IMG Grading Unveiled

[Derwent Parker]

1 minute ago, Saint Toppy said:

Where have IMG said that one B grade club can only replace another B grade club if their overall points are higher within the B banding ?

I thought that guy from Keighly claimed that when he voted against the proposals, but IMG then clarified that it wasn't how it would operate ?

IMG said SL will comprise of all the As and the remaining places will be filled with the Bs with the Highest gradings.

So if SL12 has a higher score than all Champ Bs inc top Champ then they are not relegated.

[Saint Toppy]

3 minutes ago, Toby Chopra said:

This is the March 9 release, which has a table which shows that SL will comprise the As and the highest graded Bs. This was confirmed in the club consultations which is why a small number voted against it.

https://www.rugby-league.com/uploads/docs/IMG & Rugby League Grading Criteria[81].pdf

But that Ranking criteria now appears to have been removed from the latest guidelines that have just been released.

Wasn't that the whole point, that document in March was the initial consultation document and the one released now is the final one to be voted on based on feedback from the consultation period ?

I'll have to try and find it but i'm sure IMG said they would take those concerns on board and they would be reflected in the final document issued, hence why that Ranking table is now gone.

[JM2010]

My take on it was that if a B Grade won the Championship then they would replace the lowest finishing B Grade in SL

C grades can’t get into SL, B grades have the opportunity as long as they win the Championship and A grades can’t be relegated 

Edited July 5, 2023 by JM2010

[Damien]

Going through the 5 pillars I just cant see how much is going to change compared to what we see now. It also feels like a rehash of different proposals and criteria going back about 30 years.

In fandom I think the attendance measure in isolation is far too crude and simplistic. It shouldn't just be about encouraging clubs to get fans through the door at all costs. I understand the principle but would hate to see clubs reverting to offers like we have seen at Huddersfield in the past as they dont work in the long run and are counter productive. There should be some sort of minimum pricing being taken into account for me. 6,000 at £20 a head is far more valuable than 7,000 at £10 per head. The digital stuff is all a little meh and reads like tick box stuff lifted from somewhere but contributes little anyway.

League performance measures obviously favour SL clubs and 25% is a big percentage overall. I don't think this was ever going to be any different but it obviously makes it easier for those wishing to stay in the club than for those wishing to join it.

I would have preferred much more weighting given to finance. It is every bit as important as the Fandom and Performance pillars and arguably is the biggest thing that has held the game/clubs back. It also is what is needed to facilitate improvements to every other pillar. I'd have also liked to have seen a bigger weighting for owner investment to try and entice benefactors into the sport. That is also about the only measure in finance which again doesn't necessarily favour a current Super League club.

The Stadium pillar is pretty straightforward and obvious. Initially I thought this may be the one criteria that upsets the apple cart, and finds a SL club like Cas in trouble, but the closer I look even Cas should score at least 1.75 out of 3 so in effect its going to do little to shake things up.

In catchment I'm disappointed there isn't more focus on the amateur game and building up clubs in your area. There should be a decent weighting to that because that is all future fans and players. The Community and Local Authority District measure is just bizarre. Using the example I am most familiar with Wigan and Leigh are towns in their own right. Just because someone in Government decided to add Leigh to the Wigan Metropolitan Borough in the 1970s doesn't change that. I would even argue Wigan compete more for hearts and minds in places like Billinge, Haydock and Ashton with St Helens than they ever do in any area with Leigh. Obviously though Saints are in a different Local Authority District so that's okay.

[Toby Chopra]

3 minutes ago, Saint Toppy said:

But that Ranking criteria now appears to have been removed from the latest guidelines that have just been released.

Wasn't that the whole point, that document in March was the initial consultation document and the one released now is the final one to be voted on based on feedback from the consultation period ?

I'll have to try and find it but i'm sure IMG said they would take those concerns on board and they would be reflected in the final document issued, hence why that Ranking table is now gone.

I haven't seen anywhere that that was changed, and it would have been highly visible if it If it was. Plus there would be no need for Keighley and Fev etc to vote against the proposals in the final vote as winning the Championship would be enough.

I think the table is not in the latest document because simply this is about fleshing out the scoring criteria.

Rightly or wrongly, IMGs aims are clear, they want the 12 strongest clubs in Superleague as determined by their grading.

