Re: Under licencing: move Halifax to Nova Scotia, Canada : Tue Oct 24, 2017 8:40 am  

HXSparky wrote:

A very sensible and thought-provoking post, bramleyrhino (unlike the original that started this thread). What you say makes a lot of sense, but I'm not sure that the world at large will ever want to welcome the game we love with enough enthusiasm to make it work? It's not that we shouldn't try, but the game's administrators have demonstrated a large degree of ineptitude to be able to progress in any meaningful or strategic manner for many a year. Everything we do seems to be a knee-jerk based on who has a few pounds/dollars/euros to flash around.

Whilst I accept that previous expansion attempts have been, shall we say, flawed at best, I would argue that we really don't have much to lose as a sport if - and again, it's an IF - what we want from the sport is something akin to what I described in the post earlier. If what we want is something different, then there's a different approach to be discussed.

Sticking with what we know, sticking with a formula that we know doesn't appeal to new audiences, doesn't appeal to new sponsors and doesn't appeal to new advertisers, is only going to get us going backwards. People on here openly criticise the RFL for only pulling sponsors of the ilk of canned mushy peas, online bingo, Big Soup and bookies but look at where the game is played - those are the prominent businesses in many of the towns that the game is strong in. The RFL can only sell the audiences that the club's provide.

I still maintain (and I've said this before) that expansion and licensing is the bees knees for many fans... just so long as "your" team is included in the party. What would a poll of all SL fans be if the question was whether they supported licensing or not if their own team was deprived a licence? An easy response here of course would be "of course we'd be in support", but if it was for real...?

As an example, if we take expansionism to it's extreme, let's assume that West Yorkshire has just one licence in the new world order of rugby league. Given recent history, the RFL may decide that Odsal is where the West Yorkshire team should play. Would Cas, Leeds, Wakey and Huddersfield fans all be happy to abandon their team to trek over to Bradford? I think not.

I accept that some people will look at the team I support and say "well it's easy for you to say that...." I'd fully expect Leeds to get a franchise in an expanded league.

But again, I bring it back to my original "wants" from this sport and to continue to take your scenario to its extremes, what if a West Yorkshire franchise at Odsal meant that I could see the next Cameron Smith or Jonathan Thurston, in a new and redeveloped stadium, competing against other high quality players in high intensity, competitive games? I don't think that would be the worst thing in the world, to be brutally honest. Yes, I have an affinity to Leeds, but it's not some sort of tribal fervor. If the future of the game was such an extreme (I don't necessarily think it is or has to be), but that is what it offered in return, I'd probably be prepared to make that six mile "trek" in order to see that.

The reason I prefer licencing to on-field P&R is simply because it puts a bigger focus on commercial failings and, at this particular juncture, I think that's the biggest danger that the sport faces. We don't have the foundations there yet to build a thriving sport based on a P&R model and, so far at least, there's not really enormous evidence that suggests that it brings us any added interest in terms of supporters in stadiums. Additionally, franchising doesn't necessarily mean the end to smaller town clubs in the top competition. There are models which can allow smaller clubs to compete with with bigger clubs competitively but I accept that these models would probably make it harder for these clubs to still be clustered closely together.

The RFL's gets called out for its marketing of the game, sometimes fairly, but I have always maintained that the biggest responsibility for marketing the sport lies with the clubs. They're the primary point of consumption, they're the people who engage with the audience more than anyone else, and they know their local markets better than anyone else. The marketing tactics and proposition that will work with an audience in Leeds may not necessarily work with an audience in Widnes, and that's why the club's carry the biggest responsibility - they should know who they are talking to, what those people want, and they should be actively going to get them.

The RFL is responsible for marketing the sport on a wider and on a largely commercial level, but what it is selling is nothing more than "access to an audience". If the club's are providing an audience that is difficult to sell, then the fault lies with the clubs - we can't keep using Nigel Wood and his team as a convenient lightning rod.

Re: Under licencing: move Halifax to Nova Scotia, Canada : Tue Oct 24, 2017 9:21 am  

I guess in a nutshell it's whether RL goes for a single league (aka Super League) and leaves the rest (down to amateur level) to manage themselves in a separate structure, or whether we have a full pyramid structure across all leagues. Do we not have this perennial problem and arguments about licensing and P&R because we're trying to accommodate both strategies in varying hybrid ways?

If SL split off from the rest of the RL world (still governed by one set of rules, both on and off the field though), then we could have the expansionist vision encapsulated there, with the rest competing in a totally separate competitive structure. Applications for SL licences could still be considered from ambitious clubs, and hence potentially allow movement between the league structures (both ways), but there would be no competitive matches between SL clubs and the rest.

That would work better for me, so long as the licence criteria were clear, fair and rigorously applied (both ways).

Re: Under licencing: move Halifax to Nova Scotia, Canada : Tue Oct 24, 2017 9:30 am  

HXSparky wrote:

I guess in a nutshell it's whether RL goes for a single league (aka Super League) and leaves the rest (down to amateur level) to manage themselves in a separate structure, or whether we have a full pyramid structure across all leagues. Do we not have this perennial problem and arguments about licensing and P&R because we're trying to accommodate both strategies in varying hybrid ways?

If SL split off from the rest of the RL world (still governed by one set of rules, both on and off the field though), then we could have the expansionist vision encapsulated there, with the rest competing in a totally separate competitive structure. Applications for SL licences could still be considered from ambitious clubs, and hence potentially allow movement between the league structures (both ways), but there would be no competitive matches between SL clubs and the rest.

That would work better for me, so long as the licence criteria were clear, fair and rigorously applied (both ways).

