Whatever system the RFL come up with, it should be inclusive rather than exclusive.

The systems in place since the inception of SL have been exclusive—the top table clubs have always had access to massively more money than clubs who were strongest in the division below, and this discrepancy has continued to grow. It quickly became next to impossible to successfully transition from the 2nd tier to SL.

As a result of the growing artificial financial cliff introduced by SL, licensing was introduced as the solution; It being much less transparent and far more exclusive than any of the systems that went before it.

The gulf in funding between SL clubs and Championship clubs needs to be addressed. There must be a natural path to achieving better, one that doesn't require huge financial risks to pull off.

Once we have an inclusive system, the actual structure of the leagues is reduced in importance as competition can thrive and the entertainment value of the product on the field is likely to improve.

Currently, the system protects SL clubs and their cash pile.

The cliff isnt artificial. It exists, and it always will exist.

Remove the SKy money, Hell give it to the championship clubs instead, wont make a difference, Featherstone cannot financially compete with Leeds. The whole town has a population less than Leeds average. The Stadium's entire capacity is less than half of Leeds average. They dont have the sponsors or corporate opportunities Leeds have, they simply would never get close. Wire, St's Wigan similar.

In SL leigh were getting about 4k. Leeds and Wigan are looking at 14/15/16k, Regardless of Sky money, there is massive difference and it is a difference which is exacerbated in a professional sport.

Under no structure are Leigh going to be able to compete with Leeds and Wigan off the field, which means the only way they will compete on it is by holding Leeds and Wigan back.

This same cliff exists between the top and bottom of SL.


Yes it would.


They don't need to, just compete with the bottom 6 then build on this.


You mean like the rest of SL are holding them back now?





It's sugar daddies, not good management that's keeping half of SL afloat. If all clubs were run like Leeds then SL would be in a much better place, but the simple truth is they aren't.

And we need to eliminate it.
No. It wouldnt. Leeds turnover ten times the TV money. Giv e Fev £1.2m. They still arent getting anywhere near £12m
Yes, they do. If Fev arent aiming to compete with Leeds. They shouldnt be in the same league as Leeds.

Yes
That is true. And that is why the game should be looking for ways to make the clubs surviving on Sugar Daddies and relying on the SC to compete to overcome those problems. Swapping one club which is struggling to compete and survive for another club struggling to compete and survive is not only pointless but counter-productive.

But that's the $64,000,000 question - How.

SL as it stands has not.

If you say that SL can carry and improve the current incumbents to the level of a "Leeds" then it should be able to do it with others.

You are creating a false nirvana of turning the bottom 6 into "leeds clones" which on the evidence looks like it isn't going to happen anytime soon, if ever.

Some clubs just can’t become that big. Some clubs just aren’t SL level clubs. Altering the entire structure of the game to try and force them to be doesn’t do anyone any good.

Not all clubs can be as big as Leeds/Wigan, but some can. We need a structure which gives them the best chance to do so. Not a structure which fills them with constant uncertainty that at any time they may be replaced by a club with no chance of reaching that level.

Giving up on trying to make Wakefield a top club because Fev aren’t ever going to be a top club is a stupid standpoint.

The cliff will always exist between a full time and a predominantly part time league. The only sport where the cliff is at an "acceptable" level is football and even then they have yo-yoing clubs and big parachute payments.

We need to improve the Championship until 6 or 7 clubs are at a reasonable standard compared to the bottom half of SL. This obviously requires money. IIRC from the Watkins Review, the Championship and CC1 clubs receive 1/16th of the SL tv deal. I'd suggest the tv deal be split into 18ths instead. With 14 of the 18ths going to each SL club, 1/18th to the RFL (as now) and then 1/18th split between the CC1 clubs and 2/18ths split between the Championship clubs on a sliding scale according to the previous years league table.
That should give each CC1 club £100k and each CC club nearly £150k on average. Each SL club will have to give up around £120k for this.
Not a mammoth shift but should give the Championship clubs the opportunity to sign some decent marketing/commercial staff to bring more money into the clubs.

You mean the structure that saw Bradford fail, Wakefield fail, Salford Fail, London fail......



I for one, did not suggest that and as for stupid comments, you don't do so bad yourself.

I would suggest that's a sensible idea, except, reduce SL to 10 teams and divide the Sky money from the other 4 around the Championship.

Do I?

Either way, its better than the structure that saw Halifax fail, Widnes fail, Workington fail, Wakefield fail, Oldham fail, Whitehaven fail, paris fail, hull fail, Sheffield fail……
Thats what P+R does. So yes.

Why do we need to do that?

The bottom clubs in SL aren’t SL standard now. Raising 6 or 7 championship clubs to their standard wont give us any more clubs of SL standard.

We need more clubs of SL standard, if we wanted more to just be ‘top end championship’ we could relegated 2-4 SL clubs and have a 10 team franchised SL, because none of them would be in a position to add to SL again.

