[urlhttps://www.thesun.co.uk/sport/5610037/super-league-may-be-cut-to-10-teams-under-controversial-two-tier-plan/[/url


Or are these the Lazy Journalists that GH was talking about?
[urlhttps://www.hulldailymail.co.uk/sport/rugby-league/rugby-league-news/super-league-expansion-leeds-rhinos-1200855[/url

What a load of rubbish the 2 x 10 is. It is a deceptive way of reconstituting the Super League and the Championship, with not enough places in the top level for all the much needed expansion teams that are rising up.

We need a 14 team Super League, that includes Catalans, Toronto Toulouse and London, with the option of expanding to 16 if New York and another north American or French team become viable enterprises.

Beneath that you can have a successful Championship with the likes of Leigh, Salford, Widnes, Wakefield, Featherstone, Halifax, Sheffield.

The ideal Super League from 2021 on needs 14 or 16 clubs, to consist of only strongly supported clubs and strategically vital clubs:

[iWigan,
St. Helens
Warrington
Leeds,
Bradford,
Hull FC,
Hull KR,
Huddersfield,
Castleford,
London

Catalans
Toulouse

Toronto
New York

Montreal
Boston[/i

If either the French or north American teams are successful on and of the field, then we should consider adding[i Avignon[/i and [iParis[/i in the French case, and two out of [iChicago, Philadelphia[/i and[i Jacksonville[/i in the north American case. That would then constitute a truly international Super League that would overwhelm the NRL in its significance.

The depressing part of the whole article is that all the funding will go to the 20 clubs.

So all the hard work that has gone into league 1 clubs, will mean nothing. All the spreading the word in Newcastle, London Skolars, Coventry, the keeping clubs like Hunslet, Keighley going after the RFL screwed them over with regards promotion to SL. Will mean nothing because they're aren't going to get benefactors and will struggle to get the finances required to keep them going.

Why are we so keen to kill the heartlands? Destroy clubs with proud histories? Narrow our appeal even more?
Just for the sake of pure money grabbing by chairmen, and on an expansion system that may or may not work.

The fact is that, when it comes to marketing, the game is in the 4th division and has been for a long time (e.g. when the whole super league was set up there was no money held back to market the game and no targets for clubs to expand). As a result there is now not enough money in the game and, as a professional sport, it is now in the doldrums. I don’t know how to fix it but the next 2 seasons may well be the make or break period for the game. We might see the major clubs might either break away or join the NRL as a second tier competition with promotion/relegation opportunities.

I would like to see expansion towards the west coast of America also. Do you think this is feasible and achievable?

Regards

King James

It's a no-brainer.... It's guaranteed.
Santa Monica Maulers.

why dont you get a team on the moon as well.

If they are the teams which will be the future of RL then there is a clear 2 division split (east west of whatever they want to call it).

Surely that would be Sizzling Santa Monica Maulers.

Eh? Did you read it through properly?

Under these apparent proposals, P&R isn't being scrapped, there'll still be P&R between SL2 and the 3rd Tier, providing certain criteria are met, so any of the clubs you mentioned can still aspire to SL, as well as the sport attracting outside investment. Nobody is destroying anything, L1 only get about £50k as it is - if a club can't make up a £50k annual revenue shortfall, do we really need em?

It's fair to assume the 20 clubs will consist of Toulouse, Catalans, Toronto & NY. 20% are 'expansion' clubs.

One step at a time, shadrack. The Mars RL team, backed by a silicon valley tech trillionaire, are first in the queue and could be competing in a 6 team Super league by as early as 2029.

It always amazes me how easily Jean can derail a thread, fair play

Bad idea IMO. It would mean two less clubs benefiting from having Leeds, Wigan etc bringing good away followings. More games against the same opposition is boring for fans as well. We would also face the realistic possibility of only having 8 English top flight teams, which wouldn't be good for our national side. I can see the benefit in removing focus from League 1 though to be honest, a lot of those sides would be just as well playing in the NCL.

The only potential benefits I see in this, are that the SL2 would be a stronger competition, which they may have more chance of selling a TV contract and sponsorship for. Plus it would be beneficial to the likes of Featherstone and Halifax (for example), who may get 3,000 crowds hosting the likes of Widnes and Hull KR, rather than 2,000 against Rochdale and Swinton. I don't think that's a good enough reason to do it though. The only way I'd support it, is if they raised the cap for SL1 so we could attract/retain more talent, and used the extra weekends for internationals, if we could convince the NRL to play ball.

