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Now is the time to bring back franchising


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2 hours ago, ShropshireBull said:

I have done this to death before. My position is that we should have a 14 team European SL with enough French clubs (4) for a TV deal there. You have Élite 1 and Champ underneath and bottom 2 (or lowest ranked eng club if bottom 2 are French) are relegated. That way, we balance aspiration of lower clubs with commercial opportunities. 

I am not against protecting certain clubs but dont want anyone banned from going up. What the game is missing is a reg international tournament in Europe that generates revenue so unless franchising is set up to build that, I would say no. 

With Sky's offer for a new TV contract rumoured be only 20 million £ per year, just how do you see a French TV contract adding enough to that amount to cover 14 teams at the same level of spending as now?  Which 4 cities in France do you think are needed along with which English cities to provide a French broadcaster with enough value for them to pay enough to make up for the shortfall in Sky's offer?

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2 hours ago, Scotchy1 said:

Are you having a stroke?

If past records mean nothing, what the hell were you talking about with the gibberish above?

Well 'Arry, his first comment was uncalled for, but he has a fair point with the second one.

You must have made those posts in haste, not thought it through.

You have to concede defeat on this one, or your street cred, will take a big knock. 

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We could always consider following the lead of EuroLeague basketball and issue ten-year licenses to some clubs and then leave a few spots open to clubs on shorter license agreements. 

For example, the following clubs would be issued 10-year licenses, these teams would make up the core of the league and would be immune from relegation:

Wigan
St Helens
Warrington
Catalans
Leeds
Hull FC
Huddersfield
Toulouse
Castleford

Then issue shorter licenses to three-five other clubs dependent on their operations that can be renewed or revoked every three years.

Using this method, no club is barred from ever entering the competition, but would need to show three years of stability and growth. This would also put the SL bottom-feeders under pressure to either swim or sink.

 

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Franchising always sounds like a great idea, but for it to operate successfully and fairly it needs the sport to have sufficient big clubs, like the NRL. We don’t have that, and are not likely to in the near future either. I, like a number of other posters on here, think that you don’t grow by exclusion or denying clubs with ambition however on the other hand you need to do something to motivate those clubs who just plan to survive from one season to the next. If the NRL takeover happens, and I am sceptical, it will be very interesting to see how they handle this one.

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Just now, eal said:

We could always consider following the lead of EuroLeague basketball and issue ten-year licenses to some clubs and then leave a few spots open to clubs on shorter license agreements. 

The following clubs would be issued 10-year licenses, these teams would make up the core of the league and would be immune from relegation:

Wigan
St Helens
Warrington
Catalans
Leeds
Hull FC
Huddersfield
Toulouse
Castleford

Then issue shorter licenses to three-five other clubs dependent on their operations that can be renewed or revoked every three years.

Using this method, no club is barred from ever entering the competition, but would need to show three years of stability and growth. This would also put the SL bottom-feeders under pressure to either swim or sink.

 

Interesting idea, but (and I’m not picking on Huddersfield), what do Huddersfield currently offer that say Leigh does not? Both clubs are reliant on a single owner, both have modern stadia, Huddersfield have great juniors, though I suspect most come from surrounding towns, Leigh has a strong amateur game. You see the difficult part comes when it’s time to select teams and there’s not really enough teams who stand head and shoulders above the rest, we all start by naming an obvious 5-6, then it starts to stray into that grey area called “potential “, otherwise it would be a very small league.

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Just now, Oldbear said:

Interesting idea, but (and I’m not picking on Huddersfield), what do Huddersfield currently offer that say Leigh does not? Both clubs are reliant on a single owner, both have modern stadia, Huddersfield have great juniors, though I suspect most come from surrounding towns, Leigh has a strong amateur game. You see the difficult part comes when it’s time to select teams and there’s not really enough teams who stand head and shoulders above the rest, we all start by naming an obvious 5-6, then it starts to stray into that grey area called “potential “, otherwise it would be a very small league.

That is absolutely a fair observation. Once you get past Wigan, Leeds, St. Helen's, Warrington, Catalans, and maybe Hull it does become tricky to seperate the men from the boys. Huddersfield and Leigh at least have good stadiums, which puts them ahead of Wakefield, Castleford, London, etc.

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3 minutes ago, eal said:

That is absolutely a fair observation. Once you get past Wigan, Leeds, St. Helen's, Warrington, Catalans, and maybe Hull it does become tricky to seperate the men from the boys. Huddersfield and Leigh at least have good stadiums, which puts them ahead of Wakefield, Castleford, London, etc.

You just came up with the same 6 as me, then we start to bend criteria and bring in the dreaded potential category, that’s why franchising at this point in time is almost impossible to do fairly, to get to 12 clubs is going to involve a lot of rule bending and opens the sport to charges of unfairness and exclusion.

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3 hours ago, Scotchy1 said:

If London is 'no hope' after a CC final, 2nd place in SL, 22 of 26 seasons in the top tier in the pro era .

What would we say about a club with no CC finals, never spent consecutive seasons in the top flight in the pro era, and 2 of 26 seasons in the top flight

 

Don't let the Leigh fans read that.

