sweaty craiq

Yes it is about money, but not just what we have but what more we can attract Currently club A has no guaranteed path to SL, is difficult to market to fans and investors/philanthropists - this new system gives hope to fans and a guarantee of promotion to the latter for a sum under £1m subject to on field performance, that is now a realistic objective imo because what's a million to a wealthy man/woman or a group of such As a result cash will come into the game the second tier becomes a flowing river and not the stagnant pond it is now I can't see Fev having a problem finding that sum, Leigh won't and I believe fax also Aston knows Sheffield are a big fish in a tiny pond and haven't the fan base to go further, they have probably maxed grants and education funding to keep all the overseas at the club so this is as good as it gets playing out of a ploughed field with fans behind a glass screen

That is why the proposed funding to the second tiers top clubs is key. They must be FT, and must run on the max cap (£900k?) that way if a club takes the gamble to save money they will end up in the second tier. I expect 6 full time clubs in the second tier in 2015

It would be unlikely a part time club could step into SL as an equal, that is one reason for the changes - allowing a failed club to remain in SL is a joke

Its a weighted question John, imo aimed at proving a belief held at your HQ. At present we await the level of funding to tier2 if it is that previously muted then we will have 6/7 full time clubs and that imo will provide a vibrant mid 8 comp after a tough league campaign. Do you prefer a or b would have been better at this stage

A better poll question would have been 'is the new proposal better than the licencing we currently have?' My personal preference being 2x10, then 2x12/3x8, then straight p&r, then licencing - so how do I answer the question?

1. I would hope we can go 10/12 then 12/12 if we have sufficient clubs that can come to the table, we may even get more than 20 FT clubs by year 3 2. No it wouldn't, £19m per season and you have 1.2m and 700k more if we can secure a french tv deal 4. Isn't that a shocking stat after 6 years of franchising, things must get better

My views on this are that this will be in play for about 3 years, during that time I expect 20 clubs to become full time (Toulouse and a welsh club in that number), and will have had 2/3 years to tune the back office/academies etc. At that point we change to two full time tens with straight p&r, what we should have done now but I can understand why we haven't

Imagine the importance of that 4 v 5 middle eight decider for SL, massive massive game That split on money should see 6 full time clubs in sl2 minimum

Great structure to expand the game compared to now, I too expect Toulouse in the second tier 2015

Martyn, what is amazons turnover compared to RL? Would Amazon have any investors if they didn't have a clear path to market? Do amazons investors have the same objectives as those in sport- I do not know one person who is looking for a return from a private sports club, the motivation is different and understanding that may help you assist in taking our game forward from your privileged positionI operate on a smaller scale than Amazon, we don't spend what we don't have, we understand our market/opportunities and sell on value to our strengths, we grow through profits and reinvestment as the bankers reputation has been rightly earned during the recent years At some point my assetts may be capitalised, at that point I may want to put tens of millions into my club to leave a legacy after I become maggot food, I wouldn't do that with the structures in place now or proposed. I don't want guarantees because life doesn't work that way but I want to know that if I achieved results the progression is guaranteed and immediate - your proposal disenfranchises the people who can move our sport forward, let clubs find their level at that moment in time and ensure they can live the dream in the future RL clubs are not global brands, they are the sum total of local passion. If we want brands then we create 10 new clubs in 10 catchment areas across the UK and throw all the tv money at them and take the gamble, wasn't that the dream in 1994? The ones who will support this are the so called RL evangelists and the clubs who are one of the ten, maybe the short term pain will be worth it but will Warrington fans watch the Mersey saints at langtree park? That is now one desperate roll of the dice we do not need to make IMO but that is where you logic ends up

Great post

How can a business spend money it hasn't got and remain in business Martyn - isn't that why we are where we are and franchising has failed?The laws of the real world must be implanted in the RL world asap, who are you or I to tell a club they are not worthy. That is a gross mixture of stupidity and arrogance from a defeatist with no business understanding Competition is the lifeblood of any vibrant industry and RL has so much to sell if we make the dinosaurs extinct and focus on the wonderful product we have together with the value it will bring to our partners - I say this employing 1900 people and making £15m profits in 2013 in a business that was nearly belly up 10 years ago operating in the private sector ( sorry about the penis measuring) We take on people 5x our size and wipe the floor with them on the bottom line, 10 years ago we were laughed at and in your mentality would have our ambitions denied, that flat cap is impacting on your vision imo

Martyn's having a laugh pal, great wind up by him. At first glance you think he's being serious, sign of a good wind up merchant that, well done sir and I hope the circulation continues to rise

its our duty to keep up rambling on , the more outside the box the posts the better I heard the championships had a 5 year tv deal at £40m to move the season

Really!!

