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21 hours ago, Jughead said:

Are you calling it SL2 because that’s how many teams will meet the mandatory rules you want in place?

Now you start to get it, pity so many RL fans are clones and not achievers.

firstly if you incapable of generating the income to go FT with min spends you simply don’t apply - that leaves the ambitious funded clubs

secondly you are looking to get 4 French clubs in the mix who must bring their own TV deal as they will get nothing from the UK deal except UK clubs fund the costs of their travel etc - no TV deal or No sponsors or Towns willing to fund then no applicants

you have now segregated the spongers from the ambitious and at last the game is led by leaders not union committees 

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2 minutes ago, sweaty craiq said:

Now you start to get it, pity so many RL fans are clones and not achievers.

firstly if you incapable of generating the income to go FT with min spends you simply don’t apply - that leaves the ambitious funded clubs

secondly you are looking to get 4 French clubs in the mix who must bring their own TV deal as they will get nothing from the UK deal except UK clubs fund the costs of their travel etc - no TV deal or No sponsors or Towns willing to fund then no applicants

you have now segregated the spongers from the ambitious and at last the game is led by leaders not union committees 

A second tier of 4-6 clubs would be disastrous. 

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5 hours ago, nadera78 said:

Whenever the 2x10s idea rears its head, annually it seems, the first notion that pops into my mind is that it is yet another format designed to help the clubs that dominate the Championship yet are too small to compete in SL. It seems this is the number one question we've been considering ever since licensing was removed - how to comfort the 6-8 clubs in that category - and I don't think it has served us very well at all.

And this is the trouble. As a sport we have been far too concerned with trying to make P&R work and keeping the Championship close to Super League rather than Super League being the best it can be. As a result we try gimmicks like the middle 8s, which had already proven to have failed in other sports, and prop up full time Championship clubs with little/no return.

The focus is all wrong in my opinion and we neglect the games primary revenue driver in Super League at our peril. That is what Sky pay for and have we have just seen if they are not getting the quality product that they want they will pay less, then the whole game suffers.

Edited by Damien
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14 hours ago, JM2010 said:

It depends what the reason for going for 10 SL sides is. If it's to increase standards then I don't like the idea.

The best way to improve standards is to invest in juniors clubs and schools and for the RFL to help clubs implement the best junior pathway systems through academies. Increasing the player base is the only way standards will improve long term. The NRL is the better competition because they have many more kids playing the game and good junior pathways which results in better players coming through into the competition

More money for 10 clubs will just get spent on the same players so standards will be the same. 

The key is your first sentence - it depends upon the reason for the change.

If part of the change is to have more money invested in the 2nd tier then it may well improve the standard in the 2nd tier.  That in itself may feed into improving the standard in the elite league as they ponder the danger of dropping in the lover league.

Which ever way a change is you have to be clear on what the goal is.  The answer of x2 10's leagues may be the right outcome depending upon the goal.  If the goal is focused just on the elite league it may well not be a sensible idea.

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5 hours ago, nadera78 said:

Whenever the 2x10s idea rears its head, annually it seems, the first notion that pops into my mind is that it is yet another format designed to help the clubs that dominate the Championship yet are too small to compete in SL. It seems this is the number one question we've been considering ever since licensing was removed - how to comfort the 6-8 clubs in that category - and I don't think it has served us very well at all.

This is spot on. 

We’ve always been too focused on a handful of second tier clubs rather than concentrating on the sport’s driver, Super League, which is why I think clearer lines need to be drawn between the professional game and the semi-professional game. 

 

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I think the obvious risk of ring-fencing the elite and cutting off the rest is if one of the elite goes bang, there's no obvious replacement. There's also no reason to aim to step up if those at the top are performing and there's no desire to expand the league.

Put simply, IMO the franchise/licence model will not work for us.

 

Earlier, I said there's probably a more obvious solution to our problems.

The problem around fixture familiarity: expand to 14 to make round robin (too obvious!)

