IMG Grading Unveiled

[Simon Hall]

18 minutes ago, Tommygilf said:

I think a lot of them are going to be shocked at what local development and foundations actually are expected to look like.

Oh and Women's teams...

There are Championship clubs that are streets ahead of some SL clubs in both of those aspects.

[Wakey Til I Die]

Have they removed the ‘Primacy of Tenure’ section yet given its already been proven in court to be illegal? 
 

https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2012/jun/29/london-welsh-win-appeal-premiership

[Hull Kingston Bronco]

48 minutes ago, RP London said:

Equally to "sell" the game they need to know "the game" that they have.. how the league looks etc is very much part of that so they need to settle this to start a lot of the rest. 

Precisely this. I don't need IMG to knock up a video and a couple of posters to make us all feel a bit better about them. Clubs already have marketing teams. I'd much rather they spent this time doing the hard yards first, so we know the potential audience, what they might like, have a clear vision for the game and a product aligned with that audience that we can actually sell. 

[Hull Kingston Bronco]

8 minutes ago, Wakey Til I Die said:

Have they removed the ‘Primacy of Tenure’ section yet given its already been proven in court to be illegal? 
 

https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2012/jun/29/london-welsh-win-appeal-premiership

The issue in that case was that the primacy of tenure wasn't applied equally to all prospective candidates (there were already clubs in the league who weren't primary tenants, and yet the league sought to exclude other, potential new entrants on that criteria).

There's no legal barrier to setting tenancy types as a scoring criteria, as long as fairly applied to all prospective competition members. 

[Oxford]

16 minutes ago, Simon Hall said:

There are Championship clubs that are streets ahead of some SL clubs in both of those aspects.

I hope that's the case but although I've seen this suggested quite a few times I've not seen evidence anywhere.

I would hope that all clubs do somethings better than clubs considered higher but I doubt that this will be shown to be true anytime soon.

 

[Tommygilf]

27 minutes ago, Simon Hall said:

There are Championship clubs that are streets ahead of some SL clubs in both of those aspects.

Oh I agree, but there are also some that are miles off the standard that will be set

[Tommygilf]

14 minutes ago, Hull Kingston Bronco said:

The issue in that case was that the primacy of tenure wasn't applied equally to all prospective candidates (there were already clubs in the league who weren't primary tenants, and yet the league sought to exclude other, potential new entrants on that criteria).

There's no legal barrier to setting tenancy types as a scoring criteria, as long as fairly applied to all prospective competition members. 

Happens in football as one of their minimum standards.

[RP London]

14 minutes ago, Hull Kingston Bronco said:

The issue in that case was that the primacy of tenure wasn't applied equally to all prospective candidates (there were already clubs in the league who weren't primary tenants, and yet the league sought to exclude other, potential new entrants on that criteria).

There's no legal barrier to setting tenancy types as a scoring criteria, as long as fairly applied to all prospective competition members. 

which is the whole minimum standards argument.. you cannot have minimum standards for teams joining if you dont apply them to the incumbents.. and hence a grading criteria.. (minimum standards by any other name) where the "best" out of those not making the standards set can be invited in without breaking the law and why they need grades within grades.. 

as with many things its almost like they know what they are doing!

[Wakey Til I Die]

34 minutes ago, Hull Kingston Bronco said:

The issue in that case was that the primacy of tenure wasn't applied equally to all prospective candidates (there were already clubs in the league who weren't primary tenants, and yet the league sought to exclude other, potential new entrants on that criteria).

There's no legal barrier to setting tenancy types as a scoring criteria, as long as fairly applied to all prospective competition members. 

I get that but it comes down though to what actually classes as primacy of tenure. For example clubs who own their ground and have nobody else play there have true primacy, they can play whenever. But teams who own the ground and also have a football club tenant next year don't have that, the football fixtures will be out and set prior to the RL ones and ours will have to worked around. That isn't guaranteed to be much of an improved situation from a club renting from a council and sharing with a football club, it depends on the individual agreement the club has. The category can't be judged as a black & white 'your in charge or your not' as it seems from the outside it is being, it's more complicated than that and failure to take that into account will likely lead to clubs challenging rulings. It's not insurmountable but it does create a two tier system within the category which  if not done correctly will cause problems and that goes with some of the other rather vague categories as well.  

Edited April 5 by Wakey Til I Die

[DI Keith Fowler]

Quote

Sutton went on to explain that bonus points in winning the Championship and the 1895 Cup can help lower tier clubs get an advantage over Super League clubs.

“The performance pillar and the ability to achieve ranking points through the league position when added to the bonus points from winning the Championship or 1895 Cup, if you look at the mechanics of that, then is embedded in the model as clubs could achieve more points than the bottom of Super League. Championship clubs can score higher than Super League points,” Sutton continued.

RFL CEO addresses promotion and relegation concerns of rugby league clubs following IMG tweaks

Interesting to note that Championship clubs can outscore Super League clubs on performance.

I'd like to see some kind of multiplier applied to crowds as well as all clubs get a boost when they get promoted, you can't compare 3k in SL to 3k in the Championship the latter should obviously be worth more. 

