IMG - Vote on Wednesday

[Wakefield Ram]

6 minutes ago, Tommygilf said:

To an extent, it is.

We need support across the board to show demand for the game. 

Demand won't be created by nicer stadiums.

[Gav Wilson]

1 minute ago, Wakefield Ram said:

Demand won't be created by nicer stadiums.

It'll certainly help.

[Tommygilf]

6 minutes ago, Wakefield Ram said:

Demand won't be created by nicer stadiums.

A) it certainly helps

B) if councils and LAs are backing clubs with infrastructure then that is a good thing

[Wakefield Ram]

I'll no doubt get slated for my cynicism at these proposals but here's my observations.

I have worked with "strategic partners" before. They are not partners they are third parties looking to make as much money for themselves within the terms of their contract. Nothing wrong with that in itself, but always worth bearing in mind that their interests may diverge from interests of the sport. I imagine both sides will have exit clauses so 12 years is meaningless.

They have done the classic management consultant job of re-hashing old ideas to please the more powerful people in the organisation - in this case the biggest clubs in SL.

Grading - just a re-hash of licencing by another name with a few tweaks to make it seem different.  IMHO possibly changing the grading to annually will encourage fringe Grade A/B into more short term spending. The only way clubs can be graded objectively is to apply some minimum criteria like ground size. Everything else will be cyclical on team performance or open to manipulation. Number of season ticket holders? Easy, give them away to kids or sell 1st  x 000 at heavily discounted price.

Promotion and Relegation -  Until you have at least 12 Grade A clubs, there's scenarios which won't work. 

Not 2 x10 - not surprised -that would have reduced support for their proposals.

Challenge Cup Final in May - wow you mean back to where it was more successfully for 80 odd years. Thanks for that insight.

An international calendar - thank you for that insight.

No loop fixtures - will be interesting how SL clubs react to losing 3  home game revenue. They will have to increase revenue per home game by c25% to make up the difference.

Maximum 2 overseas clubs in SL - that's handy there's only 2 in RL. So if Toronto re-formed and got to Grade A, we just demote Toulouse or Catalan if they both are in SL? Or just tell Toronto they can never get in? Again a fairly meaningless sop to please existing SL clubs.

Not so much a "re-imagining" of sport more a "re-hashing" of old ideas. Classic management consultant exercise.

The last "Joint Venture" I witnessed in a work capacity ended with the client suing the "strategic partner". And they were a big consultancy group.

The major issues look like 

Agreeing the objective grading criteria which cannot be manipulated. Any subjective measures will be open legal challenge.

How SL clubs will replace 3 home game revenues 

Promotion and Relegation when there's Grade B clubs in SL 

Which of these proposals (apart from an international calendar) is going to make more people want to watch RL? Still predominantly the same players playing for the same clubs in the same stadiums to the same laws.

 

Edited September 30, 2022 by Wakefield Ram

[Hemi4561]

30 minutes ago, Wakefield Ram said:

I'll no doubt get slated for my cynicism at these proposals but here's my observations.

I have worked with "strategic partners" before. They are not partners they are third parties looking to make as much money for themselves within the terms of their contract. Nothing wrong with that in itself, but always worth bearing in mind that their interests may diverge from interests of the sport. I imagine both sides will have exit clauses so 12 years is meaningless.

They have done the classic management consultant job of re-hashing old ideas to please the more powerful people in the organisation - in this case the biggest clubs in SL.

Grading - just a re-hash of licencing by another name with a few tweaks to make it seem different.  IMHO possibly changing the grading to annually will encourage fringe Grade A/B into more short term spending. The only way clubs can be graded objectively is to apply some minimum criteria like ground size. Everything else will be cyclical on team performance or open to manipulation. Number of season ticket holders? Easy, give them away to kids or sell 1st  x 000 at heavily discounted price.

Promotion and Relegation -  Until you have at least 12 Grade A clubs, there's scenarios which won't work. 

Not 2 x10 - not surprised -that would have reduced support for their proposals.

Challenge Cup Final in May - wow you mean back to where it was more successfully for 80 odd years. Thanks for that insight.

An international calendar - thank you for that insight.