[OriginalMrC]

For anyone saying its skewed towards SL clubs that's kinda the point. On the whole SL clubs have better facilities and bigger fan bases. There's a handful of clubs outside SL with the facilities (and potential fan bases) to match. There is also significant weighting towards league position so any championship club who finishes top of the league, and has half decent facilities, should go up from what I can see. 

[The Phantom Horseman]

Two further issues that have surprised me looking at the new IMG document.

Under "Stadium", the Facilities score seems to be either 1.5 if you meet SL standards on a prescribed range of issues, and 0.5 if you don't. That's it.

So if you play in a crumbling, ill-kept ground or a neat, well-developed, well-appointed ground that doesn't have 1 of (say) a 40-seat director's box, 200 sponsors's seats, or a 2,500 square metres broadcast parking area, you get the same grading. There seems to be no incentive whatsoever to actually improve the crumbling stadia.

Also, "Stadium Utilisation" doesn't mean what I thought it would. I thought this would mean how much the stadium was utilised overall ie how many games it staged and what extraneous use it achieved. But no, it means what percentage of capacity is filled on average. This seems to make it worthwhile for clubs to actually look at ways of reducing their capacity - knock a stand down here, write an area off as unsafe there.

[Toby Chopra]

6 minutes ago, Damien said:

Going through the 5 pillars I just cant see how much is going to change compared to what we see now. It also feels like a rehash of different proposals and criteria going back about 30 years.

In fandom I think the attendance measure in isolation is far too crude and simplistic. It shouldn't just be about encouraging clubs to get fans through the door at all costs. I understand the principle but would hate to see clubs reverting to offers like we have seen at Huddersfield in the past as they dont work in the long run and are counter productive. There should be some sort of minimum pricing being taken into account for me. 6,000 at £20 a head is far more valuable than 7,000 at £10 per head. The digital stuff is all a little meh and reads like tick box stuff lifted from somewhere but contributes little anyway.

League performance measures obviously favour SL clubs and 25% is a big percentage overall. I don't think this was ever going to be any different but it obviously makes it easier for those wishing to stay in the club than for those wishing to join it.

I would have preferred much more weighting given to finance. It is every bit as important as the Fandom and Performance pillars and arguably is the biggest thing that has held the game/clubs back. It also is what is needed to facilitate improvements to every other pillar. I'd have also liked to have seen a bigger weighting for owner investment to try and entice benefactors into the sport. That is also about the only measure in finance which again doesn't necessarily favour a current Super League club.

The Stadium pillar is pretty straightforward and obvious. Initially I thought this may be the one criteria that upsets the apple cart, and finds a SL club like Cas in trouble, but the closer I look even Cas should score at least 1.75 out of 3 so in effect its going to do little to shake things up.

In catchment I'm disappointed there isn't more focus on the amateur game and building up clubs in your area. There should be a decent weighting to that because that is all future fans and players. The Community and Local Authority District measure is just bizarre. Using the example I am most familiar with Wigan and Leigh are towns in their own right. Just because someone in Government decided to add Leigh to the Wigan Metropolitan Borough in the 1970s doesn't change that. I would even argue Wigan compete more for hearts and minds in places like Billinge, Haydock and Ashton with St Helens than they ever do in any area with Leigh. Obviously though Saints are in a different Local Authority District so that's okay.

When you add it all up it effectively means smaller Superleague clubs will get a year or so's reprieve if they finish bottom, but if they keep finishing bottom and their fanbase falls away then someone else will get a go. For the bigger clubs, the protections are almost indefinite unless they decline so much that they lose Cat A status, but that will take years.

So I suppose that's an investment incentive of sorts, as it means someone can plan investment into an existing SL club over at least a 3 year horizon without fear of it all being lost in year 1. 

But it doesn't do much to incentivise investment outside superleague which surely in expansion areas we want to do? As I said above, hard to see why you'd plunge money into London or Toulouse on this system.

[The Phantom Horseman]

53 minutes ago, OriginalMrC said:

For anyone saying its skewed towards SL clubs that's kinda the point. On the whole SL clubs have better facilities and bigger fan bases.

You must have missed the last 20 years where there have been constant complaints about certain SL clubs pocketing the £2m Sky money every year and continuing to play in delapidated stadia. Ironically, there is nothing in the new scoring system that would effectively penalise them for continuing to do so.

As for fan bases, there's a huge correlation between SL membership and fan base size, certainly in terms of crowds. That's the reason people are saying that aspect is skewed.

