No idea. Just pointing out to you that there are two phases in that competition where teams can lose but still proceed.

SL has 14 teams who have the opportunity to be champions at the start of every season.

It's helped even less by a parochial, northern fan base that loves to moan about everything and shows great reluctance to get off it's arris and attend events.

How can you broaden the sports appeal when it's core support doesn't appear to value playoffs or even internationals?

By widening it's appeal to new generations and audiences. Over-complicating something tends to reduce it's accessability rather than increasing it.

I'm glad you introduced the Football World Cup as it appears a good example of using a simple to understand system with clearly defined qualification stage/s and most importantly a clearly defined straight knock-out format at the last sixteen stage where a defeat means you're done whether you were one of the favourites or not.

Each finalist will have had to play and won three games (in the knock-out stage) to get there and win again to become the eventual worthy Champions. None of this week off, second chance or coaches pick bollox in the play-off phase.

I didn't introduce it.

The playoffs in RL has a straight knock out phase.

Didn't you, oh OK. Well done to whoever it was who did.

When is it and is it clearly defined?

Be sure to email your answer to Sky, the BBC and Stobarts as they appear to need all the help they can get in understanding it.

I don't get why people don't understand it. ok, its not simple, or logical, but its not complicated

For teams finishing 5th to 8th in the league, it was last weekend.

Every fixture from now onwards is knockout.

Not that hard is it?

Neither do I but only because I'm interested enough to follow the complexity of the format and try hard to understand the possible permutations it throws up.

Take the two games involving Wigan and Leeds from week 1 as an example. A Wigan win means Leeds cannot go there in week 2, whereas a Wakefield win means they can't go anywhere else. However Barrie McDermott (a so called expert summariser for the Sports major broadcast partner) doesn't appear to understand that and sends the winner of Leeds V Wakefield to Les Catalans while more or less admitting he's not sure if that's right or not. So while you or I may well understand the format what chance is there for the partially interested viewer tuning into Sky listening to McDermott - and neither O'Connor or Carney were prepared to try and help out their flummoxed mate - probably because they were none the wiser either..

It's also complicated enough for the BBC graphic department to screw up, making a mockery of their valiant attempt to explain the format.

Top 7 system could work. A straight knockout but the LL get week 1 off rather than play 8th. 7 teams would still give poor teams the chance of grabbing a spot in the PO and the chances are you will have probably won more than you lost as well and eliminates the smallest chance of 8th place winning the GF I know 7th isnt much better but at least its the top half!! It also rewards top spot with a week off and there are no repeat games.

Wigan week off
Wire v Hudds
Saints v Hull
Catalan v Leeds

It is simple why the playoffs are poorly attended.

All pay games live on TV.

People too tight to fork out.

That would work much better for me. Gives a genuine benefit to the League Leaders and them alone of a bye in week 1. Get us back down to an intense three week - six match play-off series with no gimmicks.

Hang on .... what's the catch?

Do people really need to know why a team is playing another team? Most games are scheduled throughout the season based on the whims of the RFL & Sky, the availability of stadia, and any policing that needs to be done. You just get told a game is at a venue, at a certain time. Is this much different?

It's because you touch yourself at night.

I think the playoffs are quite simple to work out and don't understand why some people struggle so much. Yes it's not as straight forward as an ordinary knock-out but it's hardly the advanced maths exam that some make it out to be, i guess some just like things to be as simple as possible and several seconds of working out 2 or 3 different permutations hurts their heads too much.

I agree that the ClubCall should go because every year the choosing club will (and has) just picked the lowest ranked team anyway. The best chance of a change in that pattern was last year, Warrington had the pick and had the options of choosing Wigan or Leeds. Wigan were their closest rivals on paper so they could've thought we'd rather play them at home than on a neutral venue but instead went for Leeds even with their strong playoff history. Interestingly Wigan could face the same situation this year if Wire and Leeds advance this weekend, will they pick to face their closest rivals with home advantage and with Wire's inferior playoff record or do they do the accepted thing and go for the lower ranked Leeds. If they opted for Leeds then i can't ever see a scenerio when a lower ranked team wouldn't get picked first, making ClubCall pointless.

This.

And then, if we must still have club call the first placed side gets to pick who they play at home out of the 3 sides who progress to the semis.

Bingo!

We have a winner.

I do also - it's nice.

Though it would be fairer for the clubs and better for the spectators, the catch is that it's six televised matches rather than nine, and 12 hours in which sell adverts rather than 18.

Another idea I've seen, I think on the Wakefield board, was to revert to the old top 5 playoffs, but also have playoffs for 6th-10th running in parallel culminating in a plate match as a warm-up to the Grand Final. That would leave middling clubs with something to play for in the last third of the season and would also provide plenty of broadcast material for our paymasters. Not sure how well attended they'd be however when even the main playoffs struggle.

Fantastic. What is my prize?

Mr Alex Taggart will not allow two games on the pitch on the same day. There is a struggle to get one. Look at last year, they wouldn't even let the turns on!

Play the top eight over three weeks with a straight knock out comp.
1 v 8, 2 v 7 and so on.
First week four games, second week two and then the final.
If it was knock out rugby more fans would turn up.

I don't feel that's quite enough to the higher placed teams, hence my prior suggestion of a top 6 format. There's a balance to be had here: give an advantage to higher placed teams, a chance to all qualifiers, and a format that provides enough fixtures to bring enough revenue into the sport.

How about Keeping it to the top eight but making the games in favour of the higher placed team so

1v8
2v7
3v6
4v5

BUT having like a Magic weekend format so fans can turn up and watch all 4 games in a large venue. I guess that it would get 40+ thousand and potential make more revenue for all the clubs involved rather than have just 8,000 turn up and watch Wigan - Catalan.

Possible or just a crazy idea, advantage of playing a weaker team but at a neutral venue... then the next round is the semi finals at respective home grounds....final at Old Trafford

People will just have to realise that a playoff system that has the potential of teams playing up to 4 times will struggle with attendence the earlier games, take for example Hull's potential route this year,
- home fixture against Hudds (price of ticket)
- away to Wire (price of ticket, plus long drive over the M62)
- away to Wigan or Saints (price of ticket, plus long drive over the M62)
- GF at Old Trafford (price of ticket, plus another long drive over the M62)

To do that 4 weeks in a row is a big financial ask and people will more than likely hold back to the semi finals and final, so you can't really look at playoffs attendence as a weekly thing but as 4 week collective thing. People are simply saving themselves for the last 2 matches because financially 4 games in 4 weeks (around £100 in tickets alone depending on how expensive a GF seat you get, plus more if you're paying for children too) will be too much and you would usually expect 2 sets of fans of top 8 teams to have just forked out for Wembley a few weeks before.

You've hit the nail squarely on the head.

Agreed