This is how it should have been applied imo. Licensing done properly works. Maybe an independent body for licensing needs setting up to monitor and implement it. It should be a separate entity to the RFL and SL.

Re: Under licencing: move Halifax to Nova Scotia, Canada : Tue Oct 24, 2017 9:47 am  

HXSparky wrote:

Do we not have this perennial problem and arguments about licensing and P&R because we're trying to accommodate both strategies in varying hybrid ways?

Absolutelty. The big problem in many respects is that the Championship is a league where so few teams actually want to be. Next season, we have Leigh, Halifax, London, Toronto, Toulouse, Featherstone and arguably even Sheffield who all, in one way or another, would argue their case for a Super League place (and you could also throw Bradford into that mix). But we simply don't have the room, the players or the finance for all of them.

HXSparky wrote:

If SL split off from the rest of the RL world (still governed by one set of rules, both on and off the field though), then we could have the expansionist vision encapsulated there, with the rest competing in a totally separate competitive structure. Applications for SL licences could still be considered from ambitious clubs, and hence potentially allow movement between the league structures (both ways), but there would be no competitive matches between SL clubs and the rest.

That would work better for me, so long as the licence criteria were clear, fair and rigorously applied (both ways).

Agreed. US Soccer potentially offers a good model to follow here. The NASL is still growing as a competition despite it being secondary to the MLS and no direct P&R, but teams have been "promoted" to MLS franchises (Montreal and Minnesota being two, and I think Atlanta may be another).

Now, the current NASL is a fairly new concept so it's doesn't provide a long-term blueprint just yet, but it's an example of a competition successfully co-existing with a seperate "premier" league above it and no P&R.

Re: Under licencing: move Halifax to Nova Scotia, Canada : Tue Oct 24, 2017 9:49 am  

LifeLongHKRFan wrote:

This is how it should have been applied imo. Licensing done properly works. Maybe an independent body for licensing needs setting up to monitor and implement it. It should be a separate entity to the RFL and SL.

Indeed

Re: Under licencing: move Halifax to Nova Scotia, Canada : Tue Oct 24, 2017 9:59 am  

JEAN CAPDOUZE wrote:

The arrival of licencing in some form appears to be imminent.

That will give the RFL the opportunity to fast track Toronto and Toulouse into Super League.

With that revolution achieved, it would be a wise move to consolidate the transformation of rugby league by moving the Halifax, Yorkshire, UK licence to Nova Scotia, Canada. Halifax NS has a population of over 400,000 which is ten times that of Casleford, ands nearly five times that of Halifax, UK. It is within a short flying distance of Toronto, and on the air routes to the UK. It is the home to Dalhousie University, an intellectual asset of which there is nothing comparable in Castleford, Leigh, Widnes etc. There is no major sports team in the city. Halifax NS will be the perfect complement to New York, Boston, and Montreal licences which are coming soon.

We will then be in a strong position to reconceptualise and even rename the RFL as the North Atlantic Rugby League.

If we are going to fast track Toulouse into SL I think it may be a good idea to help North American expansion by moving the club to Toulouse, Kentucky. Should we suggest this to Mr. Perez?

Re: Under licencing: move Halifax to Nova Scotia, Canada : Tue Oct 24, 2017 2:44 pm  

Fax Machine wrote:

If we are going to fast track Toulouse into SL I think it may be a good idea to help North American expansion by moving the club to Toulouse, Kentucky. Should we suggest this to Mr. Perez?

Neither clever nor witty. Pitched at the intellectual level of "Wild Thing."

Re: Under licencing: move Halifax to Nova Scotia, Canada : Tue Oct 24, 2017 6:22 pm  

We'd started to have a sensible discussion about the best way to potentially reintroduce licensing. Your original suggestion to effectively strip membership from a founder member of the RFL and switch it to a completely new club in Canada wasn't particularly clever or witty either. Others can make their own judgement regarding respective intellectual levels.

Re: Under licencing: move Halifax to Nova Scotia, Canada : Tue Oct 24, 2017 9:14 pm  

LifeLongHKRFan wrote:

This is how it should have been applied imo. Licensing done properly works. Maybe an independent body for licensing needs setting up to monitor and implement it. It should be a separate entity to the RFL and SL.

Spot on.
In addition to the usual criteria of finance etc, I'd add that any side given a licence would need to run both academy and youth set ups or receive reduced funding and that penalty revenue was passed down to the clubs in the 2nd their trying...like Halifax for example. Expansion for the sake of putting a pin in a map to say "we play here" isn't expansion at all....it's short termism.

Getting a side to start producing it's own stars in say 15 or 20 years as London had begun to....that was expansion. It just wasn't given the right level of support from the RFL (after Lewis left) or some clubs.

London wasn't (AND TORONTO SHOULDN'T BE) just about producing the Clubbs or LMS's either.......this years man of steel wasn't wanted a while back so we took him and I think there are 12 current and 14 ex broncoquins at the world Cup this month......the club stopped signing pensioners in the early noughties and started signing talent like Moran, McLinden and Dorn with the first of these top try scorer twice and the other 2 becoming stars of SL.

Giving "fringe" players the chance to star on the main stage sometimes helps them develop. How many potential stars have we lost because we're limited to 28 sides globally?

Re: Under licencing: move Halifax to Nova Scotia, Canada : Tue Oct 24, 2017 9:22 pm  

HXSparky wrote:

If the potential for RL in France is so great, then why in the last 80 years hasn't a home-grown league managed to flourish to the extent that we're not now talking just about how SL can catch up with the NRL, but also Elite One? And looking forward to a nailed on Australia / France world cup final?

What's different now compared to the last 80 years+?

Why hasn’t a home grown league managed to flourish in England in the last 100+ years?