Great post

I won't disagree, great post......

Correct in everything you have said I've even seen it in my trade where no one wanted to get their hands dirty and shied away from the hard graft and could earn more elsewhere so who could blame them

Best post on here in 2 decades that

The game has been in decline for ages. Just because it's not on a deathbed, doesn't mean we can't sort out the issues and player wages are a huge issue. The issue though is how do we pay them what they're worth, when narrow minded owners have spent a quarter of a century at the SKY TV trough and have ignored their falling gates? 1,000 fans paying a tenner on the door a week is 110,000 a year....wigan have lost 6,000 and I'd hazard they were spending more than a tenner on the gate....but rather than address the problem, they decide to cut the lower league loose and hope they can hoover up some of the talent....short term tactic at their finest

1998 Wigan topped Superleague and averaged 10,800 fans
2019 Wigan were only 3rd, way off Saints but averaged 11,900 fans

Everyone may note your tenure on here has been a self confessed "two decades" I thought you were a newbie .

I'm just glad to know it's Wigan's fault again (Aimed at the OP not you BTW)
On our site there have been the usual people who want nothing more IMO than IL/KR to fail (This is an Internal Wigan issue BTW - even though they do use some of the game wide problems to beat them with) who criticise everything they do.
And before I start I am far from saying here that everything in the Wigan camp is Rosey

However

But as you say above, the perception that all was well 20/25/30 years ago is a Rose tinted view of the world (Certainly from a Wigan Perspective)
I did a comparison of our first 20 years at the JJB/DW compared with the last 20 seasons at Central Park and unless you really selectively Cherry Pick a couple of seasons our attendances at the new ground Stand up very well
In fact there was even a suggestion that the crowds currently were Biased towards the new stadium based on 1 or 2 "High" gates a season inflating them.
Whilst it is true that 1 or 2 do inflate obviously it was interesting to note that at Central Park the crowds were more inflated by 1 or 2 LARGE crowds each year compared to the last 20 years, and in fact if you removed the 1 or 2 highest per year the gap in attendances was greater in favour of the JJB/DW and showed a more "Consistent" attendance currently

Anyway - I would Hazard a guess that across SL that would be mirrored at a lot of clubs and would argue their last 15/20 years would look favourable compared to the 80's/90's crowds.

I would agree there is an over reliance on TV money, which IMO leads to some clubs not investing in Marketing etc. and providing their own improved income streams etc. and as I said in my earlier post there needs to be some incentive for each of the clubs to "Grow" their Business, pay better wages, improve the quality etc and currently there isn't that much of one.

Let's Challenge the NRL, RU and put a 5/10yr plan in place to turn this around (And I do accept it's probably the most difficult time to start this - It should have been done 10 years ago!) but lets aim to be on a much more level playing field in 5-10yrs with those other competitions and incentivise clubs to bring Money into the game from other sources

Many thanks for your interesting post...... I would only disagree about the timing, I think people will flood back to live Rugby League in a new season without restrictions....

And that's how it all started
People were criticising the club for their "Full" Prices - And although it is fair to say that the Full prices don't save you that much money on 2 points I disagreed
Not many people wait until all of the Early Bird/Renewal prices end before renewing so very few will pay the full price
Once you are on the ST roundabout the process are ridiculously cheap IMO - Especially with Auto renewal (Not sure how many clubs do this).

I do hope crowds come "Flooding Back" (And in Wigan's instance I accept that the change to a NON Big Name coach and some of the recruitment could be deemed as uninspiring - I'm different on that but there you go) however Barring Giving tickets away I'm not sure what clubs can do in relation to admission price.

This in itself IMO is equivalent to my concerns with the Salary cap - A dumbing down so to speak

We need to generate interest, column inches, better players, retain better players, go and get better players instead of engaging in a race to all be Equal with little incentive for anyone to get "Better"
Clubs have to be trusted to run their own affairs like any other business (Asking a lot I know) and there will always be issues with that
But instead of constantly coming up with artificial ways of "levelling up" that has had 20 years to work with average success in only some small areas, let's try and expand, grow the businesses, stretch and push to be better etc.

Where's the money to increase to increase the cap? If clubs were increasing their revenue each year, then of course the cap should be increased. But it isn't, and apart from a few clubs, most don't have the means to pay more.

Put the incentive there over a 5yr - 10yr plan to incentivise clubs to go out there and generate that income
New owners/More investors - Better Marketing etc.

With in turn the ability to spend a proportion of that etc. so if we want to compete and say want to get to a Salary cap of 4million over the Short/Medium term i.e. 5yrs with an increase of say 300k per year over the next 5 years then clubs are going to have to increase their income/wealth to enable them to spend the 2.5/2.8/31.1 etc. etc. each year
They don't HAVE TO spend it, but it will give incentive for those that want to compete at the top to do so

IMO it's 10/15yrs of Stagnation that needs to be undone