[Barley Mow]

1 hour ago, Just Browny said:

It seems like a good set of amendments and speaks to most of the issues I had with the original proposal.

They seem to be a definite improvement. I'm still not entirely convinced at this point though.

[RP London]

6 minutes ago, DI Keith Fowler said:

RFL CEO addresses promotion and relegation concerns of rugby league clubs following IMG tweaks

Interesting to note that Championship clubs can outscore Super League clubs on performance.

I'd like to see some kind of multiplier applied to crowds as well as all clubs get a boost when they get promoted, you can't compare 3k in SL to 3k in the Championship the latter should obviously be worth more. 

yes, each position i worth abut 0.11 points so bottom of the super league is 0.11 above top of Champ but you get 0.25 points for winning the champ so you are then 0.14 points above them. However, its then down to the problems of whether weighting is happening so that everything else that is taken into account is not "damaged" by being in the champ. Some of the is not needed (as central funding is taken out etc) but some, like attendances would be.. I was hoping that would be cleared up in this "message" but it hasnt which is a shame. 

[Wakey Til I Die]

2 minutes ago, DI Keith Fowler said:

RFL CEO addresses promotion and relegation concerns of rugby league clubs following IMG tweaks

Interesting to note that Championship clubs can outscore Super League clubs on performance.

I'd like to see some kind of multiplier applied to crowds as well as all clubs get a boost when they get promoted, you can't compare 3k in SL to 3k in the Championship the latter should obviously be worth more. 

On any given year a championship club could possibly score more points than the bottom SL club but it's judged over 3 years isn't it? On that criteria even the most successful of championship clubs would struggle as a SL club would likely only need one half decent finishing position out of three to gain more performance points overall.

 

Personally i'd like to see it amended so sustained on field success in lower divisions is rewarded higher than regular failings in the top division, even though that would likely harm my own club. Grade super league clubs on field performance 1-12 every year and the lower division clubs 1-24. If a club owner wants to invest in their team and are regularly top three in the championship in an attempt to improve themselves then why shouldn't they score more points than a club coasting along at the bottom of the top division doing just enough every year. If anything is likely to focus the mind of that top division club and force improvement that will.

[Archie Gordon]

P&R remains a mystery. What does this mean, if not some kind of data fiddling? 

“There is a slightly deeper point here in terms of the breadth of work carried out by IMG, Endeavour and Endeavour analytics to ensure there is no intent for an overchange in terms of too many clubs being promoted or relegated under this model."

[Tommygilf]

Just now, Archie Gordon said:

P&R remains a mystery. What does this mean, if not some kind of data fiddling? 

“There is a slightly deeper point here in terms of the breadth of work carried out by IMG, Endeavour and Endeavour analytics to ensure there is no intent for an overchange in terms of too many clubs being promoted or relegated under this model."

The whole point of this exercise is to build as many grade A clubs as possible. The best way to do that is, I suspect, not going to involve binning for example 4 strong grade B clubs from Super League every season and having 8 yoyo clubs.

[Archie Gordon]

2 minutes ago, Tommygilf said:

The whole point of this exercise is to build as many grade A clubs as possible. The best way to do that is, I suspect, not going to involve binning for example 4 strong grade B clubs from Super League every season and having 8 yoyo clubs.

Exactly.

[Tommygilf]

3 minutes ago, Archie Gordon said:

Exactly.

Doesn't seem that unreasonable does it?

[RP London]

12 minutes ago, Wakey Til I Die said:

On any given year a championship club could possibly score more points than the bottom SL club but it's judged over 3 years isn't it? On that criteria even the most successful of championship clubs would struggle as a SL club would likely only need one half decent finishing position out of three to gain more performance points overall.

 

Personally i'd like to see it amended so sustained on field success in lower divisions is rewarded higher than regular failings in the top division, even though that would likely harm my own club. Grade super league clubs on field performance 1-12 every year and the lower division clubs 1-24. If a club owner wants to invest in their team and are regularly top three in the championship in an attempt to improve themselves then why shouldn't they score more points than a club coasting along at the bottom of the top division doing just enough every year. If anything is likely to focus the mind of that top division club and force improvement that will.

interestingly: I picked these finishing positions at random to try and see the above

club A finishes 12th 5th and 10th they average 9th

club B finises 1st (13th), 4th (16th) and 2nd (14th) and they average 14th

Thats a 0.5555 difference in points. If club B win 2 grand finals they are 0.05555 away.. so an 1895 cup would push them over.. and how many clubs will go 12th, 5th then 10th.... if they didnt get that 5th they be screwed.. 

even with random number generating I managed to get a team finishing in 9th over all from the top 12 finishing 8th, 12th and 7th and also 10th 7th and 10th... so even doing ok in the top flight if you have a team cutting it up below then with the correct weighting it could really cause some issues. 

Its not actually that bad a system... its not perfect but its not actually all that bad.

 

[RP London]

10 minutes ago, Archie Gordon said:

P&R remains a mystery. What does this mean, if not some kind of data fiddling? 

