This Promotion/Relegation is a Farce

[The Daddy]

How can.you have proper, fair promotion and relegation when you have loop fixtures and the newly promoted team at the bottom of the league has to play the top team three times in a season? Someone please justify this to me in a way that makes sense. 

How can you have proper, fair promotion and relegation when the newly promoted team has to pay all the travel costs of visiting teams when they can use the same funds to get local, national tv coverage and increase their commercial opportunities as a result which would in turn get them better players. 

Preventing Toronto and Leigh from receiving central funding and voting on kicking Toronto out of the competition, sorry this ain't a fair, balanced system of promotion and relegation, it's a protection racket. 

First thing IMG need to do is bring back franchising instead of this current nonsense. 

[DEANO]

17 minutes ago, The Daddy said:

How can.you have proper, fair promotion and relegation when you have loop fixtures and the newly promoted team at the bottom of the league has to play the top team three times in a season? Someone please justify this to me in a way that makes sense. 

How can you have proper, fair promotion and relegation when the newly promoted team has to pay all the travel costs of visiting teams when they can use the same funds to get local, national tv coverage and increase their commercial opportunities as a result which would in turn get them better players. 

Preventing Toronto and Leigh from receiving central funding and voting on kicking Toronto out of the competition, sorry this ain't a fair, balanced system of promotion and relegation, it's a protection racket. 

First thing IMG need to do is bring back franchising instead of this current nonsense. 

Agree with everything you say till you mention franchising 

[JohnM]

1 hour ago, The Daddy said:

How can.you have proper, fair promotion and relegation when you have loop fixtures and the newly promoted team at the bottom of the league has to play the top team three times in a season? Someone please justify this to me in a way that makes sense. 

How can you have proper, fair promotion and relegation when the newly promoted team has to pay all the travel costs of visiting teams when they can use the same funds to get local, national tv coverage and increase their commercial opportunities as a result which would in turn get them better players. 

Preventing Toronto and Leigh from receiving central funding and voting on kicking Toronto out of the competition, sorry this ain't a fair, balanced system of promotion and relegation, it's a protection racket. 

First thing IMG need to do is bring back franchising instead of this current nonsense. 

Ah. The old "cart before horse" gambit.

[Les Tonks Sidestep]

[Jughead]

London played Saints, Catalans, Wakefield, Leeds, Salford and Hull KR three times in 2019 and of those fifteen games, they accumulated nine of their ten wins from those fixtures. Both of Toulouse’s wins have come against teams they’ll play three times this year. Now, I’m not a fan of the loop games but they’ve made for one interesting relegation battle and quite possibly a second, so arguably, loop fixtures are doing their job onfield. The way we’ve made loop fixtures hasn’t always been to my preference, I’d rather the teams 1st-6th played each other a third time with 7th-12th doing the same but that’s not a major problem.

I don’t like promotion and relegation and I’m in the “scrap it” camp. I don’t think it works, I don’t really see the point of it and I don’t see how it does anything to help either the promoted or relegated clubs or does anything to grow the game. I see little point in professional clubs ambling around in a predominantly part-time league, too. I’d rather see clearer lines drawn in the game but we’re probably too frightened because there’s a few former big names who are now part-time but waiting around and hoping someone pumps some life (and more importantly, money) into a London Broncos, Widnes or Bradford just isn’t a good idea.

Promotion and relegation bores me. The clubs promoted are ill prepared through only knowing their league status in September/October and they then sign numerous players from the relegated club. Seeing James Cunningham and Matty Russell line up for most likely Leigh or Featherstone come February, playing for the newly promoted team for the 4th and 5th times in their careers does absolutely nothing for those promoted clubs, the relegated sides they’ve left, Super League and the game overall. 

[PREPOSTEROUS]

Don't worry, Trinity are in a hole and are not showing any signs of getting out of it. Toulouse will be safe for this year at least.  When the 2 x 10 come into effect is another matter

[The Rocket]

1 minute ago, PREPOSTEROUS said:

Don't worry, Trinity are in a hole and are not showing any signs of getting out of it. Toulouse will be safe for this year at least.  When the 2 x 10 come into effect is another matter

I suspect Toulouse will only need one year.