Seems like if this went ahead it would be the first step towards franchising. There will be promotion between tier 2 and 3 to start with but with all funding going to the 20 super league clubs then the 3rd tier will just get weaker and weaker and it isn't fantastic now. With 4 clubs dropping down to that level as well we will lose a few clubs there and they would have to be the expansion teams such as coventry, newcastle, hemel, skolars simply because they are the weakest teams so the slight progress that has been made there over the last few years would be completely undone. With certain criteria needing to be met by those clubs to be promoted then it is unlikely that many, if any, will be so after a couple of years that is when franchising would probably come in and a lot of 3rd tier clubs would be completely forgotten about.

You'd also have to wonder whether with so much focus and money being concentrated on the 20 super league clubs would the amateur game be a bit neglected. One criteria of super league 1 and 2 for me would be that it would be absolutely required to run a reserve league to develop and bring through younger players that way.

One positive I suppose would be that the competition would seem a bit more modern and a system of franchising would be more appealing to the north american market. A more modern competition would perhaps bring in more investment and so more money and a better tv deal, especially seen as this system would clearly include london and a number of north american sides. Of course, while we would want a london side in the competition, currently they would clearly not meet the criteria for a decent stadium and decent crowds and you can't just conjure up 10,000 people crowds overnight so some clubs would have to be given a certain amount of leniency for a couple of years you would think.

Newcastle I'll give you, but what progress has been made at Hemel? They use Dewsbury reserves, get hammered every week, with a man and his dog in the crowd (they report around 100, but I've been there and it's definitely exaggerated). No harm at all in them dropping down to the NCL IMO, I don't think they would even be in the Premier Division.

I quite agree that Hemel wouldn't exactly be a loss, I was just meaning that the current policy of expansion as a whole, rather than at individual clubs, over the previous few years will be completely undone, I was just listing a few expansion clubs off the top of my head as examples of who would be dropped, but yeah, Hemel's inclusion in the pyramid is pointless. Another couple of failed expansion teams in Gloucestershire and Oxford are merging of course so it will be interesting to see what happens there and whether that Bristol side will play any part in a future 2 tier Super League should it happen. It seems like the list of teams that could potentially be included is just getting longer and longer with french teams, north american teams, bristol, london.

20 teams clearly isn't enough so some of these expansion teams will have to be dropped or some existing heartland teams and that isn't exactly going to make the existing rugby league fan base happy. Though I say 20 teams isn't enough but with less teams the quality might be better, at least in Super League 1. There certainly isn't enough decent talent to go right down through the 20 teams.

The top amateur clubs would walk League 1

Regards

King james

10 teams isn't enough for a top flight competition. We're struggling to gain any attention, coverage or sponsorship as it is. We need a bigger competition which has wider appeal, not a smaller one.

It strikes me that the whole 2x10 SL idea is [yet another sop to the chairmen of clubs who permanently exist around the bottom of SL/top of Championship. They're neither competitive nor net contributors to the game, and they never will be, yet they act as a barrier to prevent clubs which MIGHT be competitive or net contributors from even reaching the top table. This sounds like someone's cunning plan to shift them out of the top flight in the first instance by making out they'll still be able to scoop up the cash, and then when they're out, it'd be easier to shift in clubs with more potential/appeal.

Not a great idea IMO. I'd prefer a line-in-the-sand approach where a new 16-team SL is formed from 2019, requiring all clubs who want to enter to submit their bid to be assessed for inclusion. So a return to licensing. Any club with ambitions to join the top flight in future would have to build and plan to take part in a future regular bidding round.

If we continue to structure our game in order to cater to the desires of small clubs in areas where there is already saturation, then we will continue to shrink.

So, we will be sold the idea on this allowing 20 full time professional clubs, with promotion and relegation between SL 1 & SL 2.
But, how much of the available funds will SL1 take and what will be left for the rest and the harsh reality is that we will actually be relegating a further 2 clubs from the top flight.
This will do little to allow the "expansion" clubs to compete at the top of the game and as other posters have suggested, it also looks like the entre back into "franchising", with the possible future "International SL" being the ultimate goal.

THe big clubs have wanted to reduce SL for some time, so that they can take a greater share of the Sky monies and hey presto, here it comes.

In the words of Jim Bowen, Great, Super, Smashing, come and have a look at what you could have won.

Yes I did read it. The bit you underlined was referring to the past.
Yes there is a semblance of p & r. But the clubs promoted will be on the back foot given that everybody will have had at least a season of cash. So creating a yo yo effect which does nothing for the league.
And the only clubs at the top will be the one with benefactors. So in practice it won't be much of a p&r.

