IMG Grading System (Many Merged Threads)

[Martyn Sadler]

55 minutes ago, RP London said:

But you wouldnt market and promote a product before it was ready to do it.. 

They are making the changes needed to give us a product (media content quality etc) that can be marketed and promoted to the best of its ability. This may take a year or two longer than we would like but means it is done better and we gain more from it.. that is common sense I would say. 

I hope you're right. You're taking a lot on trust.

[Chrispmartha]

6 minutes ago, Martyn Sadler said:

I hope you're right. You're taking a lot on trust.

IMG aren’t a tin pot outfit though.

It’s the clubs that will be the biggest stumbling block IMO

[RigbyLuger]

2 minutes ago, Chrispmartha said:

IMG aren’t a tin pot outfit though.

It’s the clubs that will be the biggest stumbling block IMO

Exactly. We have got into bed with some no marks, despite what some what others to think.

What are the clubs doing to produce better content for social media, to build their potential audiences. Likely, the same as it ever was.

[Damien]

46 minutes ago, gingerjon said:

YOU WANT US TO START THE WHOLE DEBATE FROM SCRATCH AGAIN YOU MONSTER

Has it ever really changed? Its just stuck in a loop where the same arguments and questions get trotted backwards and forwards. 

[RP London]

1 hour ago, Martyn Sadler said:

I hope you're right. You're taking a lot on trust.

I'd be more annoyed if they were trying to market a poor product (or relatively poor one) hoping that it would work, wasting money and good will, and then hoping to farm the same market after sprucing it up a bit. 

In terms of business and future plans etc you have to take it on trust (even with all the due diligence in the world it still comes down to trust) as what else do you have.. There are a number of people saying they dont trust IMG but I am not sure what they have done to deserve that impression, you may not like their approach or ideas but I dont seem being untrustworthy yet, they have been quite open and they have consulted, you may not like where they have landed after the consultations as it may go against what you said when you were consulted but thats still not dishonesty.

[Harry Stottle]

1 hour ago, bobbruce said:

Do you think we will get a good deal if we go back to IMG to renegotiate. 

Have we got one?

Not just a one word answer please Bob, please explain the reasoning if you consider it to be a good deal, including the ongoing costs and the/whatever % of profits from their methods that has been agreed after the 12 years are completed.

[Dave T]

11 minutes ago, RP London said:

I'd be more annoyed if they were trying to market a poor product (or relatively poor one) hoping that it would work, wasting money and good will, and then hoping to farm the same market after sprucing it up a bit. 

In terms of business and future plans etc you have to take it on trust (even with all the due diligence in the world it still comes down to trust) as what else do you have.. There are a number of people saying they dont trust IMG but I am not sure what they have done to deserve that impression, you may not like their approach or ideas but I dont seem being untrustworthy yet, they have been quite open and they have consulted, you may not like where they have landed after the consultations as it may go against what you said when you were consulted but thats still not dishonesty.

If all we needed to do was hire a marketing agency, we'd have done that. 

This isn't a simple marketing exercise. 

[Harry Stottle]

1 hour ago, RigbyLuger said:

What are the clubs doing to produce better content for social media, to build their potential audiences. Likely, the same as it ever was.

Which clubs are you pointing the finger at?

[Click]

11 minutes ago, Harry Stottle said:

Have we got one?

Not just a one word answer please Bob, please explain the reasoning if you consider it to be a good deal, including the ongoing costs and the/whatever % of profits from their methods that has been agreed after the 12 years are completed.

And please complete this 500 word essay before close of business @bobbruce

[RigbyLuger]

28 minutes ago, Harry Stottle said:

Which clubs are you pointing the finger at?

Most!

[Harry Stottle]

2 minutes ago, RigbyLuger said:

Most!

So who are the exceptions in your mind Rigby, that will be a much shorter list.

[sweaty craiq]

I supported IMG as I understood it to be a deal based upon income growth with no cost for failure - was surprised when the £500k invoice was talked about

[Click]

8 minutes ago, Harry Stottle said:

It was a direct question to @bobbruce who in answer to another poster who said "Do you think we will get a good deal if we go back to IMG to renegotiate" on the basis of that question it must be assumed that we have either got a good or indifferent deal at the moment and to qualify that some pertinent questions should be answered which I requested.