[crashmon]

I think franchising is the only way RL will survive as a professional sport in the UK.  There is just not the talent pool to support the amount of clubs challenging at the top level. Only really Football has enough talent coming through to support multiple divisions of clubs, I don't think Union can support more than one top division professionality realistically.

So to me the issue is not if we should have frnachising, but which teams should make the cut.   This leads to the following dilemma

• The strongest clubs most able to make the cut are all located in a small area along the M62 or in the south of France
• However the sponsers \ TV companies \ advertisers seem to want the clubs spread out more, where we don't have the talent base

I'm a London fan, but right now there is no point having a London team in superleage, the clubs in London are so far behind, and the gates (even in Wimbledon) do not support it. There just is not the interest here.

So if you are going to franchise, you need to align on the clubs where RL is strong.  Pick 16 teams based on where they are most likely to thrive, based on fans, player talent pool etc.  Then the other clubs would be aligned to the the franchised clubs, but in a part time model.

But having Tolouse, Cats, Newcastle, York and then 12 teams from M62 corridor (I'm not saying fev or leigh should be excluded here), and have 16 teams playing each other twice a season and one magic weekend. Top 8 in playoffs.

Then we keep it at that for 5 years min, and see how you grow based on those 16 clubs.  I would not even have 2 divisions of 10 as I don't think we have the player pool for 20 clubs, 16 is cutting it fine.

But right now I don't think the sport is strong enough for P&R

Edited June 5, 2022 by crashmon

[DEANO]

Well if we’re going to have franchising let’s put Wigan in Dublin saints in Edinburgh etc etc. all for the good of the  game of course

[Chronicler of Chiswick]

The problem with franchising last time was that it wasn't perceived as an open and fair process, if it had been we'd probably still have it. After all, if (say) London had had three years to sort themselves out we'd still have a SL side in the Capital.

[GUBRATS]

2 minutes ago, DEANO said:

Well if we’re going to have franchising let’s put Wigan in Dublin saints in Edinburgh etc etc. all for the good of the  game of course

You've e seen the ' Big Picture' ?

[crashmon]

There is no point going Franchising to places with no real RL presence.  If you are going to do it, it needs to be in places where RL is strong.

I would have Cats, Tolouse, York, Newcastle and then 12 of the existing teams (no mergers they never work).. Which 12 teams plus the 4 above is always the crunch, and I have no answers on who should be selected.

I would not worry if you have 3 or 4 clubs close geographically together, as long as there is enough local talent coming through to support the clubs

[Toby Chopra]

2 hours ago, Chronicler of Chiswick said:

The problem with franchising last time was that it wasn't perceived as an open and fair process, if it had been we'd probably still have it. After all, if (say) London had had three years to sort themselves out we'd still have a SL side in the Capital.

How do you mean? London had SIX years to sort themselves out without threat of relegation (2008-13) and were in a worse state at the end of it than they were at the beginning. 

Licencing/franchising can work if teams put the stability to good use, but London I'm afraid are the blueprint of how to waste the opportunity. 

[The Blues Ox]

The obvious answer is to have a 10 team SL with Saints, Wigan, Leeds, Warrington, Catalans, A merged Hull team, Toulouse, Bradford, London, and York in. Would be great that, would allow some teams to go out of existance so the talent pool wouldnt be too stretched and would make for some fantastic TV viewing.

 

Edit: Might have to dump Wire to make way for Newcastle.

Fabulous.

Edited June 5, 2022 by The Blues Ox

[Chronicler of Chiswick]

35 minutes ago, Toby Chopra said:

How do you mean? London had SIX years to sort themselves out without threat of relegation (2008-13) and were in a worse state at the end of it than they were at the beginning. 

Licencing/franchising can work if teams put the stability to good use, but London I'm afraid are the blueprint of how to waste the opportunity. 