The problem around promoted teams not being prepared: finish the Championship earlier than the SL to give time to bring in players. The last time we had a competitive promoted team (as in one that weren't near the relegation zone) was probably Widnes in 2002, and they were promoted end of August, not October like now!

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20 hours ago, Rugbyleaguesupporter said:

Sky will decide to an extent. 

They funded game as a whole £40m with Qualifiers. If they think its a go er then they might pay more. Ultimately none of us know what they think. 

The league one funding is £75k a club which could come from the overall pot 

BSkyB told us SL was the promised land 26 years ago. Millions of pounds later SL is now a boring version of what was a great game. The most competitive and enjoyable competition is the Championship which comprises, in the main, of part time teams.

26 years, millions wasted, number of teams varied, fixture formula chopped and changed, franchise models tried all have failed to spread or develop the game. The same handful of teams contesting the same competitions every year. 
 

Why oh why do people believe that we should bow to what a broadcaster wants when what they wanted last time has failed spectacularly?

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7 minutes ago, Marrafan said:

BSkyB told us SL was the promised land 26 years ago. Millions of pounds later SL is now a boring version of what was a great game. The most competitive and enjoyable competition is the Championship which comprises, in the main, of part time teams.

26 years, millions wasted, number of teams varied, fixture formula chopped and changed, franchise models tried all have failed to spread or develop the game. The same handful of teams contesting the same competitions every year. 
 

Why oh why do people believe that we should bow to what a broadcaster wants when what they wanted last time has failed spectacularly?

Did Sky get what they want? The original Super League concept was far different with super clubs being created by mergers and two French teams. They got a full time slimed down Championship played in summer with clubs having monikers.

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9 minutes ago, Damien said:

Did Sky get what they want? The original Super League concept was far different with super clubs being created by mergers and two French teams. They got a full time slimed down Championship played in summer with clubs having monikers.

We had a team from Canada in it but SL got rid of them.  What has Super League done to spread the game, make the competition more competitive, or make the game more popular? Apart from wanting the full pot of money to themselves I would suggest nothing. 

If the standard of rugby produced by full time players in SL is the way forward then there’s more excitement watching paint dry. 

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In order to find solutions don’t you have to identify the issues? 
 

One issue which most agree on is the number of loop fixtures so how can 2 x10 which increases the number of loop fixtures, or leaves a much reduced and unworkable number, be the solution?
 

The number of good quality players being produced is too low so how does reducing the number of teams, remembering the furore over reducing Academy numbers, assist? 
 

There isn’t enough money coming into the game so does creating 2 x 10 actually increase the money in the game?
 

There are no doubt loads more questions that need asking/ raising before any structure can be agreed

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SL should go to 14 and grow dependent on adding franchises. Ideally aiming for a league of 20 over the next 10 years or so. It's a strategy for growth based on external investment, not spreading the jam too thinly.

P&R should only exist between the remaining non-franchised clubs and the winner of the championship.

Champs and L1 merge into a seeded comp. with maximum number of f/t players in squads.

 I know there's an argument about building a squad for SL if you win the champ but that is the least bad scenario. Maybe P&R could happen every 2 years?

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Doing what we’ve done before (fourteen team leagues, relegation and promotion) and expecting different results (more people interested, higher participation, more money into the game etc) seems very Rugby League and I’m not sure it works but only serves to lose loop games. 

Twenty-seven weekly rounds of trudging along waiting for the play-off’s doesn’t work now with twelve teams, I don’t see how it works with fourteen teams and the same players bouncing between team fourteen and the promoted side much like they do with team twelve and the promoted team now. 

Ultimately, the game needs to ask itself how are they going to use Super League and any plans to change structure to bring more money into the sport through commercial avenues, how they’re going to increase participation numbers and how they’re going to attempt to keep the games existing stakeholders happy. 