No loop fixtures - will be interesting how SL clubs react to losing 3  home game revenue. They will have to increase revenue per home game by c25% to make up the difference.

Maximum 2 overseas clubs in SL - that's handy there's only 2 in RL. So if Toronto re-formed and got to Grade A, we just demote Toulouse or Catalan if they both are in SL? Or just tell Toronto they can never get in? Again a fairly meaningless sop to please existing SL clubs.

Not so much a "re-imagining" of sport more a "re-hashing" of old ideas. Classic management consultant exercise.

The last "Joint Venture" I witnessed in a work capacity ended with the client suing the "strategic partner". And they were a big consultancy group.

The major issues look like 

Agreeing the objective grading criteria which cannot be manipulated. Any subjective measures will be open legal challenge.

How SL clubs will replace 3 home game revenues 

Promotion and Relegation when there's Grade B clubs in SL 

Which of these proposals (apart from an international calendar) is going to make more people want to watch RL? Still predominantly the same players playing for the same clubs in the same stadiums to the same laws.

 

Hallelujah, at least one other person who can see the wood for the trees and who understands "  consultation" and "strategic partnerships" especially where the contracting party are  weak as the management of Rugby league is. 

 

Edited September 30, 2022 by Hemi4561
Phone hiccup

[Wakefield Ram]

3 minutes ago, Hemi4561 said:

Hallelujah, at least one other person who can see the woods for the trees

Glad it's not just me. I thought IMG were going to reveal their marketing ideas, which is their specialism.

Edited September 30, 2022 by Wakefield Ram

[Blind side johnny]

2 hours ago, Wakefield Ram said:

So a Grade B club could finish 2-3 places from bottom of SL and then gets relegated on a subjective comparison against another Grade B club?

Devil's advocate here, if both Grade B clubs , Featherstone are in SL finish 10th, Leigh in the Championship and spend a lot of money on club and team and finish top, a committee decide that Leigh are a "better" Grade B so Leigh get promoted and Featherstone relegated?

Or if there's only 14 Grade A clubs and they are in SL, there's no promotion or relegation before the season starts?

**Clubs chosen just to illustrate the point.

These aren't unrealistic scenarios, this is no different to licensing proposal in 20+ years ago. 

You say subjective but the proposal says that the criteria will be objective. Clearly you don't believe them.

[Human Punk]

1 hour ago, Wakefield Ram said:

Glad it's not just me. I thought IMG were going to reveal their marketing ideas, which is their specialism.

I couldn't agree more. I was perhaps naively expecting a whole raft of exciting new ideas and proposals to take the game forward in ways I hadn't imagined, no just a stale rehash of a selection of tired old boilers from the last 20 years. Who did IMG have working on this? The intern?

[wiganermike]

3 hours ago, Wakefield Ram said:

So a Grade B club could finish 2-3 places from bottom of SL and then gets relegated on a subjective comparison against another Grade B club?

Devil's advocate here, if both Grade B clubs , Featherstone are in SL finish 10th, Leigh in the Championship and spend a lot of money on club and team and finish top, a committee decide that Leigh are a "better" Grade B so Leigh get promoted and Featherstone relegated?

Or if there's only 14 Grade A clubs and they are in SL, there's no promotion or relegation before the season starts?

**Clubs chosen just to illustrate the point.

These aren't unrealistic scenarios, this is no different to licensing proposal in 20+ years ago. 

On the face of it yes that would be how it would be expected to work as the initial proposal suggests B grade clubs will exchange places should one in the Championship be graded as stronger than one in SL. In practice you would expect that your hypothetical Featherstone would have been warned at their most recent review (and possibly the one before that) that they were in danger of not meeting required standards/being surpassed by a Championship club and so were at risk of demotion. It is very unlikely that clubs will be demoted/ promoted based on the events of a single season.

It is also possible that some amendment could be made before the proposals are adopted that will allow for expansion of SL by admitting additional strong B grade clubs rather than 1 up meaning 1 must go down (rather than only expanding by adding new A grade clubs). What we will likely see is some negotiation on specifics before the structure is finalised. Using your hypothetical it would be unfair to punish Featherstone if they had continued to meet the standards they had in previous seasons in SL simply because Leigh had also achieved what was asked of them to be elevated to SL.

