Time to go back to the original Super League idea?

[GeordieSaint]

12 hours ago, GUBRATS said:

So what is the ' Catalan model ' ? , Except 2 existing clubs ( businesses ) setting up another business ( club ) to operate in an overseas market ?

You want Fev,CAS and Wakey to set up a team to play in the NRL ?

Funny…

But let’s be serious. It’s up to the clubs to innovate, be pragmatic and think long term. It doesn’t have to be the ‘Catalan model’. It could be though. It could be a ‘complete merger’. It could be a whole host of other ideas including growing themselves as an individual business; whatever suits them and the conditions they find themselves with. 

[GUBRATS]

6 hours ago, Adelaide Tiger said:

Yep, although I was born and lived in Cas for 42 years till we emigrated to Adelaide in 2006.  Why?

So in many ways it wouldn't have affected you 

[GUBRATS]

11 minutes ago, GeordieSaint said:

Funny…

But let’s be serious. It’s up to the clubs to innovate, be pragmatic and think long term. It doesn’t have to be the ‘Catalan model’. It could be though. It could be a ‘complete merger’. It could be a whole host of other ideas including growing themselves as an individual business; whatever suits them and the conditions they find themselves with. 

Correct , it's up to the clubs to do what they can to grow their businesses and incomes , I'd suggest they are trying to do that , not well enough it would seem , but it certainly isn't easy 

[Robthegasman]

2 hours ago, EagleEyePie said:

I can understand the reasoning in terms of local talent from North West England but I think generating a talent pool in North Wales is a very optimistic. The same goes for trying to find a fan base with any real size. The Crusaders currently play in Colwyn Bay and pretty much the entirety of North Wales is a dead zone for professional sport. It's sparsely populated. It has an aging population. There's no real major sports teams there because it's not a place where one could thrive.

The two Welsh clubs as they are now are fine for semi-professional or amateur level. Should there ever be a desire for something bigger than that and another Super League presence in Wales then it would have to be in a bigger population centre.

Fair points.

[Adelaide Tiger]

1 hour ago, GUBRATS said:

So in many ways it wouldn't have affected you 

I will take it that you are having a cheeky dig ….. aren’t you?  If not it would rank alongside the comment from a regular poster on here who inferred that it was not appropriate for me to comment on SL seeing I lived in Australia.

But just in case you are not having a cheeky dig I will just remind you that Lindsays merger proposal was put forward in April/May 1995 a full 11 and a half years before I emigrated to Adelaide. Do you really think that if the mergers had gone ahead I would have kept saying to myself ‘Hey this really doesn’t affect me because in 11 years time I will be in Adelaide’.

[GUBRATS]

7 minutes ago, Adelaide Tiger said:

I will take it that you are having a cheeky dig ….. aren’t you?  If not it would rank alongside the comment from a regular poster on here who inferred that it was not appropriate for me to comment on SL seeing I lived in Australia.

But just in case you are not having a cheeky dig I will just remind you that Lindsays merger proposal was put forward in April/May 1995 a full 11 and a half years before I emigrated to Adelaide. Do you really think that if the mergers had gone ahead I would have kept saying to myself ‘Hey this really doesn’t affect me because in 11 years time I will be in Adelaide’.

Time is a great healer , I'd suggest you would have been very much in the minority in supporting a new merged club , would you have continued watching a CAS team locked out of SL along with the new ' entity ' ?

[Izmir Zaferi]

What if there was a Super Season and a National Season? 

10 Super Clubs - July - Oct - all tier 1 - 3 clubs would have a seat at the table of a Super club. 8 UK teams, 2 French. The winner would take on the NRL champs.

National League Season incl. Challenge Cup - Jan - June 

Present clubs in two broader RFL Leagues. The French based players go back to the FRL. 

This would give two primary products for TV. Additional "events" could be created including an ongoing national competition during the Super Cup or a Nines League during that period.

