IMG Grading Unveiled

[Jughead]

The Batley chairman’s reservation about “clubs finishing top and not getting promoted” is an odd one when six months ago his team, who hadn’t finished top, had a chance at promotion, denying the top club in the Championship. 

[David Shepherd]

6 minutes ago, Eddie said:

Who would you say are bigger than Bradford, of all the non-SL clubs? 

On recent performance, Fev, TOXII, Halifax, Widnes, Batley.

Some Bulls fans think it's 1999 and there are still foam hands and bullmania hats festooned among their massive crowds.

Edited March 10, 2023 by David Shepherd

[MattSantos]

11 minutes ago, dboy said:

 

That's incorrect.

If X is graded B, and Y are graded B, Y will replace X.

The grading ranks clubs, but assigns a grade. It's the grade that's important.

It really isn't. Please review slide 15. It's the score within the grade. Hence the Batley chairman's commentary.

 

[David Shepherd]

3 minutes ago, ShropshireBull said:

No it isn’t , points are what counts. If the bottom SL club still has more points than the winner of championship they stay up. Nothing in that doc about p and r on field , just highest points. 

Are you certain that B5 and B6 (for example) are incumbents? Nowhere is this indicated.

[dboy]

3 minutes ago, David Shepherd said:

On recent performance, Fev, TOXII, Halifax, Widnes, Batley.

Some Bulls fans think it's still 1999 and there are still foam hands and bullmania hats festooned among their massive crowds.

Bulls do top the ranking for most financial meltdown episodes, to be fair.

[The Phantom Horseman]

31 minutes ago, ShropshireBull said:

We would have the highest chance of club outside SL getting in

 

You really have no idea about that unless you have access to details not just of your own club's finances, in particular (and other metrics) but also those of other clubs.

My own back-of-a-fag-packet guess is that Bradford might rank third or fourth from current Championship clubs, but it's only a guess for the reason outlined above.

[dboy]

The slide shows the ranking list.

At the end of season 1, if a B club finishes bottom of SL, they will be replaced by the B club winning the Champ.

That hasn't changed.

The presentation is about the grading system only.

Edited March 10, 2023 by dboy

[Derwent Parker]

54 minutes ago, ShropshireBull said:

So what, you need 3 good years . If I win the champ then next year my best players are getting pinched by SL clubs and I am going down in the league. 

50% of the marks are already rigged and non central rev is a red herring because so much still comes from the opposition. When do saints get more non central rev, when they play Wigan or if they play Wakefield. Giants get more sponsorships and hospitality because of the league they are in.

No club outside of SL will be able to get a higher score than the clubs inside. York in SL would be ranked higher on crowds and commercial income than clubs inside SL but because they are outside the magic circle when we start counting they have no chance.

This plan would be good and would work if we were all starting from a level playing field.

It is very biased/rigged towards SL - but unfortunately as I always say - it is not a level playing field because 12 SL teams have a 2Million start every season -  IMG refer to non central rev but not central rev [CF] which causes the bias which means they can buy all the players they want from Championship etc, which means they are paid to be full time. Those FT teams draw better crowds etc which gives them a huge advantage of any team at top of Champ that is not fortunate to have a Mr Beaumont etc.

It would work in time if all teams had shared equal CF which is never going to happen. SL teams would not have as much cash to rob all the best players - therefore Champ would not lose them all etc

It may work if Sky does eventually pull the plug and then everyone will be on equal CF [0] but that's not what anyone wants.

[Pulga]

As an Aussie looking in from outside I think Keighley is making Fev fans look super progressive.

[gingerjon]

4 minutes ago, dboy said:

The slide shows the ranking list.

At the end of season 1, if a B club finishes bottom of SL, they will be replaced by the B club winning the Champ.

That hasn't changed.

The presentation is about the grading system only.

