Originally Posted by
Gray77
Standing here in 2020 you're probably right, and all I can do is counter-factually rewrite the mistakes of our recent past to suggest that it didn't need to be that way. I'm not convinced by the argument that any sports succeed based upon the quality or make up of its bottom sides. Success is based on the best teams and how good they are. We have Wigan, Saints, Leeds, Hull who are famous names and who can all attract five figure crowds in decent stadiums (some not their own obviously), and we have less well known (nationally) clubs like Warrington who can also do this. The future of our sport is linked to the viability of those big clubs to punch their weight and create big games and big title races every season. We created so many hurdles for the biggest and best clubs to jump that we are now looking at manufacturing the league to make up for the mistakes we made in reducing the power and marketing potential of what we have at the top.
TV ratings didn't decline because we have Wakefield or Salford in the SL. They declined because we messed with the system and diluted the importance of the games between the big sides. We implemented ridiculous play off systems that meant that Leeds v Wigan on a Friday night in July became a completely pointless game in the eyes of neutrals or would-be fans. We had a broadcaster telling their viewers that the race for 8th was more important than the race for 1st, and priority was given to ensuring that the very clubs that should make up the numbers became the clubs that were pampered and told they'd achieved something by passing a manufactured bar in a play off system, whilst the sides at the top that generate the tv deal and generate the crowds were playing games nowhere near as important as they should have been. Stick a top 5, 6 or 8 team play off in the PL and see if the viewing figures for Liverpool v Man City 9-10 weeks into the season hold up. Tell the world that the real race is between Everton and Wolves to get the 6th or 8th spot and see how neutrals react to the reality that the 'Big 6 blockbusters' are meaningless because they'll all make the play-offs regardless. It isn't like that, and so Liverpool v Man City is huge 9-10 weeks into a season because every point counts, and nobody views the title race based on whether Brighton or West Brom are pulling their weight, because in reality it doesn't matter.
Nobody has ever been offered a contract by a top 6 PL club and turned it down because they don't want to play at 'Stoke on a wet Wednesday night'. They sign the deal because they want to play massive games against Liverpool, United, Chelsea, City that have importance.
Imagine when we were both kids and we'd been told that one day these amazing title races that we saw in the 80s would never happen again. What would we consider the possible reasons why that would be the case.
No money? No, there's more money in the game now.
Players not getting paid? No, they're all full time now.
Grounds falling to pieces and the game imploding? No, most big clubs play in modern grounds and get bigger gates than back then.
No interest? No, we have a tv deal unlike back then when hardly any games were on tv.
So, we got to the mid-90s, we still had really good title races, we moved to summer, we were seeing crowds rising, etc. Did anybody care that the league had clubs like Workington, Halifax and Oldham in it then? Why did Sky invest in a league with those clubs in back then? Because they were irrelevant. They bought in because we had Wigan, Leeds, Saints and for a time Bradford at the top of the game, and the top of the game was vibrant and exciting. Hull weren't even in SL in the first year, but nobody really cared because the top of the league was solid and was producing drama. But over the 25 years since we (and Sky) devised system after system to reduce the drama at the top, to handcuff the top teams with salary caps and play-off systems, all to make the game more 'exciting from top to bottom'. Relegation battles are exciting, but we didn't want them because it was more important to prioritise pandering to those clubs and giving them hope rather than making them earn their position in a sport were they were already given manufactured leg-ups via the structure of the season and the salary cap. Title races are exciting, but we didn't want them because 3-4 clubs at the top meant that the mediocrities couldn't be told they were achieving something, so we changed it all to make them feel more important.
It's ended up with our sport having month after month of games every season that are nowhere near as important as they should be. When we play Wigan or Wire it's big for us tribally, but does a fan in Leeds or Hull really care? When Leeds play Hull do we really care? And if not, why not? Why aren't the games between the biggest clubs as important as they used to be? Could it be because we have a league structure that diminishes the value of 2 points and diminishes the value in fighting for top spot? If we don't care why should anyone else? If Sky are telling us that it's boring if the same teams win the GF every year and that it'd be great if a team won it from 8th (which they said often), and then told us that it was wonderful that Leeds won it from 5th and told us with a straight face that it meant they were the best team in the league that year, why would anyone get invested in the weekly rounds? There are long time fans who shrug off a regular season defeat now as if we've lost a friendly, and there are loads on here who will put up with boring RL every week as long as we win the GF. If the system and the structure inspires apathy from some of us, what chance do we have getting others involved. We had a chance in the mid-90s to take all the good bits about the RL we grew up with, to modernise it, professionalise it and build from it, with clubs that had history and gravitas that could grow even bigger with a tv deal and a move to summer. But we blew it, because we stopped prioritising the best bits of the competition in favour of the mediocre bits. There has to always be mediocre bits, that's life, and we should never want a comp where everyone wins 50% and loses 50% because that would frankly mean everyone was mediocre. Some will thrive, some will struggle, but the ones that thrive will generate the crowds and the tv revenue much like Leicester, Bath, Exeter and Saracens generated tv revenue for RU even if Newcastle and London Irish went up and down every season in front of poor crowds.
When you prioritise the mediocre they became the thing everyone obsesses over, and so the make up of the mediocre becomes the thing that we think drives the success of the game. So we get worked up over whether we have Featherstone in the league when in reality it should be irrelevant if Saints, Wigan, Leeds, Hull and Warrington are playing huge games every weekend in modern stadia in front of decent crowds in a league structure that prioritises the top of the league and not the bottom. But, it's all counter-factual I know, but it was there for us and we ballsed it up.