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How the NFL Became the Most Competitive League in All of Sports

Yes. That's sport. A human factor of luck, form, injury, whether your club name rhymes with whinos - all factors. If you mean going into a round where you really can't tell whether team 1-6 will beat team 7-12, for 27 rounds, it can't happen week in, week out. It's an absolute mathematical fact that win-loss (competitiveness), follows a standard distribution curve. By the way - and you may/may not like this - but the most "competitive" league competitions in history have been those with strict salary structures and draft-pick systems. Wigan, Leeds, Wire, Saints have more talent in their Tier-2, than is in the Cas, Hudds, Salford Tier-1 teams.

Pretty embarrassing that tonight's game was one of the top 2 Sky picks for this round. Hudds were appalling.

Reduce the quota and then clubs will have to invest more in British talent

When did this happen? Which season had all teams being competitive? You can include NRL. For every winner, there is a loser. 12 teams, 27 rounds, 324 points available = mean average of 27 points...when were 12 teams clustered around that total? Never. The points distribution (reflective of competitiveness), follows a traditional "inverted U", or "bell-curve".

Closeness and competitiveness of fixtures is exactly what the aim is and can be achieved. Arguably that relies on clubs like Wigan and Leeds not always being at their optimum. Google Premier League circle of parity. Its one thing they love to talk up because "anybody can beat anybody" makes every game more attractive and therefore the whole league. That's not saying there won't be stronger and weaker sides in a given season, or that this will change through a season with recruitment, injuries and managerial changes for example.

Cas, Hudds, Salford - can't beat a decent team. If they get beaten by one of those, they aren't decent. That's not to say they can't pinch a game. The top teams will generally beat the bottom teams. Winning 50% of your games puts you in the play-offs. If you genuinely have a situation where any team can beat any other team, then the recruiters, agents, coaches, owners, players simply aren't doing their jobs. If you think I'm wrong saying having 12 competitive teams is "mythical", tell me the season in which you think it was most evident.

Yeah its not mythical at all. Some of the solutions and methods proposed might be fantasy stuff, but its perfectly possible to have a comp with most fixtures being relatively even odds for most of the season. Injuries, discipline and tactics can be the difference then. RL has moved to make periods of dominance in a match even more influential with 6 agains and a preference for ever faster rucks. That has skewed some results which have seen more big scores.

Why is it a mythical notion to want to have all teams in the top league competitive? I think it comes down to what your definition of what "competitive" means, all it really means is that any team could beat any team in the league. By definition in a salary capped sport we should have a league that is competitive top to bottom, but in reality we don't. Currently we have Salford who aren't competitive in the slightest, Huddersfield that have started to become more competitive and Castleford that are again very 50/50.

SS+ is the streaming platform, but it also has a channel that you could flick past if channel hopping as well.

So is SS+ a standard channel on SS you can flick past if channel hopping?

Hudds wakey game was on ss+ linear channel

I'm forever baffled by this mythical notion that we should have 12 (or 14), competitive teams. That can't happen. It's pure maths (not math). For every team winning a game, a team must lose a game. If a team is very good, they will win more games than they lose. If a team is not so good, they will lose more games than they win. If wins are evenly spread across all teams, then no team is consistent and hence, must not be very good. They can't all be winners, and success is relative. Apart from Cas. They're poop.

Watching Saints v Leigh on delay, the pre-match noted that the two games on Fri night would both be telecast on Sky Sports +. Does this mean that SL was not aired on any live channels on Friday night? How is the BBC coverage holding up by the way. Getting any coverage on BBC 1 or 2?

I don't think the game goes out of its way to make a one sided match less so and as everyone knows - good teams make their own luck. This is toxic for me a a neutral RL fan.

Jesse Ramien “failed his fitness test” before last night’s Sharks game. I suspect the truth to it is he was dropped much earlier in the week. In a bit of a funk at the moment and with players in the nursery to consider, the Sharks may be interested in releasing him early. He would flourish in SL is my opinion.

RCG would be an immense signing. Imo he would still be easily on of the best props in SL (I’d back him to make the SL dream team subject to injury). Vast majority of ex NRL players playing in SL weren’t that ‘impressive’ the few season prior to coming to SL (and some of these players are the very best players in the league now).

It’s bigger than the cricket version

Never a try in a million years.

You are being silly - on purpose no doubt - I didn't say that "he isn't international class" (as you put it), rather that I am not saying that he is international class. If he's so far off international class that we can name a train-on squad without an actual FB in it, then the UK game is screwed.

Any reason the Leeds Salford game is locked out and saying I need to pay for it? All other games are working and Im logged in

We were talking over this issue last night and it occurs to me that as much as I like Sunday afternoon rugby, we need to change to Friday nights. Our growth target audience are young rugby mad kids and their parents. Herin lies the problem. These rugby mad kids play their games on a Sunday and games start at 10am and matches can still be going on into the afternoon. If these kids are on Wigan or Warrington say not a chance they will be back. How many more people would we get then in a Friday. ? Thoughts?

To be fair after Wakey blew Hudds away in a delightful 10-15 minute spell all the concentration was going to be on how bad Hudds were (happens in most games), Wakey blew them off the park early doors.

Whilst I don't think next week decides either teams season, if Wakey really want to make a statement and press on, this is a game to win. A statement game. Of course, you could (we probably did), say the same about the Hull FC/Wakey game. I have a feeling that whatever the outcome of Trinity v Leeds, both will be in the play-offs and may well be meeting again.

NRL Rd 19 - Run to the Finals Begins Fins v Phins 9,658 Knights v Storm 21,107 Drags v Rorsters 13,856 Cows v Dogs 18,778 Wahs v Tiggers 24,112 Pant’s v Eels 22,792 Ti+s v Broncs 24,553 SOO is over, thank goodness. It’s just so drawn out and takes far too much oomph out of the club season. There just isn’t the need for the three week break between fixtures. Play SOO back to back over three weeks and give us an international weekend please. Sharks sub 10k not good enough in a week they announced long overdue news the leagues club has been handed back by developers. Announcement included a $19m fitout estimated for completion mid - late 2026. Capacity won’t increase any earlier. Dragons continue to prove that a poor team, playing poorly, on few occasions at a traditional home in a district with almost 50% of residents born overseas and population growth predominantly being aged 50+ is a difficult task to pull over 15k. Blame any or all of the above. Cows get a pass for slightly being under 2024 season average. I suspect if the outliers (Broncos and Sharks) are taken out of that 2024 season figure, then that season average probably dips to around 18k. I don’t care enough to do the math to prove one way or the other though. Panthers and Knights get good crowds. Panthers fans proving they are happy to travel for home games when they are not after work. Strange, as I thought half of Panthers fans were unemployed anyway. Wahs doing great as usual and get a win while they’re at it. When, oh when can we talk seriously about NZII? Titans almost tipping 25k and getting perhaps a generous second tick. Crowd was bumped up no doubt by playing their nearest rivals. Great crowd for the Titans whose 2025 crowds in GC are averaging lower than their AFL counterparts. The Titans were spared further embarrassment having surpassed a terrific 22,821 crowd the GC Suns pulled on the Friday night.