With this approach, the traditional club offering and a more elite level product with every local club has a direct representative presence in the Super Comp. Challenge Cup would remain the sole property of the RFL. French and new foreign teams would only be present in the Super Cup. 

Super Teams would be new entities created as representative teams rather than a merged entity. All present teams would remain and have exclusivity during the national league period. 

The Super Cup would intentionally seek to be broader in focus for Television purposes. The desire of TV in terms of financial incentive would need to be clarified. This may mean a bias toward a London presence, Wales, Newcastle etc.

This would still leave the heartlands with atleast 6 - 7 Super Teams and guarantee present clubs continuation. 

 

 

 

 

 

[thebrewxi]

2 hours ago, Izmir Zaferi said:

What if there was a Super Season and a National Season? 

10 Super Clubs - July - Oct - all tier 1 - 3 clubs would have a seat at the table of a Super club. 8 UK teams, 2 French. The winner would take on the NRL champs.

National League Season incl. Challenge Cup - Jan - June 

Present clubs in two broader RFL Leagues. The French based players go back to the FRL. 

This would give two primary products for TV. Additional "events" could be created including an ongoing national competition during the Super Cup or a Nines League during that period.

With this approach, the traditional club offering and a more elite level product with every local club has a direct representative presence in the Super Comp. Challenge Cup would remain the sole property of the RFL. French and new foreign teams would only be present in the Super Cup. 

Super Teams would be new entities created as representative teams rather than a merged entity. All present teams would remain and have exclusivity during the national league period. 

The Super Cup would intentionally seek to be broader in focus for Television purposes. The desire of TV in terms of financial incentive would need to be clarified. This may mean a bias toward a London presence, Wales, Newcastle etc.

This would still leave the heartlands with atleast 6 - 7 Super Teams and guarantee present clubs continuation. 

 

 

 

 

 

Theres a book called Seasons in the Sun about the first 10 years of super league where they hypothesise just such a solution would have worked out best for the sport. In not convinced myself, but an interesting book. 

We've kind if got this in cricket now havent we, with the hundred; where the traditional counties are binned for a month for some shiny new allegedly "merger" type clubs where the smaller county fans are supposed to travel to support another slightly less local team for a bit. (Its not worked with me, I am in Worcestershire I have no interest in Birmingham cricket club other that to quick check how moeen ali got on - did Birmingham edgbaston win yesterday? I have no idea) 

[haskey]

|To me , the answer is to have a completely independent directorship , where the decision are made fore the good of the game and not the so called BIG clubs. Combine SL and the RFL, and lets put the job of directors out to tender, do away with Rimmer, who is a waste of space, use the facilities we already have in Manchester, keep the expertise at the lower lever than Rimmer. 

Big city teams will never work , can you imagine the crowd watching London & Newcastle ie 500/700 speccies on TV , what a bl----y farce.It cannot work, Some of our smaller clubs have been inexistence for well over 100 years who wants to kill off this. 

I could go on but it is time to have lunch and go and watch a proper rugby match

[Adelaide Tiger]

3 hours ago, GUBRATS said:

Time is a great healer , I'd suggest you would have been very much in the minority in supporting a new merged club , would you have continued watching a CAS team locked out of SL along with the new ' entity ' ?

Many friends said they would have not watched a merged team and TBH I didn’t want a merged team but if the proposal had been brought in and if the SKY money had been used to create Lindsays vision, and SKY continued to back that vision then RL may have had a better chance to have been a truly national game than it is now.

Lindsay totally misjudged the situation. IMHO if he had said:

1. There will be a new SL with the £89 million money to fund the existing teams (Wigan, Saints, Leeds) and merged teams (Calder, Cumbria, Cheshire) and to invest in new areas such as the Midlands, Bristol and London that had been identified as areas of growth 

2. Underneath SL the existing league structure will be retained whereby all clubs can continue to operate in a semi pro capacity as the majority were at that time - players can use these clubs as shop windows to move to into full time profession in the SL league - then that might have been received more favourably 

And yes I would have continued to watch Cas in such a league as well as Calder because Calder would have been seen as representing the cream of our area and not replacing the existing teams.

