The IMG scoring system - things you may, or may not have realised

[bobbruce]

18 minutes ago, Michael Bates said:

You see it in American sports often where there's no relegation. Teams that think they can't win simply don't / won't try to win. If Super League teams are happy enough that they outscore Championship sides everywhere else, then the scoring for on field success becomes an irrelevance. Why spend on a team that would be expected to finish mid table when you can save a wedge and finish bottom with no consequence?

When you are spending close to $300m a season on wages I’m sure some teams do spend quite a bit less to improve other areas of the club. I don’t see this as a massive issue in RL where the maximum spend of any team is probably £2.5m. 

[Derwent Parker]

18 minutes ago, Michael Bates said:

You see it in American sports often where there's no relegation. Teams that think they can't win simply don't / won't try to win. If Super League teams are happy enough that they outscore Championship sides everywhere else, then the scoring for on field success becomes an irrelevance. Why spend on a team that would be expected to finish mid table when you can save a wedge and finish bottom with no consequence?

These last few quotes just back up what I have said from start 

IMG is all about super League only.

Toby C said "Super League is negligible in terms of retaining your place in Super League, therefore, if you're not going to win it, why bother? Pocket the cash or spend it elsewhere."

Who outside SL are given enough CF to "Pocket the cash or spend it elsewhere." How much ground improvements, Leds etc can you do with 15K

If the IMG were doing this as per pre SKY money and all teams were on a level playing field then their system would be "Honest" and could work

or if all 36 teams were on same CF then the IMG system would be "Honest"

But it cant work when 12 get 1,5Million and some get 15K [1%] and the rest are somewhere in between.

So its all about the 12. nothing else

A few Champ teams have the ability to compete with lower SL teams on the field - like Leigh and likely Fev but cant ever compete with them on the spreadsheet because of the Huge CF gap

[Toby Chopra]

11 minutes ago, The Phantom Horseman said:

Fair enough. I don't know how feasible it is for all clubs to achieve all 9 criteria (eg is there enough space to achieve them all without having to reconstruct the stadium), but if as you say they are all easily achievable then fine.

 

 

 

As far as I can see it's in fact only Cas of the existing Superleague clubs that don't meet all nine of them already (once Wakey's new stand come on line). Which is why they're going to get it done to keep up. 

Of the aspirants, Toulouse, London (at Wimbledon) and Bradford meet them, I'm not sure about Fev as I don't know the stadium well. Beyond that you're mostly looking at teams which, with the best will in the world, probably aren't going to be likely additions to SL any time soon under any system. 

Given that, IMG could, I suppose, have just made the nine points minimum standards outside of the gradings. That would actually be tougher in that it's pass/fail and compulsory, but in reality it amounts to the same thing.        

[The Blues Ox]

There is a few things that stand out to me, one of them is how much talk there is on social media surrounding the Championship team that gets promoted this season been able to bring enough quality in to avoid finishing bottom of SL. There are so many people who don't seem to get the insignificance of avoiding finishing bottom from this point forward. Added to that there is literally no insentive for the promoted team to even go full time until they have a much better understanding of how safe they are in the rankings. The central funding they recieve would be much better spent on areas that make more of a difference in the scoring. 

This should only be a 1 season thing though and its basically a case of if this seasons promoted team can manage to keep their place over Wakefield. Get next season out of the way and we should have our status quo with very little chance of a change and we can avoid this situation happening again.

Another point that was mentioned elsewhere on these forums is about attendances and how it should really be all about number of people actually in the ground on match days rather than the tickets sold/given formula. One example of this was the Bradford V Halifax game where an attendance of over 4.5k was announced and I posted some pictures up during the game and its very clear that there is likely less than 2k people actually in the ground. Bradford will not be the only team doing it and as I said before Fax famously did it for a fixture against Batley a few years back but unless the criteria for this is very strict then this seems a really easily exploitable loophole that teams will not hesitate to use.

[Toby Chopra]

46 minutes ago, Les Tonks Sidestep said:

Ah Castleford, literally looking to box tick to gain an extra point by 'investing in their ground' in a way that will make the spectator experience worse.....

I query that it will make the spectator experience worse, but it will certainly make the investor, sponsor and broadcaster experience better which is an absolute priority for a sport that's always asking itself why it's so skint and can't get the deals that other sports can. 

And as I said above, it looks like it's only Cas that doesn't meet these standards already so less a choice for them and more a bare minimum if they want to keep a seat at the top table when the sport is hopefully going places.      