I will agree with you that you have no idea so why the sarcasm?

And as for the visibillity of the contract apparently only 3 entities have had the privilege of being privy to that, The RFL, RL Commercial and IMG. The clubs haven't.

The fact Bob asked "Do you think we will get a good deal if we go back to IMG to renegotiate" would insinuate that he didn't think the deal could be described as "a good deal" in the first instance, no?

The sarcasm was because of your manner of questioning of him, and the fact you wrote your question/demand like you would have in school.

"Please answer this, but make sure you include X, X and X, and don't forget to show you're working!"

In regards the visibility of the contract - It really isn't something that bothers me that much. The clubs signed up to it, without seeing it, so more fool them I guess. I don't expect to see the inner workings of every business deal and relationship the RFL or individual clubs strike up. 

[Martyn Sadler]

3 hours ago, bobbruce said:

Do you think we will get a good deal if we go back to IMG to renegotiate. 

That's what EuroLeague basketball is doing, even though their deal with IMG was an excellent one that worked brilliantly.

It was originally a ten-year deal from 2016, with IMG agreeing to pay a minimum of €363 million over that period for their broadcast rights, with anything beyond that figure split evenly between IMG and the clubs. If, by the final year of the contract, the annual figure is more than €100 million, then IMG has the right to another ten-year term. It looks likely that the extension will be triggered, although the new CEO of the EuroLeague wants to re-negotiate the terms of the agreement.

We have a very different sort of agreement, sadly, but all agreements are constantly re-negotiable if they are not working to either party's satisfaction.

[up the robins]

My  issue is not with Img completely, I hope they do come good and work some magic helping clubs remodel and improving standards off the field as well as on it. 

My  issue is the shutting up shop at the Super league level and next to no chance of any lower League team achieving the required scores to move forward.

From what I can take from this is Img are going to concentrate solely on the top clubs at the expense of forgetting about the lower league's.

We need to help develop the lower leagues particularly when trying to attract new teams in new areas to our great sport.

Yes we do Need to improve how our clubs develop and the way they market themselves and maybe a different leverage for getting teams to develop could be all A grade licence clubs are maybe allowed one more marquee player than b grade or something.

I would keep promotion and relegation but maybe put a stipulation that a promoted club would have to make a significant improvement in their grading criteria till a certain standard is reached over the next two or so years or be faced with a points deduction.

This would give clubs a fairer chance of making into the big time like Rovers and Leigh.

[JohnM]

29 minutes ago, Martyn Sadler said:

That's what EuroLeague basketball is doing, even though their deal with IMG was an excellent one that worked brilliantly.

It was originally a ten-year deal from 2016, with IMG agreeing to pay a minimum of €363 million over that period for their broadcast rights, with anything beyond that figure split evenly between IMG and the clubs. If, by the final year of the contract, the annual figure is more than €100 million, then IMG has the right to another ten-year term. It looks likely that the extension will be triggered, although the new CEO of the EuroLeague wants to re-negotiate the terms of the agreement.

We have a very different sort of agreement, sadly, but all agreements are constantly re-negotiable if they are not working to either party's satisfaction.

Does anyone know if the new CEO wants to renegotiate the terms of the current contract before it ends, with the changes implemented now or does he want to renegotiate the new contract operating from 2026?

Edited September 11 by JohnM

[gingerjon]

8 minutes ago, JohnM said:

Does anyone know if the new CEO wants to renegotiate the terms of the current contract before it ends, with the changes implemented now or does he want to renegotiate the new contract operating from 2026?

I read this the other day. It's the terms of what happens from 2026 - although, as Martyn says, under the current contract, IMG has the 'right' to simply extend on existing terms for ten years.

I don't know enough about basketball to have an opinion, but the commentators who I read were thinking this is part of a wider power grab by that specific European basketball authority (there are other pan European basketball leagues, although they are all now much smaller than EuroLeague).

[Hopie]

4 hours ago, Tommygilf said:

Again I think a lot of this is a case of saying IMG will do X (which they actually haven't been signed up to do) so that when they don't do that they have a stick to beat them with, from the usual suspects.