Edited July 5, 2023 by The Phantom Horseman

[Man of Kent]

17 minutes ago, The Phantom Horseman said:

Under "Stadium", the Facilities score seems to be either 1.5 if you meet SL standards on a prescribed range of issues, and 0.5 if you don't. That's it.

So if you play in a crumbling, ill-kept ground or a neat, well-developed, well-appointed ground that doesn't have 1 of (say) a 40-seat director's box, 200 sponsors's seats, or a 2,500 square metres broadcast parking area, you get the same grading. There seems to be no incentive whatsoever to actually improve the crumbling stadia.

Surely the opposite is true. 1 point could make a lot of difference.

Edited July 5, 2023 by Man of Kent

[The Phantom Horseman]

2 minutes ago, Man of Kent said:

Surely the opposite is true. 1 point could make a lot of difference.

Look at the criteria. It's not about improving the experience for fans. It's about parking for media trucks, having a big enough media room, having 200 cordoned-off sponsors' seats, having a big enough corporate lounge, having a huge press box.

If for reasons of space you can't achieve ALL of the 9 areas listed (and some clubs will be unable to achieve them all for reasons of space), there seems little point in bothering.

More importantly, there's no NEGATIVE incentive to not let your ground fall into a crumbling heap. You'll get the same grading as any tidy, well-kept, spectator-friendly ground that can't meet all 9 SL-ready criteria.

[Man of Kent]

6 minutes ago, The Phantom Horseman said:

Look at the criteria. It's not about improving the experience for fans. It's about parking for media trucks, having a big enough media room, having 200 cordoned-off sponsors' seats, having a big enough corporate lounge, having a huge press box.

If for reasons of space you can't achieve ALL of the 9 areas listed (and some clubs will be unable to achieve them all for reasons of space), there seems little point in bothering.

More importantly, there's no NEGATIVE incentive to not let your ground fall into a crumbling heap. You'll get the same grading as any tidy, well-kept, spectator-friendly ground that can't meet all 9 SL-ready criteria.

That may be so but the criteria listed are pretty detailed and modern. It may mean more clubs like, say, Cas or Fev, have to do a Wakey and build/upgrade their facilities…..

[Toby Chopra]

5 minutes ago, The Phantom Horseman said:

Look at the criteria. It's not about improving the experience for fans. It's about parking for media trucks, having a big enough media room, having 200 cordoned-off sponsors' seats, having a big enough corporate lounge, having a huge press box.

If for reasons of space you can't achieve ALL of the 9 areas listed (and some clubs will be unable to achieve them all for reasons of space), there seems little point in bothering.

More importantly, there's no NEGATIVE incentive to not let your ground fall into a crumbling heap. You'll get the same grading as any tidy, well-kept, spectator-friendly ground that can't meet all 9 SL-ready criteria.

The incentive for not letting your ground turn into a dump is that more fans might want to attend, or attend again if they try it once. This matters for a lot of people, especially when there's so much comfort available in other experiences these days. Or alternatively, fans don't care and still attend if the rugby's good - Cas is an example of that.

Either way, I'm happy to leave it to clubs to make that call. If you look at the progress of Superleague stadia over the last 20 years or so, most have chosen to improve, and those that don't will live or die on that call. What the minimum standards dictate is largely around things that support the wider collective commercial value of Superleague: broadcasting, commercial sponsors and attracting rich investors. Clubs might not see the need to enhance these areas on their own, so this is rightly where we compel them.

 

[Jill Halfpenny fan]

3 hours ago, The Phantom Horseman said:

The other issue that strikes me is the detail of the auditing. There are 20 pages dedicated to how the social media numbers will be checked and figured out, but all we have about attendances is one line ..."Ad hoc audits will take place each season to assess the accuracy of the recorded attendance figures" - no indication of how frequently, whether they will be for every club, and whether they have already been taking place given we are already halfway through the first three-year assessment period. I make this comment as there are clubs who currently seem to be announcing attendances where the number of people in attendance visibly appears to be less than half the number announced.

The perfect job for Man of Kent

[Man of Kent]

1 minute ago, Jill Halfpenny fan said:

The perfect job for Man of Kent

Like I'm the only one who questions sales figures vs. physical attendance  

[The Phantom Horseman]

3 minutes ago, Man of Kent said:

That may be so but the criteria listed are pretty detailed and modern. It may mean more clubs like, say, Cas or Fev, have to do a Wakey and build/upgrade their facilities…..

