IMG Grading Unveiled

[Ovenden Grunt]

134 pages of 'mostly' utter tripe️

[The Phantom Horseman]

2 hours ago, Saint Toppy said:

Not true on both the pints i've highlighted, both will impact their financial points scoring. The stadium negatively because of the Primacy of Tenure (plus not sure it meets all the other criteria set). The youth development positively because money invested in your youth development can be deducted from your profit calcs. So the more you invest the more profit you can report.

The point I was making about the stadium is that they won't score negatively in relation to a large number of other clubs. Odsal probably gets more criticism (including from Bradford fans) about the general state of the place and the spectator experience, but they are unlikely to score any fewer points for their stadium than most other clubs.

The scoring system for stadia is either 1.5 points if you meet the SL minimum standards on 9 very specific areas (mostly to do with media access), or 0.5 points for everyone else.

So those people who are saying no way can Bradford make SL because of the state of their stadium - that's irrelevant (of course they could be denied entry through the existing "not meeting SL standards" criteria, but there's plenty of precedent for that being ignored over the years).

Again, not having a pop at Bradford, I don't think they'll get enough points anyway, - just saying that people who reckon it's unthinkable that Bradford could be admitted to SL playing at Odsal as it is now, there's nothing that would even downgrade them in the IMG scoring system.

Edited July 13, 2023 by The Phantom Horseman

[GUBRATS]

41 minutes ago, Ovenden Grunt said:

134 pages of 'mostly' utter tripe️

Indeed 

[Damien]

1 hour ago, Harry Stottle said:

Do me a favour Damien and explain how the catchment areas are designated, is it area authority or postcode applicable? 

I ask because Lowton which borders Leigh - approx 1/2 mile from the LSV - has a Warrington postcode but is under Wigan Metro for payable services, I am sure there must be further examples of this throughout the clubs/areas.

Its for the local authority area and its using the figures in the xlsx spreadsheet in the download below 'Figure 3: Population change between 2011 and 2021, local authorities in England and Wales' on this page:

Population and household estimates, England and Wales - Office for National Statistics (ons.gov.uk)

[Les Tonks Sidestep]

53 minutes ago, Damien said:

Its for the local authority area and its using the figures in the xlsx spreadsheet in the download below 'Figure 3: Population change between 2011 and 2021, local authorities in England and Wales' on this page:

Population and household estimates, England and Wales - Office for National Statistics (ons.gov.uk)

...

Edited July 13, 2023 by Les Tonks Sidestep

[Damien]

13 minutes ago, Les Tonks Sidestep said:

Latest release of that page is here 

That's focusing on different data. Where is the population breakdown on that page by local authority?

[Dave T]

2 hours ago, David Shepherd said:

As far as I can see, it's based on local authority population, which is less than ideal.  As an example, both Fev and Cas have quite a decent following in the Selby area, Cas also have a following in Methley and Allerton Bywater (both Leeds CC) but that doesn't count because it's not within Wakefield MDC's borders. Wakefield themselves have more than a handful of fans in the Barnsley MDC area.

Bit of rethink required on this metric.

I'm not sure this metric is too problematic. If we look at what it is there to do, it is to benefit clubs who are not playing in small towns with loads of other clubs around them. 

If we start to widen what we use as a potential audience, then the benchmark just increases too. 

It's fine for delivering the aimed outcome. 

If clubs do really well by resonating with people outside of their local authority, they will score well on crowds, social media, tv viewers etc. 

[Les Tonks Sidestep]

18 minutes ago, Damien said:

That's focusing on different data. Where is the population breakdown on that page by local authority?

I deleted my post because the updated page links back to the old page for the (required) data 

[Damien]

11 minutes ago, Dave T said:

I'm not sure this metric is too problematic. If we look at what it is there to do, it is to benefit clubs who are not playing in small towns with loads of other clubs around them. 

If we start to widen what we use as a potential audience, then the benchmark just increases too. 

It's fine for delivering the aimed outcome. 

If clubs do really well by resonating with people outside of their local authority, they will score well on crowds, social media, tv viewers etc. 

It doesn't benefit London that play in a local authority area of only 215k.

[Tommygilf]

32 minutes ago, Dave T said:

I'm not sure this metric is too problematic. If we look at what it is there to do, it is to benefit clubs who are not playing in small towns with loads of other clubs around them. 

If we start to widen what we use as a potential audience, then the benchmark just increases too. 

It's fine for delivering the aimed outcome. 

If clubs do really well by resonating with people outside of their local authority, they will score well on crowds, social media, tv viewers etc. 

Its a blunt instrument I think, which is why I'm glad its not worth too much. I do appreciate what they are getting at though with a basic principle of a higher number of people per club being a better thing.

[Dave T]

2 hours ago, Damien said:

It doesn't benefit London that play in a local authority area of only 215k.

Don't they play in Wandsworth with 330k?

[The Hallucinating Goose]

5 hours ago, Ovenden Grunt said:

134 pages of 'mostly' utter tripe️

I lost track of this thread a long time ago and have barely visited it since.

Could anyone give me a quick overview of the latest discussion points?

[Damien]

15 minutes ago, Dave T said:

Don't they play in Wandsworth with 330k?

I thought it was Merton. Regardless the point is the same.