This is another common theme on this kind of discussion.

A: Why aren't they achieving this aim?

B: They never said they would.

A: So what did they say they would achieve and in what timescale?

B: ....

11 hours ago, Archie Gordon said:

Righto. We are back to IMG being the only option then. And if you are not a fan of what IMG are doing, you are against change.

I thought, at least, we'd moved on from this.

The binary choice has been presented again in the posts following this one, as the pages fly by with the usual suspects posting the usual things.

9 hours ago, Archie Gordon said:

To sum up, and then I am off to work.

There is a massive chasm between the IMG fanboys and the luddites (here, for the sake of brevity, I use these terms completely in jest). It manifests itself in strawman arguments and ridicule from both sides.

But there is a hybrid system that seems to satisfy both camps: keep the grading criteria, make A grade more of a stretch to achieve and give them a guaranteed spot, allow B grade clubs (possibly make B harder to achieve if you want) to battle it out for P&R. There must be a reason that I'm missing for not doing something along those lines and instead allowing sores to fester.

There is a great deal to discuss in the nuance of the system and the ways to make it work better, even if you keep some aspects of teh proposals completely as they are. Magic was supposed to be scrapped, now it is supposed to continue, this new system is very new and needs a lot of polish. Its a shame that the discussion often reverts to the strawman arguments you correctly identify.

9 hours ago, gingerjon said:

I think the vast majority on the 'IMG fanboy' side would welcome that.

I think the vast majority on the 'luddite' side would not move their opinion in any way about it and you'd be seeing exactly the same points raised.

And, in reality, it would really affect about five clubs. As ever.

Lol, the people on my side are all smart and wear fancy clothes and the people on the other side are all losers who smell like wee.

Glad we got past the binary debate.

[Dave T]

Why has this thread introduced a narrator?

[bobbruce]

6 hours ago, Martyn Sadler said:

And that is a major part of what we were told IMF would bring to Rugby League, allied to improved branding.

So far we haven't seen much of it.

The IMF would be great but I’m not sure their skills would be transferable. 

[bobbruce]

4 hours ago, Harry Stottle said:

Have we got one?

Not just a one word answer please Bob, please explain the reasoning if you consider it to be a good deal, including the ongoing costs and the/whatever % of profits from their methods that has been agreed after the 12 years are completed.

Who knows none of us on here that’s for sure. What I do know is the clubs and the RFL agreed to it. There are things I don’t like about it but as a game we’ve signed up to it it’s time to make the best of it. 

[bobbruce]

2 hours ago, Martyn Sadler said:

That's what EuroLeague basketball is doing, even though their deal with IMG was an excellent one that worked brilliantly.

It was originally a ten-year deal from 2016, with IMG agreeing to pay a minimum of €363 million over that period for their broadcast rights, with anything beyond that figure split evenly between IMG and the clubs. If, by the final year of the contract, the annual figure is more than €100 million, then IMG has the right to another ten-year term. It looks likely that the extension will be triggered, although the new CEO of the EuroLeague wants to re-negotiate the terms of the agreement.

We have a very different sort of agreement, sadly, but all agreements are constantly re-negotiable if they are not working to either party's satisfaction.

I’ve no idea as I have no interest in basketball. Any chance you could investigate the deal the RFL has with IMG. 

[KiwiRL]

3 hours ago, up the robins said:

 

We need to help develop the lower leagues particularly when trying to attract new teams in new areas to our great sport.

That's one model. The other model for expansion to attract new teams in new areas is bringing new teams straight into your closed shop top league like the Melbourne Storm and Tornoto Raptors. 

[sentoffagain2]

1 hour ago, bobbruce said:

The IMF would be great but I’m not sure their skills would be transferable. 

  IMF the outfit that we have to bow down  to with austerity when we owe 2.25 trillion£  Who let USA carry on splashing the cash with a debt of 36 trillion dollars.

[Spidey]

8 hours ago, Martyn Sadler said:

And that is a major part of what we were told IMF would bring to Rugby League, allied to improved branding.

So far we haven't seen much of it.

The Impossible Mission Force sound like the perfect team to be honest