In a scenario where every club in SL has an A grade the proposals put forward state that any club outside would need to attain an A grade to enter SL. As I said though I wouldn't be surprised to see that slightly amended as an A grade may be too difficult in practice to attain in the Championship (though the clubs won't know that until they are given details of what constitutes the minimum standards for each grade).

Edited September 30, 2022 by wiganermike

[GUBRATS]

19 hours ago, Jughead said:

Well, Keighley are an embarrassment. Sure they’ll join the NCL…oh wait, maybe not. 

When is the last time you went to Keighley for a game ?

[Big Picture]

1 hour ago, Wakefield Ram said:

Glad it's not just me. I thought IMG were going to reveal their marketing ideas, which is their specialism.

Maybe IMG thinks that these ideas will somehow make RL more marketable than it is now, or marketable in ways it isn't now.  In either case they'd be mistaken.

[Hemi4561]

37 minutes ago, Blind side johnny said:

You say subjective but the proposal says that the criteria will be objective. Clearly you don't believe them.

To me it is a about trust.

IMG may say that an academy is a non negotiable absolute objective criteria for an A grading  and also that they will have nothing to do with choosing who has an academy. So far so good, however it is the RFL who choose who gets an academy, so the reality is that it will be the puppet masters at the RFL who manipulate who can satisfy that "objective" criteria. 

Both IMG, and the RFL, then have cast iron alibis. IMG say we only provided a purely objective  criteria, whilst the RFL say we accepted IMG's advice and it  never crossed our minds that it we held the trump card over who could fulfil it. 

[GUBRATS]

19 hours ago, Jughead said:

Except they’ve not said any of that. They’ve gone on about being a local sport for local people. Royston Vaysey Cougars have embarrassed themselves and the sport. It’s that exact attitude we want shot off. 

When was the last time you went to 

Keighley ?

[Davo5]

10 minutes ago, GUBRATS said:

When is the last time you went to Keighley for a game ?

Why,has the ground changed ?

[GUBRATS]

19 hours ago, Dave T said:

Perceptions around licensing are the problem, rather than corruption or bias. But there is generally an attitude in RL that if things aren't as you agree with then it is corrupt. 

And tbh, I'm not sure what we can do about that, I think these are ingrained attitudes that are unlikely to be changed. But if we think it's the right thing to do, ultimately some voices will need to be ignored. 

It's primarily the geography issue , it is impossible to be completely impartial and fair if you know where the various clubs are based 

[Hemi4561]

7 minutes ago, GUBRATS said:

When is the last time you went to Keighley for a game ?

Let's not hold our  breath for an answer. It would not surprise me if Jughead supports his own club to the death (of others), and has little interest in the wider community of the Championship and L1. 

 

[GUBRATS]

18 hours ago, Stuff Smith said:

Nothing works in Stoke. Know this from experience.

I've done loads of work in Stoke 

[Jughead]

22 minutes ago, GUBRATS said:

When is the last time you went to Keighley for a game ?

The old genitalia measuring. You’re nothing if not predictable.  

[GUBRATS]

9 hours ago, Roy Haggerty said:

Little fish rarely want the size of the pond to be increased. 

Sometimes neither do the big fish

[Stuff Smith]

16 minutes ago, GUBRATS said:

I've done loads of work in Stoke 

Best things about Stoke: people calling you "duck"; the way they pronounce tomato.

[doc]

1 minute ago, Stuff Smith said:

Best things about Stoke: people calling you "duck"; the way they pronounce tomato.

And Wrights pies.

[Jughead]

4 minutes ago, Stuff Smith said:

Best things about Stoke: people calling you "duck"; the way they pronounce tomato.

Oatcakes are horrendous. 

[Stuff Smith]

Just now, Jughead said:

Oatcakes are horrendous. 

The fact that Stoke is really Hanley. (That's probably enough Stoke stuff.)

[Spidey]

7 minutes ago, Stuff Smith said:

Best things about Stoke: people calling you "duck"; the way they pronounce tomato.

Actually sausage & cheese oatcakes are the best

[Spidey]

1 minute ago, Stuff Smith said:

The fact that Stoke is really Hanley. (That's probably enough Stoke stuff.)

Going up Hanley duck?