 

[Saint Toppy]

On 21/08/2021 at 11:48, barnyia said:

As it seems interest is dropping in the sport should we now go back to the original idea of Maurice Lyndsay with Calder, Humberside, Cumbria, Manchester etc with Toulouse and the dragons? 

 

So you want all the English clubs to merge to form 'regions' but you want to keep 2 small town French clubs  

[Griff]

It's a great idea - provided that you don't alienate all your existing customers.

Unfortunately, that's the likelihood.

[barnyia]

45 minutes ago, Saint Toppy said:

So you want all the English clubs to merge to form 'regions' but you want to keep 2 small town French clubs  

Toulouse a small town? 

[Damien]

45 minutes ago, Saint Toppy said:

So you want all the English clubs to merge to form 'regions' but you want to keep 2 small town French clubs  

Toulouse certainly isn't a small town French club.

[Saint Toppy]

26 minutes ago, barnyia said:

Toulouse a small town? 

Who cares, your still talking out your arris wanting to scrap / merge all the existing English SL clubs but keep a small town french club and a french championship club.

Here's a better idea, why dont the french form their own SL and you can have as many small town or regional clubs as you like and let the English have a format thats best suited to them. Then maybe, just maybe one day you'll actually have french clubs full of french players and be able to produce a National team that can offer the English some viable opposition.

[Saint Toppy]

On 21/08/2021 at 13:14, sweaty craiq said:

Imagine you are sitting down to write a strategy and business plan for your business, thats been around for over 125 years.

You begin your S.W.O.T analysis -you realise 90% of your direct customers are based in the North which accounts for 15% of the population, yet within that 15% huge pockets contain virtually zero clients. You have an existing distribution centre in London but its reach is to a miniscule % of population despite many exiled RL folk being located here and traditionally a huge swell of descendants of Convicts sent from these shores in centuries past.

As you are absorbing this, Jonny Newbuoy bursts through the door - fresh from his business/marketing degree at a former Poly now Uni - I have the solution he shouts loudly ''let's luvv off all our existing customers by closing their local branch, and open up a new one where richer people live, they'll still travel to the nearest branch because the have loved us for 125 years and know nothing else. We have a great product that all these Rich new customers dont use yet but I am sure they will buy into if we throw all the money we have saved from isolating our loyal clients into the hope of finding new ones''

Company A  - they sack Mr Newbuoy, questioning the validity of his degree and notifying the local asylum of his last abode. Engage in a controlled expansion based upon a strategy of engaging and maximising their low hanging fruit whilst supporting the seed that has fallen further from the tree to create the opportunity for growth

Company B - they promote Mr Newbuoy to CEO with a £300k basic and 2 year notice period, but the gain of new customers is dwarfed by the loss of existing who find alternate products to spend their hard earned on. Mr N decides that a more radical policy is needed and closes even more local branches to create the cash to fund the expansion into the new Gold laden areas which have so far not engaged in the dream - all of a sudden the company runs out of cash because it has no more loyal customers and Mr N takes his 2 year pay off whilst he can.

 

Barnyia is quickly checking whether the business & Marketing degree he bough online was from a former Poly now  

[JM2010]

1 hour ago, Saint Toppy said:

So you want all the English clubs to merge to form 'regions' but you want to keep 2 small town French clubs  

I thought Catalonia was a region a bit like Yorkshire

[thebrewxi]

21 hours ago, Adelaide Tiger said:

Many friends said they would have not watched a merged team and TBH I didn’t want a merged team but if the proposal had been brought in and if the SKY money had been used to create Lindsays vision, and SKY continued to back that vision then RL may have had a better chance to have been a truly national game than it is now.

