Jump to content

Duff Duff

Coach
  • Posts

    715
  • Joined

  • Last visited

Recent Profile Visitors

480 profile views

Duff Duff's Achievements

54

Reputation

  1. County Cricket introduced promotion and relegation within a fully professional competition. It would be like dividing the current Super League into two division of 7. The main reason for that was to make the First Class games more competitive than it was in one division of 18.
  2. Promotion and relegation can only really work if you have more than one fully professional league that is commercially viable and can sustain itself. The gap between the fully professional Super League and the Championship is just too great to make promotion and relegation work. The brutal truth is that on its own the Championship in Rugby League has no prospect of being a sustainable and commercially viable competition on its own. The championship in soccer has an average attendance of 17,000 and is in a completely different league. Also this myth that promotion and relegation is an historic part of British sport is complete rubbish. Professional cricket in England doesn't have promotion and relegation between the major and minor counties and for most of its history the Football League didn't have promotion and relegation from its bottom division but operated on a system of election. Rugby League has much more in common with county cricket and lower league soccer than Premiership soccer. The way to make Super League more exciting and unpredictable is to lower the number of teams to 10, make using the full salary cap mandatory and have a 5 team playoff. In time all the teams would have a realistic chance of making the playoffs every season so every team would have something to play for. As a when the Super League could afford to expand then it teams could be added. Rather than levelling up standards all promotion and relegation would achieve is levelling them downwards and entrench the competitive advantage that the big 4 or 5 clubs already have.
  3. Attracting a few thousand people to watch the Championship in Leigh, Halifax and Featherstone is not growing the game. Establishing competitive and viable Super League teams in Wales, London and Toulouse is. There is a World of difference. The top Championship clubs that would be line to be promoted are in geographical places which are already in the catchment areas of current Super League clubs.
  4. I doubt that will happen. The top Championship clubs might get an extra 1,500 through the gates but that is hardly a game changer. Also those 1,500 people would already be rugby league diehards. That is not growing the game.
  5. They won't improve massively. If they went for two up two down it would be utter madness and result in a massive levelling down of standards.
  6. The only way I can see promotion and relegation working is if you have a sort of "licensing plus" system. For club to be promoted it would still have to meet the minimum standards of the Super League as well as be able to win the Championship. Meanwhile the relegated club would have to be given generous parachute payments so they don't go to the wall when relegated. In the Rugby Union Premiership you have 12 shareholder clubs and minimum entry standards. To get promoted your stadium and infrastructure have to be up to spec. Meanwhile it is only the shareholder clubs that get their full share of the TV money and the central funding from the RFU. Becoming a full shareholder requires the promoted club to replace the relegated shareholder club for two straight seasons. It took Exeter 3 seasons in the Premiership for them to be able to buy the shares off relegated Bristol. During this period Exeter got less central funding whilst the Bristol were able to access generous parachute payments. Maybe this sort of restricted promotion and relegation is something the Super League should look. What I am definitely against is spreading the TV money thinly over 24 clubs rather than concentrating resources on the 12 in the top division.
  7. In many ways the real problem with Super League is the 14 clubs is too many and the 8 team playoffs make the regular season at bit of a joke. There just aren't enough must win matches anymore that will entice people to come through the turnstiles. 12 clubs with a 5 team playoff was good. Teams couldn't idly cruise through the season and then turn it on for the last few games of the season. The real problem with promotion and relegation is it will impact on the depth of the competition and will it will weaken the bottom 3 or 4 side have to scrap by on a season by season basis.
  8. It matter because rugby league needs to concentrate its limited playing talent and its limited finances into the highest standard competition possible. If the Super League was reduced to ten clubs the salary cap could be raised and a marquee player exemption could be introduced. It also it will give the smaller clubs in the Super League like Huddersfield and Salford the financial security to develop and grow their businesses and player development structures. The competition won't be closed off in perpetuity it is just that the rules of entry to the Super League would be on a rational economic basis rather than a do or die promotion and relegation on the pitch. Catalans have only achieved what they have done because they were given a guaranteed position in Super League and had the security to invest in their infrastructure and player development.
