IMG Grading Unveiled

[OriginalMrC]

Criteria seems fine to me. Nothing for super league clubs to worry about as I suspect it will be pretty much as you were in terms of the order of things. 

[gingerjon]

4 minutes ago, LeeF said:

I’ve had to report this thread for a breach of T&Cs.

Never has the word “reasonable” been used so much in the first page of a thread on this forum 

The proposals seen to have way too much common sense and logic for RL

Literally my only possible criticism right now is that I, personally, want to see the handbook or detailed guidance that the clubs themselves will be working with.

Beyond that ... I got nothing.

[DI Keith Fowler]

Unless I've missed it nothing here says player development, academies etc?

[Chris22]

I'll have a look at the full framework later but certainly seems like an enormous amount of thought has gone into this.

I do think a lot more weighting should be given sporting performance and I worry that people have unrealistic expectations of what is a rehash of an old system is like to bring.

Saying that, I'll keep an open mind and hope for the best. We all need this to be successful!

[gingerjon]

Just now, DI Keith Fowler said:

Unless I've missed it nothing here says player development, academies etc?

Neuters complaints that RFL decisions about who gets to run them will then come back to ensure in-built bias in the scoring system?

Looks to a future where the RFL and the Community Game work on that and the (semi) professional game gets on with being just the elite side of things?

[Archie Gordon]

I'll go against the flow ... this looks like a phoned in regurgitation of any other RFL licensing effort.

Community involvement? Women's game? Any EDI?

[Jughead]

I’ve read the document at the bottom of the news article and while some aspects appear a little vague still, it seems reasonably sensible. 

Noted there’s not things about salary cap spend, academies and number of teams (wheelchair and women’s). 

[LeeF]

11 minutes ago, gingerjon said:

Literally my only possible criticism right now is that I, personally, want to see the handbook or detailed guidance that the clubs themselves will be working with.

Beyond that ... I got nothing.

It’s almost like they used an external specialist firm

[The Phantom Horseman]

20 minutes ago, DI Keith Fowler said:

Unless I've missed it nothing here says player development, academies etc?

"Minimum standards will be in place alongside the grading criteria. These will include, for example, the requirement for adherence to insolvency regulations and UKAD regulations and, in the future, the requirement for Category A clubs to run a women’s team."

Academies might be included as minimum standards - but it doesn't say that. To be fair, that would rule out some teams who might otherwise have strong cases and there has  been controversy in the past about licenses for academies. Maybe academies will be minimum standards for category A, like women's teams?

Edited March 9, 2023 by The Phantom Horseman

[JonM]

9 minutes ago, DI Keith Fowler said:

Unless I've missed it nothing here says player development, academies etc?

Seems reasonable as the RFL has essentially taken the decision to remove funding for certain club's academies - even ones which have produced dozens of current pro players. If it's outside the control of a club, why add it into the grading?

I did like the gratuitous mention of machine learning in the slide. As if there's any possible training data that could make that a useful thing to do

I wonder how catchment areas will be defined. Could Sheffield Eagles claim all of Notts, Derbys, Leics, Lincs as theirs, for example? Can Cornwall claim half way up the A303 to London and half way up the M5 to Birmingham?

[LeeF]

8 minutes ago, Archie Gordon said:

I'll go against the flow ... this looks like a phoned in regurgitation of any other RFL licensing effort.

Community involvement? Women's game? Any EDI?

All would feed into the “Fandom” area. The more engagement the more clicks the higher the attendances etc

[gingerjon]

4 minutes ago, Archie Gordon said:

I'll go against the flow ... this looks like a phoned in regurgitation of any other RFL licensing effort.

Community involvement? Women's game? Any EDI?

I think we can all be grateful they have gone against the prevailing wokerati and ignored such things.

I suspect some aspects of that will be covered by fandom gradings.

I further suspect that they have chosen the path of least resistance and decided that good is fine and perfect won't happen so direct grading requirements for where teams place in a senior men's competition are not based on investment in women, juniors etc.

I think 'phoned in' is unfair - especially when set against the twelve made-up, and riggable, criteria the RFL came up with by themselves that sank licencing before it even started.

[RP London]

3 minutes ago, JonM said:

Seems reasonable as the RFL has essentially taken the decision to remove funding for certain club's academies - even ones which have produced dozens of current pro players. If it's outside the control of a club, why add it into the grading?

I did like the gratuitous mention of machine learning in the slide. As if there's any possible training data that could make that a useful thing to do

I wonder how catchment areas will be defined. Could Sheffield Eagles claim all of Notts, Derbys, Leics, Lincs as theirs, for example? Can Cornwall claim half way up the A303 to London and half way up the M5 to Birmingham?

That was something I wondered too.. but i am sure there will be more meat on the bones in documents being sent to the clubs. This is quite a nice "snappy" run through. 