Edited September 22, 2023 by Toby Chopra

[Archie Gordon]

A major problem - flagged all along but not appearing in sharp relief until recently - is that clubs in different leagues are sitting very different tests. 3k crowds in the Championship comfortably beat 5k crowds in SL every day of the week for me. Likewise, 50k on Viaplay on a Monday ought to smash 100k on C4 on a Saturday. These things were going to be weighted/equivalised. We have the very bizarre situation where TO v2022 blasts TO v2023 out of the water - but it's the same club.

[bobbruce]

57 minutes ago, Derwent Parker said:

These last few quotes just back up what I have said from start 

IMG is all about super League only.

Toby C said "Super League is negligible in terms of retaining your place in Super League, therefore, if you're not going to win it, why bother? Pocket the cash or spend it elsewhere."

Who outside SL are given enough CF to "Pocket the cash or spend it elsewhere." How much ground improvements, Leds etc can you do with 15K

If the IMG were doing this as per pre SKY money and all teams were on a level playing field then their system would be "Honest" and could work

or if all 36 teams were on same CF then the IMG system would be "Honest"

But it cant work when 12 get 1,5Million and some get 15K [1%] and the rest are somewhere in between.

So its all about the 12. nothing else

A few Champ teams have the ability to compete with lower SL teams on the field - like Leigh and likely Fev but cant ever compete with them on the spreadsheet because of the Huge CF gap

Nobody’s spending the money elsewhere it doesn’t work like that. They may get £1.5m but it costs £4m plus a year to run a competitive SL team. 
 

As has been explained before it is TV money not central funding. Which SL clubs give away a bigger % than most other sports top flight. The fact the top end of the championship have been taking the bulk of the money for the last few years isn’t SL fault. 

[glossop saint]

3 hours ago, Harry Stottle said:

Considering you like the system Glossop from this post it seems you know very little about the system, I am a little more concerned than you it seems I wish to know all there is to know about something before making my mind up. Suppose it comes with the job I did.

From the snippets that @The Phantom Horseman has very kindly posted here for our scrutiny, I was always under the impression that the system was overloaded in that the SL incumbents at the time of changeover - not the trial run at the end of this season, but the full monty for '25 - which I think you are eluding to in your 'weighting' for non SL clubs concern.

 But apart from the lack of journalistic reporting, I wonder if all the clubs are 'au fait' with all the rudiments of the document down to the crossing of the t's and the dotting of the i's? In that we have only heard mention of 3 who have some form objection.

I to like The Phantom Horseman is expecting that there will be some raised eyebrows and more objections come the trial run.

Thanks for being as condescending as ever Harry. 

The thing I like is awarding places in the top division to those clubs that are most suitable and offer the best future for the sport. What I don't like is some of the criteria and weighting of scoring. I think my opinion has been obvious throughout and it has not changed. 

I don't particularly care what job you have had, and I suspect you have no idea of the job I have and what that entails. Seems a very odd comment.

On the clubs understanding of the system then I would expect that the clubs do have a good idea about it. If they don't then it says it all about the management of the sport at professional level, and why we need some external help!

[Damien]

20 minutes ago, bobbruce said:

Nobody’s spending the money elsewhere it doesn’t work like that. They may get £1.5m but it costs £4m plus a year to run a competitive SL team. 
 

As has been explained before it is TV money not central funding. Which SL clubs give away a bigger % than most other sports top flight. The fact the top end of the championship have been taking the bulk of the money for the last few years isn’t SL fault. 

But fans of the Championship clubs that benefited from this unfair distribution defended it on here because it suited them. The same fans that would then moan about other things being unfair when it didn't suit their club. Its pure double standards.

[Griff]

22 hours ago, Toby Chopra said:

Of the aspirants, Toulouse, London (at Wimbledon) and Bradford meet them.....

There's the crazy thing about criteria.  You just have to concentrate on the criteria.

The notion that Odsal is a ground in fine condition is absolutely ridiculous.

[Toby Chopra]

31 minutes ago, Griff said:

There's the crazy thing about criteria.  You just have to concentrate on the criteria.

The notion that Odsal is a ground in fine condition is absolutely ridiculous.

No-one's saying the whole ground is in "fine condition", but it does have 4000+ covered seats, hundreds of hospitality places, a directors area and a media zone. These are things that have been identified as important to grow the income of the sport. 

