If Sky were to pull the plug on the money, in order to keep the game proffesional they would be some mergers to boost the attendances so only Sponsorship and turnstyle money is used to pay wages. Imagine the following Super League.

Greater Manchester Marauders (Leigh, Swinton, Oldham, Salford)
Wakefield Rovers (Wakey & Featherstone)
West Yorkshire Steelers (Hudds, Halifax, Bradford & Keighley)
Yorkshire Exiles (Batley, Dewsbury, Donny, Sheffield, Hunslet & York)
Northern Charge (Whitehaven, Workington, Barrow & Newcastle Thunder)
Combined French XIII (Catalans, Toulouse and rest of France)

Added to teams who could elf sustain due to larger crowds and long term backers in:-


St Helens
Leeds
Hull KR
Wigan
Hull FC
Leeds
Warrington

It would never happen but would be interesting if it did!!!!!

Should Sky pull out then we would clearly get funding from the RU as their testing ground for new rules. Having adopted our substitutes and video refs they are now thinking about a game clock for scrums and line-outs.

Also talk about doing away with promotion and relegation, due to one of their major sides at risk of relegation.
Maybe they should speak to the good people of Wigan, I think they could help out in this particular area.

If the league is getting closer and closer (and I doubt anyone could argue it’s not) at some point the debate over P&R must be had again.

I’ve never agreed with P&R in RL as I don’t think we have the clubs to sustain it like football does. I think the NRL has shown the way to develop clubs.

But I kind of understood the rationale behind relegating the weakest club when that club was clearly weak and there was no or little loss to the sport. However if, at some point, all SL clubs are at roughly the same level on the field do we want to be weakening their development by relegating the club who is probably last due to injuries or a bit of bad luck.

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Either way,we should be encouraging the clubs in the lower leagues to strengthen and prosper to enter the promise land. So get rid of that selfish attitude.