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40 minutes ago, eal said:

We could always consider following the lead of EuroLeague basketball and issue ten-year licenses to some clubs and then leave a few spots open to clubs on shorter license agreements. 

For example, the following clubs would be issued 10-year licenses, these teams would make up the core of the league and would be immune from relegation:

Wigan
St Helens
Warrington
Catalans
Leeds
Hull FC
Huddersfield
Toulouse
Castleford

Then issue shorter licenses to three-five other clubs dependent on their operations that can be renewed or revoked every three years.

Using this method, no club is barred from ever entering the competition, but would need to show three years of stability and growth. This would also put the SL bottom-feeders under pressure to either swim or sink.

 

Decided by who ?

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10 minutes ago, GUBRATS said:

Decided by who ?

You just hit on the second weakness of the franchising approach.. whoever is tasked with making these decisions has to be truly objective, know anyone who would fit that description because I’m not sure I do.

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Just now, Oldbear said:

You just hit on the second weakness of the franchising approach.. whoever is tasked with making these decisions has to be truly objective, know anyone who would fit that description because I’m not sure I do.

Me 

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11 minutes ago, Oldbear said:

You just hit on the second weakness of the franchising approach.. whoever is tasked with making these decisions has to be truly objective, know anyone who would fit that description because I’m not sure I do.

why do they have to be truly objective?

Surely they should have an agenda, that being to grow SL as much as possible. That is the reason you would put in place franchising. So you could have a set coherent plan. 

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1 hour ago, fighting irish said:

Well 'Arry, his first comment was uncalled for, but he has a fair point with the second one.

You must have made those posts in haste, not thought it through.

You have to concede defeat on this one, or your street cred, will take a big knock. 

Nay Irish, sighting today what London did in the 90's has as much relevance to what Hunslet did when winning the 4 cups in the same season, I thought that you and Oxford - who liked your post - would have been aware of that, just shows that sometimes one should not assume and just spell it out Janet and John style.

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11 minutes ago, Harry Stottle said:

Nay Irish, sighting today what London did in the 90's has as much relevance to what Hunslet did when winning the 4 cups in the same season, I thought that you and Oxford - who liked your post - would have been aware of that, just shows that sometimes one should not assume and just spell it out Janet and John style.

You're still contradicting yourself Harry. 

 

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1 hour ago, eal said:

We could always consider following the lead of EuroLeague basketball and issue ten-year licenses to some clubs and then leave a few spots open to clubs on shorter license agreements. 

For example, the following clubs would be issued 10-year licenses, these teams would make up the core of the league and would be immune from relegation:

Wigan
St Helens
Warrington
Catalans
Leeds
Hull FC
Huddersfield
Toulouse
Castleford

Then issue shorter licenses to three-five other clubs dependent on their operations that can be renewed or revoked every three years.

Using this method, no club is barred from ever entering the competition, but would need to show three years of stability and growth. This would also put the SL bottom-feeders under pressure to either swim or sink.

 

Can someone, anyone, explain why there is so much derision around the possibility on 3 'WF' clubs being in SL, but most seem quite happy for the 3 northwest clubs, in close proximity to each other, being allocated 10 year licenses?

Wigan
St Helens
Warrington

(For those of you where geography isn't a strong point)

 

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3 minutes ago, bigbaldnmad said:

Can someone, anyone, explain why there is so much derision around the possibility on 3 'WF' clubs being in SL, but most seem quite happy for the 3 northwest clubs, in close proximity to each other, being allocated 10 year licenses?

Wigan
St Helens
Warrington

(For those of you where geography isn't a strong point)

 

The northwest is a much bigger area, and those are three top well run, well funded clubs with good facilities and large crowds. 

 

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1 hour ago, Oldbear said:

You just came up with the same 6 as me, then we start to bend criteria and bring in the dreaded potential category, that’s why franchising at this point in time is almost impossible to do fairly, to get to 12 clubs is going to involve a lot of rule bending and opens the sport to charges of unfairness and exclusion.

Perfectly put Oldbear,

Possesion of a SL spot seems to be having both feet 90% in ticking the criteria boxes, that is totally indesputable with what happened with allowing in Salford, Cas and Wakefield in last time when their facilities clearly no matter how much they were scrutinised did not come anywhere near the acceptable levels, Salford did eventually sort theirs out but it shows how just some 13 years later with the other two in the same facilities that the system of selection was and maybe will still be totally flawed.

Mr Elstone did comment on both of these clubs early in his tenure that their facilities were unacceptable in present day SL do you think he has the bottle to stand by his convictions if another Licensed period should come into being and they are still in the same stadiums?

 

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Let’s go to licensing if we want a six team league and even then, I’m being generous at as many as six clubs. 

Let’s not go to fourteen and weaken an already pretty weak product in Super League. Two more clubs stretches the player pool further and adds fifty players, who, predominantly, are going to be the worst fifty in the competition which will result in a series of mini-leagues within Super League, more blow out scorelines and will likely see an extension of the play-offs in a poor attempt at creating jeopardy for more sides, weakening our strongest product, the play-offs, while holding back our best clubs and pandering to the needs of a handful, dragging us down to their pretty average (at best, I’m generous) level. 

 

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