So, the solution is to create a race to the bottom? You pull money away from existing clubs, many of which aren’t up to a sufficient standard as it is, to push it towards ‘new’ clubs, who, in many cases, aren’t close to the standard of the existing clubs who aren’t up to a sufficient standard. You then create crap games, a league that is poor to watch, populated with up to 140 overseas players and thus continue the cycle of decreasing TV rights. It’s a vicious cycle that you create and don’t break by doing what they’re doing.
You use your money wisely. We’ve pumped roughly £1m in IMG’s direction to basically say “yeah, cheers for that information and investigation that you’ve carried out but we’re not going to do that and just do what we want”. IMG, whether they have been good or bad, have lasted 2-3 years, for what has come from it, it’s £1m down the drain. That’s £1m that could have gone into asset generation or even being spent on working with a dedicated marketing company to elevate the brands and players within the sport. You won’t get Mikey Lewis going on talk shows or being a household name in a comparable way to that of Rugby Union players in England by letting them continue acting the way they do.
As someone that actually lives in England and subscribes to Sky, the promotion of the sport has regressed. We no longer get an advert in the build up to a new season in the way we previously did or how others do (the Lions RU tour, Darts, Ashes Cricket, F1, Football etc). We get promotion on the 24 hour news channel but it rarely goes beyond that these days. Sky do their bit to an extent but it’s certainly nowhere near where it has been. I don’t believe we will get a TV increase, in fact, it will go down, I’ve never suggested otherwise but our clubs have not really moved with the times and looked to move with the advances of technology. That is a must. The OurLeague app is crap, its used for very little and massively under utilised, for example
Ultimately, we need enough teams or a certain standard. We need clubs with assets, clubs with pathways, clubs ran well and utilising technology and changes to consumption of sports. We don’t have that now and we’re not getting it by watering down an already watered down competition. I was at London v Oldham at the weekend, there wasn’t more than 500 there and no more than 40 Oldham fans. There’s a possibility that next time the two play each other, it’s a top flight game and the attendance certainly will not be more than 5,000 fans.
I’m not against new teams but we don’t need more than 12 clubs (arguably 10).