Edited by Jughead
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9 hours ago, nadera78 said:

Whenever the 2x10s idea rears its head, annually it seems, the first notion that pops into my mind is that it is yet another format designed to help the clubs that dominate the Championship yet are too small to compete in SL. It seems this is the number one question we've been considering ever since licensing was removed - how to comfort the 6-8 clubs in that category - and I don't think it has served us very well at all.

So why not remove the big 6 clubs that no other teams can get close to them, let them form a Super 6 League because seemingly no one can get close to them everyone else is just playing them to make up the numbers, there could be a quite good division below that one. Just think Sky could have their 3 games a week, which could refresh and repeat every 5 weeks but it wouldn't last long before everyone got fed up and left along with Sky.

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54 minutes ago, Jughead said:

 

Twenty-seven weekly rounds of trudging along waiting for the play-off’s doesn’t work now with twelve teams, I don’t see how it works with fourteen teams...

That is a negative way of presenting the structure - fans of other sports seem to be ok with watching their teams play plenty of games. 

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1 hour ago, Dave T said:

That is a negative way of presenting the structure - fans of other sports seem to be ok with watching their teams play plenty of games. 

There’s more on offer and more variation in other sports though compared to us. 

Cricket has multiple formats and competitions throughout a season. Football has European places to play for that have a narrative that they’re more important than other commitments, whilst also having European games and domestic cups on offer. Rugby Union is similar to football with European competitions and a couple of lower profile domestic cups. 

All three sports seasons are punctuated by the international game, we do that once (this for the second time in how many years?) for an exhibition game that people don’t want all the while other nations would and could host/play England.

We have one other competition apart from the league and see repeat games across the board, through the overkill provided by loop fixtures and the cup and play-offs. 

I personally don’t see how replacing loop games with four games against clubs presently in the Championship does anything positive for the game beyond lose those loop games. I can’t see how it increases participation, I can’t see how it brings in much more revenue than present and I can’t see how it would entice anyone to tune in who wasn’t an existing fan. 

This isn’t me saying that I think we should do a Nines competition, a ‘The Hundred’ style competition as Adam Pearson talked up last summer, add a group stage to the Challenge Cup, resurrect a long since forgotten cup or force another competition on the sport but I see a lot of what we already do now in a lot of people’s thought processes for framing the future and I do question what the point is to what essentially are minor changes to the sport when I think many of us can and do acknowledge that the sport is in a state that requires change. 

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13 minutes ago, Jughead said:

There’s more on offer and more variation in other sports though compared to us. 

Cricket has multiple formats and competitions throughout a season. Football has European places to play for that have a narrative that they’re more important than other commitments, whilst also having European games and domestic cups on offer. Rugby Union is similar to football with European competitions and a couple of lower profile domestic cups. 

All three sports seasons are punctuated by the international game, we do that once (this for the second time in how many years?) for an exhibition game that people don’t want all the while other nations would and could host/play England.

We have one other competition apart from the league and see repeat games across the board, through the overkill provided by loop fixtures and the cup and play-offs. 

I personally don’t see how replacing loop games with four games against clubs presently in the Championship does anything positive for the game beyond lose those loop games. I can’t see how it increases participation, I can’t see how it brings in much more revenue than present and I can’t see how it would entice anyone to tune in who wasn’t an existing fan. 

This isn’t me saying that I think we should do a Nines competition, a ‘The Hundred’ style competition as Adam Pearson talked up last summer, add a group stage to the Challenge Cup, resurrect a long since forgotten cup or force another competition on the sport but I see a lot of what we already do now in a lot of people’s thought processes for framing the future and I do question what the point is to what essentially are minor changes to the sport when I think many of us can and do acknowledge that the sport is in a state that requires change. 

I don't disagree with much of that, but 13 home league games a year is hardly excessive, I don't think that is an issue, particularly if loop games are gone. 

I am absolutely an advocate of the variety, but in reality, the only way we could replicate football and Union models is by having a World Club Championship, which ain't happening. So we are in a tricky position of having to play enough games to fill a season without any kind of international club games. 

