worked there and brought enough in to cover the salary and more and over the season would have only acheived more for the club but at the end of the day it is all about cut backs all the time and I don't think its needed especially now we are in a better position than last year according to all the press that gary has been putting out over the last couple of weeks.

But please feel free to correct me on anything that I have said wrong or that is making it feel like a takeover speech,

Re: Financial Troubles : Mon Aug 20, 2012 7:32 pm  

On the terraces wrote:

Sometimes when you look through out sport in general some clubs just come to a stand still and don't seem to be moving forward, then you have to ask the question is it time for a change, have the current board/management taken the club as far as they can. It is only the same as a coach, you might get a coach that can be excellent in championship 1 but is out of his depth in the championship.

Chill your boots Rob it was only tongue and cheek, albeit, the above quotes did make me think you were suggesting a takeover was needed. Maybe I misread it.