“There is a slightly deeper point here in terms of the breadth of work carried out by IMG, Endeavour and Endeavour analytics to ensure there is no intent for an overchange in terms of too many clubs being promoted or relegated under this model."

it could mean that there is huge work being done to make sure the weighting is correct therefore its a little more accurate, ie when you go up you can stay up. rather than you suddenly find when the weighting is taken away (because you are now super league) that you lose loads of points because the weighting was inaccurate. 

Therefore either the weighting is going to be very good indeed or there will be graded reduction in weighting while you "build" in super league.. 

Thats my reading into this "breadth of work" etc. nothing too sinister.

[Derwent Parker]

5 minutes ago, Archie Gordon said:

Exactly.

Why dont they just be honest about it and say we are locking 12 teams in.

As WTID said above looking at past 3 years and no mention of weighting [re Champ v SL crowds etc] then if they insist that top 12 grades are in top 12 - there is no P&R

[Archie Gordon]

13 minutes ago, Tommygilf said:

Doesn't seem that unreasonable does it?

Yes. 

If the 13th, 14th and 15th best clubs in 2025 are the 10th, 11th and 12th best rated in 2026, it seems unreasonable to hold them down.

[Wakey Til I Die]

4 minutes ago, RP London said:

interestingly: I picked these finishing positions at random to try and see the above

club A finishes 12th 5th and 10th they average 9th

club B finises 1st (13th), 4th (16th) and 2nd (14th) and they average 14th

Thats a 0.5555 difference in points. If club B win 2 grand finals they are 0.05555 away.. so an 1895 cup would push them over.. and how many clubs will go 12th, 5th then 10th.... if they didnt get that 5th they be screwed.. 

even with random number generating I managed to get a team finishing in 9th over all from the top 12 finishing 8th, 12th and 7th and also 10th 7th and 10th... so even doing ok in the top flight if you have a team cutting it up below then with the correct weighting it could really cause some issues. 

Its not actually that bad a system... its not perfect but its not actually all that bad.

 

But that is kind of my point, it’s do-able must all the ducks have to fall perfectly into place which is tough.
 

Lets pretend both clubs A&B score the same for off field criteria. If club B has invested well and won those two grand finals (which surely is the major aim of a season) but loses that 1895 cup final and club A has been rattling around the bottom end of super league for 3 years then club B will likely still not quite make it and their success has not truly been rewarded. Thats why i’d like to see better, separate, weighting systems for the top division and lower leagues. If club B hasn’t sorted itself out off the field it still isn’t going up anyway however much it wins. But if it has then make it an even on field fight. I’m not sure that it is under this system but i guess that’s just my opinion. 

[RP London]

12 minutes ago, Derwent Parker said:

Why dont they just be honest about it and say we are locking 12 teams in.

As WTID said above looking at past 3 years and no mention of weighting [re Champ v SL crowds etc] then if they insist that top 12 grades are in top 12 - there is no P&R

Simply because that would be dishonest as its not what they are doing.

Why would they want to do that? There may well be teams lower down that pull their socks up and develop the rest of the club and that add commercial value by doing so, in which case it would be daft to lock the top 12 as of tomorrow in. Equally to encourage investment in the lower teams you dont want it locked. 

While they havent specifically said about weighting the part AG has quoted has implied that it will be, they should do more than imply I agree but thats how I would read that. 

[Guest]

15 minutes ago, Derwent Parker said:

Why dont they just be honest about it and say we are locking 12 teams in.

As WTID said above looking at past 3 years and no mention of weighting [re Champ v SL crowds etc] then if they insist that top 12 grades are in top 12 - there is no P&R

Because they aren't locking 12 in. But you already know this.

[RP London]

1 minute ago, Wakey Til I Die said:

But that is kind of my point, it’s do-able must all the ducks have to fall perfectly into place which is tough.
 

Lets pretend both clubs A&B score the same for off field criteria. If club B has invested well and won those two grand finals (which surely is the major aim of a season) but loses that 1895 cup final and club A has been rattling around the bottom end of super league for 3 years then club B will likely still not quite make it and their success has not truly been rewarded. Thats why i’d like to see better, separate, weighting systems for the top division and lower leagues. If club B hasn’t sorted itself out off the field it still isn’t going up anyway however much it wins. But if it has then make it an even on field fight. I’m not sure that it is under this system but i guess that’s just my opinion. 

yes sorting yourself out off the field is priority 1 to then go after that... which really is the way it would be wisest to do this anyway even today. If you overspend on the field and miss promotion or relegation then a CVA is looming, as we have seen with many. 

While I agree with your view on the points for places etc you mention rattling around the bottom end.. if you take that random number thing i had a team that was 12th 11th and 8th... they would have ended the 3 year group of 12 teams in dead last, just above them was a team with 10th 7th and 10th... they would have been relegated to my fictional Club B by 0.333 and 0.2222 points... so 1 grand final win would have been enough to knock out 1, 1 grand final and an 1895 the other.. depending on your definition of "rattling around the bottom" if the weighting is done well then I can see change between the leagues happening.