IMG outlined their proposals to ‘re-imagine’ the sport of rugby league at the John Smith’s Stadium – the home of the Huddersfield Giants – last week.
In it, the marketing giants outlined their grading criteria, with an emphasis on five areas: fandom, performance, finance, stadium and catchment.
With a lot of information supplied to 36 club representatives all at once, understandably, there has been a lot to take in. But, League Express has interviewed three League One chiefs to get their immediate reactions.
Doncaster chief executive Carl Hall said this: “We all know something has got to change. It was a pretty positive meeting but there are still a few questions to be asked and they will be asked over the next three weeks,” Hall said.
“Overall, everyone understands we need some changes. It’s probably one of the first meetings I’ve come away from where we’ve actually been told something. We were told this is the criteria and this is where you need to get to and for me it’s a positive.
“I’m not going to sit her and try and work out how many points we’ve got because until it’s all voted in, everybody can presume where they think people sit in the pecking order.
“A few things might change before April 19 so it’s not worth wasting your energy trying to predict where you are. Let’s see where we get to on the 19th, if we vote for it who knows.”
Hall does, however, still have a number of questions for IMG before the vote.
“There are a few things I’d like clarity on. The grading between League One and the Championship for me personally, I will be asking that question and we will see what the answer is.
“There is plenty to work on, we got told the five points and we’ve got to flush through the detail. We can’t lose sight of academies and scholarship and those kind of things.”
Rochdale Hornets chairman Andy Mazey has also backed IMG’s proposals, with Mazey confident in the changes being set out by the marketing giant at last week’s meeting.
“It’s really positive,” Mazey told League Express.
“The bottom line is, the game needed change and this is a process that is standards driven with clear KPI’s and affords everyone a place, an opportunity and a chance to build (sustainably) and to progress.
“From our perspective we have many positives to take out of the meeting such as the catchment pillar.
“Rochdale is a large population borough in its own right and one of ten Greater Manchester Boroughs with no other club within.
“I feel we will grade well in terms of League One and the lower-end Championship clubs and I feel that, over time, we can progress to a Grade B license.”
For Midlands Hurricanes chief executive, Greg Wood, it is a major step in the right direction.
“Personally, I think it is positive as it gives a clear structure to work towards, it gives targets for people to aspire to and at the end of the day, it’s about improving the sport and giving an infrastructure for growth so it’s very positive,” Wood told League Express.
“From a Hurricanes’ perspective it is positive for us too. There are clearly certain pillars that you look at and think that could be one in which we excel. It can only be a positive and it gives us a clear framework from which to work.”
Wood did outline that the finer detail still needs to be examined.
“We’ve still got to understand what IMG will be looking at in terms of the catchment. We are making a certain amount of assumptions of what each pillar and criteria means but catchment is one and stadium is another (that could benefit the Hurricanes).
“Obviously those two aren’t the highest scoring but, for the here and now for a lower ranked club, they are ones that we can do fairly well on.
“The main ones and the big ticket items are the finances, performance and fandom and they are the ones we need to grow and work on.
“We need to know how they will score each pillar, what the granular detail of catchment and stadium etc.
“And then we will really be getting our head into that detail so we can set targets for each individual pillar as a club and business that we are progressing in the areas we need to and excelling in the ones we can excel in.”