You could argue your point about money the other way around. SL already get most of TV money, add on ticket, merchandising and corporate packages. So why do they need the £100,00 that could be a lifeline to other clubs? If they that desperate for it, perhaps they should do more marketing of there own clubs.

Think you're right about the clubs involved. But then we're do Newcastle, Coventry (as Wasps), Bristol, Dublin who are all intrested in franchise SL. the other American clubs come in.
If you start them in league 1, it becomes even more of a joke league. Or do you kick more clubs out of SL 1/2 for them?

I still have reservations about the whole American thing.
If it works great.
But we seem to be thinking that a country that already has 4 mainstream sports (and that's just at professional level, not to mention the high school, college leagues), where other sports like RU have been trying to get a foothold for years. To be our saviour, and through all this money into the sport. Like I said great if it works, but it's going to take along time.
And I can't help but think, that by then they'll have there own league set up, and won't be needing us.

Based on Catalans performace the last 2 seasons, they wouldnt and shouldnt be included in the list

I'm fairly sceptical about the North American venture. I see why it's easy to be cautious about its prospects.

However, I think we need to view this in context: our game, as it is, is dying on its feet in this country. Participation numbers have crashed. Crowds are stagnant at best. Our paymasters at SKY are apparently looking to reduce the funding. We're struggling to find any sponsors, let alone blue-chip ones. And the showcase of the game - the super league - has seen a huge contraction, losing our only club in the capital, and one of our few genuinely 'big' clubs at Bradford. Along the way, we've also lost Paris, Gateshead, Wales and Sheffield. The single example of our sport growing, rather than shrinking, at the top level, is Catalans, and they were 80 minutes from being relegated last year in favour of a second club in Wigan. If that had happened, Rugby League's top flight would have been smaller geographically than at any time since we went fully professional in 1996.

There will be people who deny this, and I guess if you're a few streets away from Saints, Wigan, Leeds or Hull you might argue that you don't see what the problem is. But outside of those few spots (it's not even an M62 corridor any more - just a few areas along it), the only reason people haven't noticed the game is shrinking is that they don't notice it exists in the first place.

The North American ventures, the sacking of Big Nigel, the scrabbling around for new structures, and even the grumpy Hetherington attack on RL journalists, are all stemming from the same place: we're in deep trouble, and people are desperately looking for something - anything - which might save us.

There is a big tension here between different goals: clubs like Salford, Widnes, Wakefield etc are themselves struggling, and so their priority is to save their own advantages and position within the game, which means fighting to preserve their share of TV money, to retain P&R to save their position at the bottom of the league, and to place obstacles in the way of other clubs which might replace them. The clubs like Wigan, Saints, Leeds, Wire and Hull are not themselves in deep trouble yet, but recognise that if the game goes down, they go down with it, and so are much more focused on what can be done to attract more TV money, more sponsorship and more attention to the game as a whole. They are much more open to the idea of expanding the game to a North American market which, while risky, at least offers new income streams, and new potential, where there is none left in the so-called heartlands.

To me, the situation is a choice between a risky expansionist "Hail Mary" venture which may not work, or continuing to do what we've always done, which will inevitably continue the decline we are now clearly in. On the grounds that a small chance of success is still better than the certainty of failure, sign me up for Toronto, New York, London, Bradford and Toulouse.

How are Wakefield struggling? I'm confused. As a fan, if you are continuing t live in the past then yes we can always be deemed as perennial strugglers. But, it isn't the past. It is now. And the club is doing better than it has at any other time in Super League.

Good post but, why the f*** did we drop "franchising" and reduce SL, when the model was already in place to allow new clubs to come in.
We just make the sport look amateur (which in terms of "organisation", I believe it is).
I dot think there is one remedy to cure the ill's of the game and we shouldn't be looking for yet another quick fix.
Three years ago "every minute" mattered, apparently and now, the visionary's within the sport are "embarrassed" that we cant manipulate the system to fast track Toronto and Toulouse.

IF this is the primary aim of any new structure, why not take the very simple option of expanding SL by 2 clubs, exempt them both from relegation for 2 or 3 seasons and have done with it. There may be issues along the way, especially with promotion and relegation but, this simple change would allow the game to see whether Toronto and Toulouse are viable options, without risking the possibility of terminal damage to the game.

This seems like a win/win, with the exception of the few that say, "all new clubs should start in League 1" , because Toronto in League 1 was a bloody farce and yet again, made RL look amateur.

We ought to take up the mantra odf "do it once but, do it right"

2 leagues of 10 is a terrible idea.
Super League needs to get bigger not smaller.