A few hypotheticals in my post, but the exclusion scenario must pose a huge threat to lower tier clubs with ambition so do they simply die, do they become feeders and die from within or do they create a new product? In those options mine would be the latter, but let's hope those choices are not relevant

That game was in the SL era when the season started December and the GF was July or August On a side note if exclusion continues the rest need to look at how to compete and moving the season is the first thing I would advocate for survival and creating an alternative product

I recall widnes v leigh 2nd game of the season with both clubs dreaming of sl around the millenium - near 7000 crowd that was bigger than most premiership ru games that day - where did we go wrong

Please read the post if you don't understand it ask this iPhone kills me

I stated that ring fencing SL allows them to take the pieces of silver, slash playing and development budgets to pay off debt, I stated that is what is happening now imo and is not good for the game We need to improve our pool of FT players eligible for eng/wales/France in the short term 20 clubs does that for what we currently have, longer term I expect those 20 to grow their own wood via the junior games promotion and would also advocate centrally run academies as the majority of clubs have shown they can't produce players, possibly wire Wigan saints Leeds and hull to stand alone with a Calder Kirklees and Lancashire run by the RFL Increased intensity at the top will put bums on seats and viewers on subs, a relegation/promotion scrap does the same Anyone thinking this robs revenue from the elite when you consider the opportunities it opens is very blinkered

If the average debt for the bottom 8 clubs was £68m or £8.5m per club then I expect the receivers to close the comp down, if the debt is to benefactors then it should be capitalised to shares unless they want it back in which case they will seize any assetts The danger to the sport is that those benefactors want to claw money back, the best way to do that would be to ring fence the comp and then slash budgets - some SL that would be and imo that is what we are currently seeing You can run a FT club on £6-700k central funding in a second tier and a £1m+ playing budget, which provides the core infrastructure to move up should you win promotion without major surgery on an already dead patient ie what we almost have now. For sums - Cats and Toulouse own TV deal in France no Sky funding. 9 clubs in SL1 at £1.2m = £10.8m, 9 clubs in SL2 at £700k = £6.3m total funding £17.1m pa which is within what we currently have and allows 2x10's with p&r, £19m if the French clubs are funded by Sky

If clubs cant run with their debt and manage their business then they shouldn't be full time in any structure Parky, surely. The same as in business, the winners change as dinosaurs die and youngsters take over. Running a failing business should never be rewarded

Aren't we all awaiting the decisions that will provide the answers? The only thing that seems to have been discussed openly is the mid eight, which lets face it away from the battle for SL Champions it will be the most important comp with the most to play for, the relegation battle in tier 3 should be a good scrap too

1. If the original funding is correct then it is highly unlikely it will be FT V PT in the mid 8, all clubs should be FT ie the 2 from this years championship GF assuming its Fev, Fax, Leigh or Sheffield, the 2 who drop this year - assuming they make the top 4 and the bottom 4 from SL1 2015 who make up the eight. Martyn must have had a heavy Xmas 2. Only two of the Championship big four will probably make the mid eight 3. A money man could invest his club into SL by hitting mid eight then top four

[quote name="The Parksider" post="2863279" timestamp There's never anything behind these empty headlines. Nobody has to explain their theories of course, but again I'd like to know how changing Leeds, Wigan, Hull, Catalans, Warrington and Saints for say Oxford Gloucester, Sheffield, Keighley, Leigh and Featherstone will expand the market for the game.......Without destroying the market and infrastructure of the big clubs for a massive nett loss? Any takers or is that it for the debate now? Anyhow today Martyn Sadler would like a system of P & R in which over 3 years you have to win the grand final and then all the GF winners play off for the three yearly SL place whilst all the SL losers over the three years play off to avoid the relegation place. Simple, easy for the fans to understand and fair (??), after all it can relegate a club with money and replace it with a club without money, trapping that latter club to a possible disasterous three year stint - a la London Broncos. The sight of poor Broncos having to stitch together a "club" just to see the 3 years out one would have thought would be proof enough this sort of thing is no good. Still clubs could refuse promotion in which if that happened we'd go six years with nothing. The massive financial gap between the Elite and the rest prevents any results based system working for me. Leeds Wigan etc are in as much danger as chelsea Man U etc of going down, the battle is between Widnes HKR Cas wakey Salford London on the SL front and leigh fax Fev and sheff on the championship, are Cas bigger than fax or Leigh? Given the same finance over many years? It will be good to see 8 of those scrap if out in a mid 8 but better still to have two full time tens allowing clubs to build IMO Martyn has got to a stage of life he enjoys winding folk up with outrageous suggestions - it's good fun that