Fev have seriously upgraded their facilities in the last 10 years. This includes taking down (from Scarborough AFC), transporting and re-building two stands, redeveloping the pitch so it is now full length, building an indooor training centre on site (used by Wakefield for many years!), and there have been lots of other developments around the stadium too.

Castleford are still playing in the same delapidated stadium that everybody has been criticising for generations, and they play on a pitch that falls well short of other SL ones in terms of length.

They will achieve exactly the same score as Fev in this sector.

 

[Man of Kent]

Just now, The Phantom Horseman said:

Fev have seriously upgraded their facilities in the last 10 years. This includes taking down (from Scarborough AFC), transporting and re-building two stands, redeveloping the pitch so it is now full length, building an indooor training centre on site (used by Wakefield for many years!), and there have been lots of other developments around the stadium too.

Castleford are still playing in the same delapidated stadium that everybody has been criticising for generations, and they play on a pitch that falls well short of other SL ones in terms of length.

They will achieve exactly the same score as Fev in this sector.

 A case of tough titty.

[The Phantom Horseman]

6 minutes ago, Man of Kent said:

 A case of tough titty.

[Man of Kent]

3 minutes ago, The Phantom Horseman said:

The standards are the standards. I hear what you say about fan experience but they are basically about TV.

TV is where the money is. 

[dboy]

51 minutes ago, The Phantom Horseman said:

You must have missed the last 20 years where there have been constant complaints about certain SL clubs pocketing the £2m Sky money every year and continuing to play in delapidated stadia.

Which is actually bunkum. The money isn't "pocketed", it's prioritised on the playing squad - to do otherwise would have been idiotic.

Put another way - you pay your essential bills before you buy an iPhone.

Unless you're Salford of course.

[dboy]

20 minutes ago, The Phantom Horseman said:

Fev have seriously upgraded their facilities in the last 10 years. This includes taking down (from Scarborough AFC), transporting and re-building two stands, redeveloping the pitch so it is now full length, building an indooor training centre on site (used by Wakefield for many years!), and there have been lots of other developments around the stadium too.

Castleford are still playing in the same delapidated stadium that everybody has been criticising for generations, and they play on a pitch that falls well short of other SL ones in terms of length.

They will achieve exactly the same score as Fev in this sector.

 

Floodlights aren't even amateur standard, let alone TV-friendly LEDs.

I've got brighter lamps on my bicycle.

And I don't even have a bicycle.

[David Shepherd]

2 minutes ago, dboy said:

Floodlights aren't even amateur standard, let alone TV-friendly LEDs.

I've got brighter lamps on my bicycle.

And I don't even have a bicycle.

Really? No one's ever mentioned it before.

[MattSantos]

31 minutes ago, Man of Kent said:

Surely the opposite is true. 1 point could make a lot of difference.

1 point is massive.

I had this debate with Tommy months ago who was of the opinion that clubs will just meh a lot of it.

[Man of Kent]

5 minutes ago, MattSantos said:

1 point is massive.

I had this debate with Tommy months ago who was of the opinion that clubs will just meh a lot of it.

Agreed. Once you get past the 'Super' clubs in Super League who are all but guaranteed a place forever (bar insolvency), one point becomes a big number. 

[Tommygilf]

I think the grading criteria is very interesting. Whilst its true some areas can be manipulated, imo from the suggestions I've seen of how this could be done it would harm a club in another aspect to do this. 

Initially, and I think I said this from the start, this grading will be a reality check for a lot of clubs and fans about the difference between full time super league clubs and part time outfits. Likewise, it will reflect the fact that the sport simply cannot afford for some clubs to be relegated on the whim of one bad season. We are not football, we have to be more strategic. We've tried a straight p/r, that hasn't grown crowds and interest in Super League, nor has it grown crowds and interest in the championship by enough to justify its continuation in the face of alternative options. This criteria is elitist, though I appreciate it won't be elitist enough for many. 

As I said this will be a reality check. A club may have a nice small, botique even, ground, and will probably score well on the utilisation criteria for that, but if it doesn't have the media facilities or required broadcasting setup, then of course its going to be critiqued for that. 

The Local authority thing is a bit crude.

I think its telling of the state the sport is in that they chose 7.5k as their benchmark for the highest grade in attendances.