100% agree on internationals, that is the area we do have a solution. 

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On 03/05/2022 at 10:45, Damien said:

And this is the trouble. As a sport we have been far too concerned with trying to make P&R work and keeping the Championship close to Super League rather than Super League being the best it can be. As a result we try gimmicks like the middle 8s, which had already proven to have failed in other sports, and prop up full time Championship clubs with little/no return.

The focus is all wrong in my opinion and we neglect the games primary revenue driver in Super League at our peril. That is what Sky pay for and have we have just seen if they are not getting the quality product that they want they will pay less, then the whole game suffers.

And who would that be, it certainly isnt the broadcaster ? Lets see if you get it yet

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On 02/05/2022 at 14:38, Rugbyleaguesupporter said:

@Jugheadthat's a downside. 

American sports all have complex fixtures/ groups 

There are no easy solutions- in any structure the RFL comes up there will be problems 

American sports have to do this due to Geography.. its quite a trek across the country so they play their near neighbours more times than those on the opposite coast/boarder... its not convoluted and its not that complex either really. They then have play offs to even up any/all of these discrepancies.

your not going to get big gates for top league v second league.. just look at the challenge cup to show you that!

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45 minutes ago, ShropshireBull said:

Which would be meaningless if they were two seperate leagues and just give us ridiculous blowouts. 

Two separate conferences.

How do you close the gap if you don't extend the league?

I would prefer two leagues of 14 with 28 strong and economically sound clubs, but we don't have that option.

So my suggestion helps close the gap, eliminates loop fixtures, makes the plays offs more meaningful and increases the exposure through more clubs.

Granted there are draw back but there is with every system.

Two leagues of ten is a disaster, no organisation has ever scaled up and increased their brand by downsizing.

 

 

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13 minutes ago, David Dockhouse Host said:

Two separate conferences.

How do you close the gap if you don't extend the league?

I would prefer two leagues of 14 with 28 strong and economically sound clubs, but we don't have that option.

So my suggestion helps close the gap, eliminates loop fixtures, makes the plays offs more meaningful and increases the exposure through more clubs.

Granted there are draw back but there is with every system.

Two leagues of ten is a disaster, no organisation has ever scaled up and increased their brand by downsizing.

 

 

I don't understand the obsession with closing the gap. The only way to close the gap between Super League and the Championship is to level down Super League even more, which would create a worse elite league and a worse product to sell to broadcasters. We have a 2 tier SL as is, it's crazy to expect even weaker clubs to compete with far bigger and richer clubs no matter how much tinkering you do.

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7 minutes ago, Damien said:

I don't understand the obsession with closing the gap. The only way to close the gap between Super League and the Championship is to level down Super League even more, which would create a worse elite league and a worse product to sell to broadcasters. We have a 2 tier SL as is, it's crazy to expect even weaker clubs to compete with far bigger and richer clubs no matter how much tinkering you do.

You beat me to it with your opening line. 

If that is the objective, then these proposals have merit. But why is that the objective. 

I'm afraid real success would probably look like the top division stretching away from the rest of the clubs and becoming so much bigger that we don't even consider maintaining P&R. And that doesn't necessarily mean with the 12 that are in now. 

The biggest failing is that the bottom of SL clubs are no better than the top of the Championship really despite the opportunities they have had. 

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1 hour ago, Damien said:

I don't understand the obsession with closing the gap. The only way to close the gap between Super League and the Championship is to level down Super League even more, which would create a worse elite league and a worse product to sell to broadcasters. We have a 2 tier SL as is, it's crazy to expect even weaker clubs to compete with far bigger and richer clubs no matter how much tinkering you do.

Indeed. If there's any gap that needs closing, it's the one between the "Big 6" and clubs 7-8-9-10.

If we constantly had up to 10 evenly matched clubs competing for the Superleague title deep into the season, we'd have a far more healthy and marketable elite competition. 

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