Lindsay totally misjudged the situation. IMHO if he had said:

1. There will be a new SL with the £89 million money to fund the existing teams (Wigan, Saints, Leeds) and merged teams (Calder, Cumbria, Cheshire) and to invest in new areas such as the Midlands, Bristol and London that had been identified as areas of growth 

2. Underneath SL the existing league structure will be retained whereby all clubs can continue to operate in a semi pro capacity as the majority were at that time - players can use these clubs as shop windows to move to into full time profession in the SL league - then that might have been received more favourably 

And yes I would have continued to watch Cas in such a league as well as Calder because Calder would have been seen as representing the cream of our area and not replacing the existing teams.

 

Theres a theory lindsay and Murdoch judged the situation perfectly. The real key to the wonga being released was summer rugby to provide content through Easter till september when theres was a bit of a lull in sky content. Summer rugby was objectable to a number of tradition fans, but this was accepted without any sort of fight- everyone was busy fighting the mergers which, so the theory goes, was just a massive bluff which the rfl and sky had no intention of funding (and it would have required a lot of cash to set up and market effectively 8 to 10 new "brands") 

[thebrewxi]

54 minutes ago, JM2010 said:

I thought Catalonia was a region a bit like Yorkshire

Well they have their own languge. 

And so do the Catalonians. 

[Scubby]

57 minutes ago, JM2010 said:

I thought Catalonia was a region a bit like Yorkshire

Indeed, didn't they take a game to that wider region a couple of years ago and got a crowd of over 31,000? Pretty much double the Wigan-Saints derby crowd last week.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/rugby-league/48268530 

 

[barnyia]

3 hours ago, Saint Toppy said:

Who cares, your still talking out your arris wanting to scrap / merge all the existing English SL clubs but keep a small town french club and a french championship club.

Here's a better idea, why dont the french form their own SL and you can have as many small town or regional clubs as you like and let the English have a format thats best suited to them. Then maybe, just maybe one day you'll actually have french clubs full of french players and be able to produce a National team that can offer the English some viable opposition.

I'm not for mergers, I was putting a question forward, I'd leave you st Helens if you want, as for a pro league in France full of French players,I'd love that too, then the English super League can go the same way with just English players in the league and give the Aussies and kiwis a decent game

[DEANO]

On 22/08/2021 at 05:14, Hopping Mad said:

In the 1980s, Carlisle wasn't RL territory to the extent it had a semi-pro club and a two-division amateur comp, in which a couple of ex-colleagues played. All chucked away. Typical rugby league.

Barrow RL already draw support from the Furness communities you mention - all of them tiny. Sadly, there is next to no interest in rugby league east of Ulverston or northeast of Furness.

For the first time since 1972, Barrow RL also now face competition from a Football League club on their doorstep.

Without a sugar daddy paying the bills, there's no chance of Barrow making Super League.

Another problem in Cumbria is the county doesn't have a single decent sports stadium. Not one.

which Sl club doesn’t have a sugar daddy

[Hopping Mad]

10 minutes ago, DEANO said:

which Sl club doesn’t have a sugar daddy

The problem at Barrow, unlike at some of the sugar daddy-assisted Super League clubs, is they don't have a decent stadium (or access to one) and - realistically - their potential support is limited to Furness (a large town, a small town and a few villages). In the absence of a very wealthy benefactor, the best Barrow can hope for is stability at Championship level (very much like Batley).

[GUBRATS]

6 hours ago, thebrewxi said:

Well they have their own languge. 

And so do the Catalonians. 

Do the Catalans have their own airline ?

[yipyee]

55 minutes ago, ShropshireBull said:

There has been talk of RU moving a team there, clearly feel it is an untapped market. Crusaders did fine even with a joke of an owner and an oversized stadium last time. Some big companies based out of north wales. Potential is there. 

Deffo, Wrexham has a footy team in a Rugby country. There is potential for fans & players.

We also got more coverage on BBC with Crusaders always the game of choice for BBC. Maybe as some of BBC wales funding went towards production?