As for the rest of the stadium, sure it would be great to get it refurbished or replaced entirely, but in the absence of the funds for that, as long as it's safe to open, which it is, then the rest of the ground is acceptable, and less of priority than the points above. And I agree with that.

[Griff]

1 hour ago, Toby Chopra said:

No-one's saying the whole ground is in "fine condition", but it does have 4000+ covered seats, hundreds of hospitality places, a directors area and a media zone. These are things that have been identified as important to grow the income of the sport. 

Exactly my point.

[Agbrigg]

2 hours ago, Toby Chopra said:

No-one's saying the whole ground is in "fine condition", but it does have 4000+ covered seats, hundreds of hospitality places, a directors area and a media zone. These are things that have been identified as important to grow the income of the sport. 

As for the rest of the stadium, sure it would be great to get it refurbished or replaced entirely, but in the absence of the funds for that, as long as it's safe to open, which it is, then the rest of the ground is acceptable, and less of priority than the points above. And I agree with that.

And the fact that it has a pitch which does not meet the laws of the game is irrelevant

Edited September 23, 2023 by Agbrigg

[Toby Chopra]

57 minutes ago, Agbrigg said:

And the fact that it has a pitch which does not meet the laws of the game is irrelevant

That's nothing to do with IMG criteria, it's the RFL that have long allowed it. 

[Toby Chopra]

1 hour ago, Griff said:

Exactly my point.

Then I'm not understanding your point. You said it was crazy to be forced to focus on those criteria, I think it's a good thing and think it's fair that Bradford get credit for them, whatever the other issues with Odsal.

[Griff]

24 minutes ago, Toby Chopra said:

Then I'm not understanding your point. You said it was crazy to be forced to focus on those criteria, I think it's a good thing and think it's fair that Bradford get credit for them, whatever the other issues with Odsal.

No - what's crazy is to focus on only those criteria and let everything else rot away.

[Harry Stottle]

2 hours ago, Toby Chopra said:

That's nothing to do with IMG criteria, it's the RFL that have long allowed it. 

The overriding question is Why?

[Harry Stottle]

2 hours ago, Toby Chopra said:

Then I'm not understanding your point. You said it was crazy to be forced to focus on those criteria, I think it's a good thing and think it's fair that Bradford get credit for them, whatever the other issues with Odsal.

Not wanting to upset Bradford fans as the whole ground issue is out of their hands, like fans of any other club they cough up to attend to watch their team perform and good on them for doing so

But in this day and age is just meeting the minimum standards on a small part of the whole really acceptable, do you honestly believe that televised games from Odsal presents the game as it should do, it appears to be dilapidated and looks like one of those condemned houses were the owners have papered over the cracks to try to brighten up the appearence before it is compulsory purchased and knocked down. 

I would welcome the Bradford club back into SL if they got it right on the field of play, but not playing out of Odsal, in its present condition it belongs in other bygone times, and I doubt there will ever be enough money available to bring it up to a really presentable standard.

As I said Bradford faithful this is out of your hands, and if you disagree please tell me why.

[Griff]

22 minutes ago, Harry Stottle said:

The overriding question is Why?

Is it because they own it?

[gingerjon]

2 minutes ago, Harry Stottle said:

do you honestly believe that televised games from Odsal presents the game as it should do,

So it's not all about what happens on the pitch?

This is a new direction for you, Harry.

[Harry Stottle]

1 minute ago, Griff said:

Is it because they own it?

Very well could be, are they in a position to sell it off?

[Harry Stottle]

Just now, gingerjon said:

So it's not all about what happens on the pitch?

This is a new direction for you, Harry.

Read on Ginge why miss the next bit out.

 

4 minutes ago, Harry Stottle said:

I would welcome the Bradford club back into SL if they got it right on the field of play,

[Griff]

2 minutes ago, Harry Stottle said:

Very well could be, are they in a position to sell it off?

Dunno but I'd guess they'd certainly like to get some rent from it.

Edited September 23, 2023 by Griff

[gingerjon]

5 minutes ago, Harry Stottle said:

Read on Ginge why miss the next bit out.

Mainly because I was intrigued why you were suddenly bothered about the appearance of rugby league in televised games. It's not been something I've seen high on your list of priorities before.

[Spidey]

26 minutes ago, gingerjon said:

Mainly because I was intrigued why you were suddenly bothered about the appearance of rugby league in televised games. It's not been something I've seen high on your list of priorities before.

Attitudes change when your team are in Super League