[Les Tonks Sidestep]

1 hour ago, The Hallucinating Goose said:

I lost track of this thread a long time ago and have barely visited it since.

Could anyone give me a quick overview of the latest discussion points?

It's great/It's garbage*

*delete as you see fit

[GUBRATS]

4 hours ago, Damien said:

It doesn't benefit London that play in a local authority area of only 215k.

Do they ? , Which one ? , They seem to be playing somewhere different every month 

[GUBRATS]

1 hour ago, The Hallucinating Goose said:

I lost track of this thread a long time ago and have barely visited it since.

Could anyone give me a quick overview of the latest discussion points?

BLX 

[The Hallucinating Goose]

8 minutes ago, GUBRATS said:

BLX 

Oh, are they looking at getting Bradford back into Super League? 

[Dave T]

1 hour ago, Damien said:

I thought it was Merton. Regardless the point is the same.

The postcode comes under Wandsworth, but I don't know the area personally. 

If it is the case, it would mean London would get 1.5pts for that versus 0.5 for Wakefield  and Cas. And that's sort of what it's intended to do. 

It is a bit clumsy, but I think it's a tough one to measure, but it will ultimately tease out the right ranking in this space. 

[Damien]

12 minutes ago, Dave T said:

The postcode comes under Wandsworth, but I don't know the area personally. 

If it is the case, it would mean London would get 1.5pts for that versus 0.5 for Wakefield  and Cas. And that's sort of what it's intended to do. 

It is a bit clumsy, but I think it's a tough one to measure, but it will ultimately tease out the right ranking in this space. 

The local authority where the stadium is his Merton. That is what counts.

[GUBRATS]

1 minute ago, Damien said:

The local authority where the stadium is his Merton. That is what counts.

Which stadium ?

[Dave T]

1 hour ago, Damien said:

The local authority where the stadium is his Merton. That is what counts.

Yeah, that's what I used. Wimbledon's ground isn't it? 

[yipyee]

11 hours ago, The Phantom Horseman said:

The point I was making about the stadium is that they won't score negatively in relation to a large number of other clubs. Odsal probably gets more criticism (including from Bradford fans) about the general state of the place and the spectator experience, but they are unlikely to score any fewer points for their stadium than most other clubs.

The scoring system for stadia is either 1.5 points if you meet the SL minimum standards on 9 very specific areas (mostly to do with media access), or 0.5 points for everyone else.

So those people who are saying no way can Bradford make SL because of the state of their stadium - that's irrelevant (of course they could be denied entry through the existing "not meeting SL standards" criteria, but there's plenty of precedent for that being ignored over the years).

Again, not having a pop at Bradford, I don't think they'll get enough points anyway, - just saying that people who reckon it's unthinkable that Bradford could be admitted to SL playing at Odsal as it is now, there's nothing that would even downgrade them in the IMG scoring system.

As you say its points for not against.

Can host a large crowd, decent hospitality, decent media facilities, covered seating larger than the minimum required, be hard to not give odsal top points as you can't knock off points for bad areas

[Damien]

2 hours ago, Dave T said:

Yeah, that's what I used. Wimbledon's ground isn't it? 

Postcodes are irrelevant though so I dont understand why you are trying to use that as the measure. It is what the local authority is and that is Merton. This is about as clear as it gets:

https://news.merton.gov.uk/2019/01/17/afc-wimbledon-secure-their-return-to-merton/

Again this is the complete opposite of what you said about this benefiting clubs who are not playing in small towns with loads of other clubs around them. London have easily the biggest catchment area yet don't even get full marks and get the same points as those small towns with loads of clubs around them.

[Spidey]

8 hours ago, yipyee said:

As you say its points for not against.

Can host a large crowd, decent hospitality, decent media facilities, covered seating larger than the minimum required, be hard to not give odsal top points as you can't knock off points for bad areas

Are pitch dimensions part of any criteria?  Currently Odsal has special dispensation to host RL games due to it being lower than the minimum (as are a few others) -  will that be taken into account?

[Dave T]

8 hours ago, Damien said:

Postcodes are irrelevant though so I dont understand why you are trying to use that as the measure. It is what the local authority is and that is Merton. This is about as clear as it gets:

https://news.merton.gov.uk/2019/01/17/afc-wimbledon-secure-their-return-to-merton/

Again this is the complete opposite of what you said about this benefiting clubs who are not playing in small towns with loads of other clubs around them. London have easily the biggest catchment area yet don't even get full marks and get the same points as those small towns with loads of clubs around them.

Using postcode as a way to find where a stadium is is perfectly natural. But as per my post, I don't know the area, so of its in Merton, fine. But a search of the stadium postcode suggests Wandsworth (it looks like it's pretty much a border) hence my original question. 

I think we are being naive if we just think a London team has a huge catchmentt area because they have called themselves London Broncos. A little like not being able to fudge things by Wire just calling themselves Cheshire and saying we have a huge catchment area. 

There are clearly flaws with the metric (as there are with them all if we over-analyse them) - for example, Wire are deemed to have a higher number than some other clubs, but in reality we are surrounded by other clubs. As you point out, it doesn't reflect unique cities like London too well. But it absolutely will downgrade the small village teams. 

Ultimately the dry run will tease our anomalies if they are problematic, but I see no reason why these can't tease out the main points across the piece. I don't think many of the categories are problematic, but I suppose we'll see what changes over time.