  9. All the good aspects of licensing are due to the clubs having a guaranteed place in the competition from one season to the next so they have invest for the long term. Promotion and relegation would stop all that. The key problem with Super League is there are too many clubs and too many clubs in the playoffs. It completely devalues the regular league matches.
  10. Licensing hasn't been a disaster. What has been a disaster is the current structure of the competition with 14 club league with an 8 team playoff. As there are only 6 or 7 decent teams the regular season has been completely devalued . That structure has nothing to do with licensing. A 10 or 12 team competition which has a 5 team playoff system and in which all the clubs spend up to the salary cap would be very competitive. All the games would matter and the competition would be "exciting". Until the clubs stop showing blatant self interest the sport will never grow. It is the clubs' self interest which has crippled rugby league for more than 100 years. Until the petty parochialism within the game is consigned to the dustbin rugby league in England will remain stunted.
  11. Before people can enjoy the "excitement" British rugby league needs to find a model that can commercially sustain itself. Promotion and relegation between a professional and a part time league is unsustainable. That is why the RFL has come up with this ridiculous 3 x 8 solution to soften the impact of being relegated. The whole thing is a mess and designed to blur the lines between the fully professional elite and the rest.
  12. Unfortunately it is impossible to debate with someone who denies the facts when presented to them. Lobbygobbler is wrong. The crowds in the 1980s were poor and they were not inflated by people "jumping over the fence" on mass. That is a ridiculous claim. Also his assertion that rugby league will die in towns where their senior clubs are denied a stand alone entry is also wrong. Cumbria has no Super League clubs, no prospect of a Super League club, and is a hot bed of amateur rugby league.
  13. As has been mentioned before licensing/franchising isn't the problem the problem is the way that it has been administered. As a fudge they expanded the league to 14 and allowed in clubs that couldn't spend to the salary cap and weren't fit for purpose. Bradford and Wakefield needed to be thrown out and Salford and Crusaders should never have been admitted in the first place. Unfortunately in professional sport what goes on in the board room is just as important, if not more important than what goes on on the pitch. For a sport that was founded on the issue of professionalism many supporters seem to live in an alternate reality where money doesn't matter and all that matters is "what goes on on the field". Sorry but if Featherstone weren't being bankrolled by a benefactor they wouldn't be anywhere near getting into the Super League. Not a hope in hell. The fundamental problem is Rugby League is skint and it can't afford the luxury of promotion and relegation. Promotion and relegation will undermine the commercial stability of the Super League clubs, it will deter rational commercial investors and it will undermine the development of British players. All in the name of "excitement". Brilliant idea.
  14. There is no point in debating with some people on here, especially Lobbygobbler. When presented with the crowd figures from the 1980s he dismisses them as inaccurate. A ridiculous attitude. When presented with the facts he ignores them. In terms if Wakefield, Featherstone and Castleford if they want to indulge in an inter village championship they should do in the semi professional championship and not the Super League. If they fancy watching a team that could have a chance of winning the Super League they should enter a merged team that played out of a new stadium.
  15. In NRL terms only 7 Super League clubs would be viewed as being viable. Wigan St Helens Warrington Bradford Leeds Hull FC Catalans Huddersfield would be getting put under all sorts of pressure to increase their support and Salford would be given a timeframe to sort themselves out as quickly as possible. The rest of the clubs would be viewed as marginal and compelled to merge or be kicked out of the competition. Look at the comparative attendances http://www.loverugbyleague.com/news_10175-wigan-top-average-attendance-table.html http://stats.rleague...rowds/2013.html
×
×
  • Create New...

Important Information

We have placed cookies on your device to help make this website better. You can adjust your cookie settings, otherwise we'll assume you're okay to continue.