I'm thinking here of the Danny Ward side, just as an example - I agree that the history of London is possibly the longest train crash in modern sporting history, mostly brought on by the conduct of its owners.

[Les Tonks Sidestep]

10 minutes ago, The Blues Ox said:

The obvious answer is to have a 10 team SL with Saints, Wigan, Leeds, Warrington, Catalans, A merged Hull team, Toulouse, Bradford, London, and York in. Would be great that, would allow some teams to go out of existance so the talent pool wouldnt be too stretched and would make for some fantastic TV viewing.

 

Edit: Might have to dump Wire to make way for Newcastle.

Fabulous.

Definitely. Can't have 2 teams with the the same postcode district.....

[Padge]

RL has never had franchising.

[Big Picture]

3 hours ago, GUBRATS said:

You've e seen the ' Big Picture' ?

No, he hasn't.  I would never move traditional clubs somewhere else.

[GUBRATS]

9 minutes ago, Big Picture said:

No, he hasn't.  I would never move traditional clubs somewhere else.

True , I stand corrected 

[Oxford]

16 hours ago, The Daddy said:

How can.you have proper, fair promotion and relegation when you have loop fixtures and the newly promoted team at the bottom of the league has to play the top team three times in a season? Someone please justify this to me in a way that makes sense. 

How can you have proper, fair promotion and relegation when the newly promoted team has to pay all the travel costs of visiting teams when they can use the same funds to get local, national tv coverage and increase their commercial opportunities as a result which would in turn get them better players. 

Preventing Toronto and Leigh from receiving central funding and voting on kicking Toronto out of the competition, sorry this ain't a fair, balanced system of promotion and relegation, it's a protection racket. 

First thing IMG need to do is bring back franchising instead of this current nonsense. 

I had to admire your bottle but sacrilege against the sacred cow.

The loop fixtures are like the rules favouring the attacking side they're there to ensure wins and no chance of relegation for the ones that matter. Same as franchising as well, so I shouldn't be hoping for that to change things if I were you.

[GUBRATS]

In Harry's absence I'll suggest the end of P and R will end the sport IMO 

[GUBRATS]

15 minutes ago, Big Picture said:

No, he hasn't.  I would never move traditional clubs somewhere else.

Yours is the ' bigger ' picture 

[Oxford]

6 minutes ago, GUBRATS said:

In Harry's absence I'll suggest the end of P and R will end the sport IMO 

You forgot " and the world as we know it!" or were you waiting for 'arry?

[JohnM]

I reckon true franchising involves. Is this what people want?

1. The games governing body (RFL?) defining and branding the game, selling media rights, defining competitions, international relationships, leagues etc.

2. Creating a franchise package that defines the appearance, rules, financing, branding, roles and responsibilities that bidders must contractually sign up to.

3. Evaluating club bids and awarding contracts.

4. Devising promotional campaigns, running marketing coop etc.

5. Managing franchises to ensure compliance 

As I understand it, you can't just split the country into areas and only allow one club per area as that would breach competition law. Might be exemptions, though.

Edited June 5, 2022 by JohnM

[paul hicks]

3 hours ago, The Blues Ox said:

The obvious answer is to have a 10 team SL with Saints, Wigan, Leeds, Warrington, Catalans, A merged Hull team, Toulouse, Bradford, London, and York in. Would be great that, would allow some teams to go out of existance so the talent pool wouldnt be too stretched and would make for some fantastic TV viewing.

 

Edit: Might have to dump Wire to make way for Newcastle.

Fabulous.

why not merge saints and Warrington seeing they already share WA postcode  . seems no worse than the reasoning for merging the hull clubs . on a similar theme we could merge Wigan and leigh and of course the triangle of Castleford, Featherstone and Wakefield for no other reason than it could be amusing watching the debate on where they play. also if you did those mergers than there's no reason to relegate Toulouse .

 

 

 

Edited June 5, 2022 by paul hicks