Bingo 

[The Phantom Horseman]

3 minutes ago, ShropshireBull said:

So tell me which team you think are finishing above a 12th SL in the champ? Because 50 of the marks are on field and crowds. So you can be the healthiest well run club you like with great facilities like York and you still aren’t getting close

Eh? My comment was specifically about your claim that Bradford would have "the highest chance of club outside SL getting in". 

[MattSantos]

9 minutes ago, dboy said:

The slide shows the ranking list.

At the end of season 1, if a B club finishes bottom of SL, they will be replaced by the B club winning the Champ.

That hasn't changed.

The presentation is about the grading system only.

You must have a voice typing thingy as your eyes are clearly painted on. 

 

[Archie Gordon]

There must be a reason for A, B, C (the grade) as well as 13.76, 10.12, 4.6 (the coefficient). That reason must be related to P&R - i.e. a B grade can replace a B grade via P&R. If not, the grade serves no purpose.

BUT slide 15 is fairly clear that for 2025 (season 1) the composition of SL is decided entirely by the coefficient and not the grade. What fun that will be!

[MattSantos]

1 minute ago, Archie Gordon said:

There must be a reason for A, B, C (the grade) as well as 13.76, 10.12, 4.6 (the coefficient). That reason must be related to P&R - i.e. a B grade can replace a B grade via P&R. If not, the grade serves no purpose.

BUT slide 15 is fairly clear that for 2025 (season 1) the composition of SL is decided entirely by the coefficient and not the grade. What fun that will be!

The only purpose of the grades that we can confidently ascertain is that an A grade keeps you safe. Whatever happens. If we have 15 A grades, then we have a league with 15 in it. If we have 22 clubs with an A grade, we have 22 clubs in the top league. I like this.

[Derwent Parker]

51 minutes ago, Hull Kingston Bronco said:

People need a straw man, because they struggle to argue that having current promotion criteria of "any small town that happens to have a bloke in it prepared to blow a year's profit from his chain of fried chicken shops to run a full time squad against part-timers for a couple of years" is somehow a better idea than this one.

The whole idea's nuts. 

All these #### snide remarks against Part Timers is a farce.

They wouldn't be part time if they all got 2 Million a year hand out.

How many SL teams would be Full time if Sky pulled the plug??

[dboy]

3 minutes ago, MattSantos said:

You must have a voice typing thingy as your eyes are clearly painted on. 

 

If you can show me where they have announced the "B replaces B" rule being scrapped, I'd be grateful.

[dboy]

Just now, Derwent Parker said:

How many SL teams would be Full time if Sky pulled the plug??

Zero.

Which is the same number as FT Premiership soccer teams, if Sky pulled that plug.

[MattSantos]

2 minutes ago, dboy said:

If you can show me where they have announced the "B replaces B" rule being scrapped, I'd be grateful.

Slide 15. Get your Labrador to woof it to you.

 

edit - B can replace B. If they have a higher score.

Edited March 10, 2023 by MattSantos

[David Shepherd]

8 minutes ago, ShropshireBull said:

My issue is this is even more rigged. At least a Derek can come through but under img’s system you have no chance. 

A rich fan piling money in is not sustainable. Hopefully now that Degsy has got Leigh to the promised land, he can turn his financial muscle towards making the club self sustaining.  He won't be around forever and for Leigh's sake should be looking to set the club up for the future.

[The Blues Ox]

1 hour ago, The Phantom Horseman said:

I genuinely don't know why you keep saying Bradford are coming off fine out of this scoring system. It's a disaster for them isn't it? Their main selling points are catchment area and having an academy team - one of those is only 10% and the other is irrelevant unless you are in the ballpark of an A license, and Bulls will be nowhere near that. They'll do okay on fans, but no better than existing SL clubs, and they'll struggle mightily in the stadium category. Not sure they will do that well in the finance section either.

I'm not sure on this either and not sure where SB's confidence comes from. I thought the new gradings might actually favor Bradford and London but my initial reaction is that both do not come off well from it at all. London will probably get a Cat C and Bradford will be a borderline B/C and certainly nowhere near a spot in SL.