[LeeF]

5 minutes ago, ShropshireBull said:

Just double checked the bottom page. Clubs are going to be promoted and relegated based on the score, so the catergory thing is meaningless and there is no on field p and r. This looks awful. If we can´t have P and R for b clubs the championship is basically dead. Hope this gets voted down. 

The category thing isn’t meaningless. Cat C can’t be in SL. Cat A, unless there are 20, will be in SL. The best Cat Bs get into SL with on field performance one of the key criteria. There will be movement between SL & the Championship as both Categories and scores can change

[gingerjon]

6 minutes ago, JonM said:

I did like the gratuitous mention of machine learning in the slide.

It ain't personal. We don't like you but it ain't personal. It's the machine.

[Archie Gordon]

1 minute ago, gingerjon said:

I think we can all be grateful they have gone against the prevailing wokerati and ignored such things.

I suspect some aspects of that will be covered by fandom gradings.

I further suspect that they have chosen the path of least resistance and decided that good is fine and perfect won't happen so direct grading requirements for where teams place in a senior men's competition are not based on investment in women, juniors etc.

I think 'phoned in' is unfair - especially when set against the twelve made-up, and riggable, criteria the RFL came up with by themselves that sank licencing before it even started.

My first impression was: is this much different from the evaluation undertaken when Leigh replaced Toronto? I didn't think so but my memory could be playing tricks. 

[gingerjon]

3 minutes ago, RP London said:

That was something I wondered too.. but i am sure there will be more meat on the bones in documents being sent to the clubs. This is quite a nice "snappy" run through. 

Something as basic as doing a literal map show postcodes of where your regular ticket buyers/season ticket holders are based?

[gingerjon]

Just now, Archie Gordon said:

My first impression was: is this much different from the evaluation undertaken when Leigh replaced Toronto? I didn't think so but my memory could be playing tricks. 

It's better than the report which removed Toronto which, although it reached the right conclusion, was one of the most shambolic pieces of assessment I've had the misfortune of reading.

I remember being moderately surprised that the promotion side of that wasn't quite as awful as it could have been but can't really now remember the details of what was done.

[Barley Mow]

8 minutes ago, JonM said:

I wonder how catchment areas will be defined. Could Sheffield Eagles claim all of Notts, Derbys, Leics, Lincs as theirs, for example? Can Cornwall claim half way up the A303 to London and half way up the M5 to Birmingham?

This is where Midlands Hurricanes were very clever in rebranding from Coventry. Sheffield Eagles can't possibly claim anywhere that's part of the midlands when the whole of the midlands must be Hurricanes catchment! 

[Archie Gordon]

7 minutes ago, LeeF said:

All would feed into the “Fandom” area. The more engagement the more clicks the higher the attendances etc

Sorry - I meant community game involvement rather than community involvement.

[Archie Gordon]

1 minute ago, gingerjon said:

It's better than the report which removed Toronto which, although it reached the right conclusion, was one of the most shambolic pieces of assessment I've had the misfortune of reading.

I remember being moderately surprised that the promotion side of that wasn't quite as awful as it could have been but can't really now remember the details of what was done.

Yes. And there is no mention of male grooming products anywhere in this evaluation so we are least spared that.

[LeeF]

1 minute ago, Archie Gordon said:

Sorry - I meant community game involvement rather than community involvement.

Same argument. Get into the local community clubs and schools etc you drive up overall engagement or “fandom”

[Roughyed Rats]

2 minutes ago, ShropshireBull said:

No because at the end of the season noone knows what position they are relative to anyone else. Second, York win champ, all their best players get pinched by SL clubs then they are weaker the year after. If you think about how this would work in reality for five seconds no on field promotion is killing anyone outside of SL. 

If the central distribution remains as is then clubs outside the 'elite' league may as well go back to winter and at least have a fighting chance of generating revenue / interest (floating elite supporters with nothing to watch in their off season). Hunslet may as well try and relocate to Edinburgh!!

[Archie Gordon]

1 minute ago, LeeF said:

Same argument. Get into the local community clubs and schools etc you drive up overall engagement or “fandom”

Indeed. But I would have liked to see pro clubs getting involved with community clubs not only to drive their fan numbers up but to drive player numbers up. There's no incentive to do that here and I feel there ought to be. Opportunity missed.

[LeeF]

4 minutes ago, ShropshireBull said:

No because at the end of the season noone knows what position they are relative to anyone else. Second, York win champ, all their best players get pinched by SL clubs then they are weaker the year after. If you think about how this would work in reality for five seconds no on field promotion is killing anyone outside of SL. And it is meaningless because no champ club will ever get an a license in champ because they wont be on telly, have a lower performance score and lower attendances when people rightly stop watching the champ. It´s awful. Keighley were right . 

It’s far from “awful” if you take your blinkers off for more than 5 seconds. There will still be movement between what is now the SL and the Championship but hopefully far less “boom and bust” and some longer term planning.

Without the exact specific detail but applying a reasonable amount of common sense I  can easily see where a top Championship side would have scored higher than the bottom SL side in some recent years.