phiggins

if we’re taking ideas to their extreme, let’s have a 2 team league and just play one game a year.

So if the NRL are just going to do as SL have been doing anyway, and not invest enough to cover salary cap as promised. What’s the point?

I get that some clubs will rely on volunteers more than others, but some of those roles are not suitable for volunteers. Having someone on a till at the club shop on match days, and not paying them?

How does a top 5 system shorten the play offs, from the current three week format? You’d have to go straight to top 4 and semi finals to go down to two weeks.

I like the idea. But I suspect that once this takeover happens, the number of full time clubs will drop, rather than increase, in order to meet the goal of top flight clubs having central funding exceeding the salary cap.

I'll be surprised if membership numbers, or at least membership income holds against 2026 levels to be honest. Our group has gone from 5 Gold plus, to 1 Gold plus, 3 Gold and 1 white membership. And while getting people to games that weren't already interested enough to be red members was rare, there will be no chance at this year's prices. I do like what Wakefield have done, offering a simple season ticket, along with membership bolt ons. Meanwhile Derek has said something along the lines of wanting members to feel valued by hiking the prices for everyone else.

A cynic might even suggest these demands are designed to create issues. PVL must know the difficulties in deciding to add teams and reduce fixtures at this stage? He'd never make such changes at such short notice to the NRL structure.

So that's who's leaking all these details to the press!

One problem for France will be access to heritage players seems to be less than Samoa, Wales, Scotland or Ireland. Meaning their ability to compete will be more reliant on their own systems than other countries. Super League could, and really should, remove the requirement for Catalans and Toulouse to pay for all clubs' travel, but that won't do a great deal to improve this in the grand scheme of things. The French Government pulling funding for a French hosted world cup was a huge blow. You will struggle to grow a sport in any country without some form of government support.

'Might have' being an important part there. We don't know the details of this deal, and certainly not enough to be able to say it is objectively right or wrong to accept or decline it.

The report I saw said, "Around £2m would go to the clubs in the Championship, with their central funding previously coming from Super League’s television broadcasting deal" which neither confirms or denies whether that previous central funding would remain on top of, or be replaced by this funding.

Is that £2m actually new / additional money? Or just keeping up the status quo in the new funding model?

It would not surprise me if the first 12 months of discussions involved a series of hand written letters, with the odd in person meeting at events like Vegas and the WCC, trying to agree on whether to use Zoom or Teams for virtual meetings.

Who is reporting that the London issue is resolved?

100% I don’t know what the 12-18 months of talks have covered, leading to that first formal offer but they don’t seem to have covered things like demands on which teams should be in, or how many games should be played. I’ve always had the feeling that this deal has been something that 2 or 3 clubs have desperately wanted, a number of clubs willing to nod their heads and be vague enough in their statements to stay sat on the fence and no doubt a small number of clubs against it from the start. Meanwhile it’s only ever been at the top of V’Landys in tray for fleeting intervals, at which points he adds another red line. Some enthusiasm and a lot of indifference, but nobody wanting to be seen as the reason it doesn’t happen, so not willing to walk away.

Pausing until 2028 would give even more uncertainty on the matches 4-7 as well, assuming the premier sport offer is still on the table, it won’t be just a one year deal. If it’s not on the table, we’re in bother. If it is, they should probably take it, and look to resume talks with the NRL for something ahead of the next tv cycle.

Saying the V’Landys wants a 24 match schedule. And control of the salary cap. Would mean some clubs giving up two home games, unless something is done with magic, that seems unlikely. I can understand if clubs would want to see a business case or at least some sort of plan from the NRL to make this profitable, because a decent amount of the money clubs will get from the deal will be lost from other aspects of the deal. All while central funding does not meet salary cap.

But this buy off still involves clubs having to make up a shortfall, and if this deal passes then there’ll be growing pressure every year that passes with those shortfalls to fill. V’Landys promised that wouldn’t be the case, sounds like that was based on offering Sky money and the chances of a deal happening dropped once the final offer from Sky came in. You might not agree with DB’s comments on IP, there was plenty there to agree or disagree with. But at least he’s put his name to it. Prefer that to ‘club sources’ telling Bower how bad things will be, sponsor deals etc. Effectively also airing the washing in public, but hiding behind anonymity.

I’m still not convinced V’Landys has been negotiating in good faith. Seems that there’s constantly been a barrier added when an agreement has been close. And the whole London in 2027 should’ve been identified as a red line in negotiations months ago. And SL should’ve been willing to walk away and accept the premier sports offer some time ago, if we weren’t close to an agreement. Just poor all round.

Yes, my assumption was that Beaumont would be outvoted possibly as much as 13-1. I've seen different reports on how many clubs need to be in agreement, Shaw reported it just needed 8, John Davidson suggested 10 or 11 (I think. It was on his podcast so can't remember exactly, so I may be misquoting). I did think the Saints and Leeds statements were a bit less committal than some were making out. Only the joint Hull statement said they were in favour of the proposal on the table. And that was hardly a surprise. FC are reportedly one of two clubs driving the whole thing, while Hudgell has said publicly that we need a deal, regardless of the exact offer.

Happy deadline day everyone. Hope everyone is as excited about this one as they are about the last three.

I don't know the amount, but you can only use 4 of the 6 players named. Not sure what happens if there are multiple failed HIAs or other scenarios that activate the 18th man in Super League, and whether you get to use players 18 or 19 at any point?

But you might see younger players spending weeks on end being unused subs. When they would otherwise be playing either reserves or on loan.

I think some posters thought exactly that

Don’t get the half funding thing for London. Understood it last year, if not agreeing with it. Issue to resolve last year was funding. This year it’s scheduling and whether the process of selecting them to play in SL is a fair one. Once you decide to let them in, surely they just get equal funding. There’s no expected uplift in funding going into 2028 to make this a one season only thing either.