[Hull Kingston Bronco]

52 minutes ago, ShropshireBull said:

It is not different because the system they designed still protects the clubs who are already in the magic circle. Which has been the problem for the last several years (Toronto covid, Leigh kneecapped, Toulouse kneecapped) no surprise that this year  with Leigh being given the same money as the others and with Covid gone so they could bring players in to compete we have an engaging league top to bottom. 

There are significant differences, therefore it is different. Just because you think one component has the same result, does not make the other differences not exist.

52 minutes ago, ShropshireBull said:

I think it is a bit rich of you to tell sky and the customers what they ‘should’ be interested in. Sky buy eyeballs, and where p and r exist games throughout the league matter to fans and can get a tv audience. Your own arguement though shows why you tank the championship because if their is no on field relegation then there is no on field promotion. So there is zero incentive to care about the championship because they are fighting for nothing. 

I'm not telling them anything, but do you really think Sky are buying relegation battles over excellence? 

Why is winning the Championship not an attractive thing to compete for? What do you think teams in the Queensland Cup have been doing since 1988? They're not fighting for nothing, that's just reductive. 

52 minutes ago, ShropshireBull said:

Finally we get to the truth. You think it should be rigged to favour clubs who are no bigger or better or over more than half the clubs in the championship. Giants offer no more than York, Salford no more than London. You also don’t get to say this is a radical change then say as a defence “well we’ve always rigged it in their favour.”

You are in favour of rigging it because it benefits your club. It’s why a lot of Bulls fans will fancy this as well for the same reason but some of us can look beyond the selfishness of our own clubs to see why this stinks for the overall game. 

I hate to spring this on you, but the current model already protects the clubs you mention. All they have to do is finish 11th. Nothing more. They don't need to invest in audience growth, they doni't need to improve the customer or viewer experience, they don't need to invest in talent development... they don't even need to grow their revenues as long as the Ken Davys of this world willl still write a cheque. Nothing. Just finish 11th.

Under the new model, opportunities remain for clubs to move into the elite competition. You just choose to pretend that they don't. There are plenty of sports around the world who have grown the number of teams in their elite league as revenues and audience demand have grown. How many clubs are in the NRL? Who got promoted to the elite league last year, Keighley in the P&R system, or Redcliffe Dolphins in the Australian model? 

I'm just open minded to trying a new route that works elsewhere, nothing more. 

[Harry Stottle]

1 hour ago, gingerjon said:

B ranked team finishing in a relegation spot will be relegated and replaced by a B ranked team finishing in a promotion spot.

Does that work if the B ranked who is up for relegation is a higher grade B and the promotion hopeful is a low grade B, honest QUESTION.

Perhaps @Tommygilfcan tell us?

Edited March 10, 2023 by Harry Stottle

[David Shepherd]

5 minutes ago, Derwent Parker said:

All these #### snide remarks against Part Timers is a farce.

They wouldn't be part time if they all got 2 Million a year hand out.

How many SL teams would be Full time if Sky pulled the plug??

I think you're missing the point. 

If you grow your revenues, you don't need to rely on the Sky money.  IMG aren't daft, the market value of niche sports like ours in declining in TV land. The linear broadcasters just aren't generating the revenue to sustain it anymore. 

[MattSantos]

Just now, Harry Stottle said:

Does that work if the B ranked who is up for relegation is a higher grade B and the promotion hopeful is a low grade B, honest QUESTION.

Slide 15 suggests it doesn't. 

It clearly points to league positions based on points.

 

[Hull Kingston Bronco]

2 minutes ago, ShropshireBull said:

But it doesn’t do that because it will kneecap genuine growth markets like York, Toulouse London from ever ranking higher than the SL teams. Literally a straw man that you just created of other people’s arguements .

Clint Goodchild at York disagrees with you.

You assume the number of SL clubs is fixed, that one needs to move out before others can move in. That's demonstrably false. Even ignoring that fact, there won't be 12 A-grade teams so B-grade teams will be able to churn in and out until such time as there are.