Why does the entirety of any plan for the championships always boil down to ‘give them super leagues money and expect nothing back’

What are the championship clubs contributing to this?

If SL is just giving money away why are the championships more deserving of it than the players? or the amateur game? or the youth game?

Perhaps to improve the sport as a whole ? , perhaps to pressurise the underperforming SL clubs to work harder ? , perhaps to increase the number of people watching and interested in RL

You can ' WANT ' more SL standard clubs based around large population area's all you want , but they arent on the horizon yet , and I suspect they wont be for many decades , if ever , so in the meantime , a small amount of money spent ON the lower tier clubs and the competitions they play in could have large benifits for the future development of the sport

Maybe we might then see a ' Vibrant ' , worth winning in its own right Championships

Correct, money spent ON the clubs and competition, not given TO them

Bringing the championships closer to the level of the lower SL clubs necessitates that the championship clubs grow at a faster rate than the lower SL club.

To make a conscious decision to bring the championships closer to the level of the lower SL clubs necessitates that we make a conscious decision to grow the championship clubs at a faster rate than the lower SL clubs.

This will further exacerbate the gap between the lower SL clubs and the bigger SL clubs, or necessitate the ‘holding back’ of the bigger SL clubs.

This would also exacerbate the gap between the lower championship clubs and C1 clubs and the bigger championship clubs or necessitate us making a conscious decision to try and bring up the level of the lower championship clubs and C1 clubs to the bigger championship clubs, who we are already trying to bring up to the level of the lower SL clubs would mean holding back each level of the game until the one below had caught up. This would be quite obviously more damaging the further you went up.

If we were to cut 4 clubs, it would be massively better for us as a game to invest the £5m extra in to more and better youth coaching, and improving amateur facilities.

I also can’t agree that money spent on bringing a minority of championship clubs up to a level we know isn’t sustainable for SL would benefit the game massively, and certainly not more than that same money being spent on amateur and youth RL.

I agree. SL has asked the Championship to take a hit by removing P&R to try and improve SL for, in my view at least, the good of the game. I don't think it unreasonable that SL takes a small hit to try and improve the Championship for the good of the game. Plus £100k to a club like Oldham or Hemel is worth far more (to them) than at a SL club.

If you're going to shift existing money from SL to Championship clubs I'd ring fence some of it for running junior development at all Championship clubs. Get rid of the dual-reg system (or severely limit the numbers) and you've got more clubs providing juniors for their side with a realistic chance of progressing to their first team. Hopefully that gives those players a better link with the fans rather than a collection of SL reserves. The odd gem will progress to SL but as long as the Championship clubs are properly compensated I don't see that as a problem.

Pretty much took the words out of my mouth.

What do SL clubs contribute? = Matches on TV

What would a revised Championship contribute? = Matches on TV

RL must rank fairly high compared to some of the sports already shown. Admittedly a revised Championship may draw less viewers than a top of SL clash but why should it draw less support than a bottom of SL clash?

IMO if the sport is to get stronger and spread outside the M62 Corridor we need a strong championship for new teams to cut their teeth in without the shock of being plunger directly into the top flight - we have possible expansion teams in the championship now.

No SL provides a TV product people want to buy. The Championship just doesn’t.

Because it does. In our sport like every other sport. Fans would rather see a team being smashed in a higher league than winning a lower league. Around twice as many people wanted to watch Leigh be an SL whipping boy than a dominant lower league club.


And that is fine. Nobody is against having a strong championship. But a strong championship is just a strong a championship. It isn’t going to bring us in a ton more sponsors, it isn’t going to spread the game, it isn’t going to get loads more youngsters playing and it isn’t going to massively improve the player pool. It would just make a small minority of clubs a bit stronger and frankly the game has much much much higher priorities right now, like player wages, like marketing and advertising the game, like youth development, like the fact we are cutting development officer roles left right and centre.

Its all moot anyway, the championships aren’t really going to exist, we are going to have this silly new system and the lower league clubs who have been bitching and whining about franchising will be destroyed by this new method of P+R that they were so desperate to have, lower SL clubs will simply lose touch completely with the top SL clubs and in 5-10 years we will have 10-12 professional clubs and a feeder league at the current C1 level.

I would suggest that we have no way of knowing how many people would watch Leigh in a revised championship V a demoted SL club on Sky.


It will if its the vehicle for bringing through expansion teams.


On the contrary it will get more youngsters playing, and the stronger competition will bring forth more players for SL.


SL has had plenty of chance to do this and yet only one club can be said to be truly strong, three clubs are doing OK and the rest are no better (if not worse) than they have ever been.


As I understand it this is only one option and will only be passed if SL wants it. It will be brought about because of the inadequacies of the current set up and Championship clubs "bitching and whining" will have nothing to do with it.


That's what the big SL clubs want, isn't it?

We can make an educated guess. A rebranded championship is still just the championship. More people than watch Leigh now would probably watch Leigh V Demoted SL club. It will still be less than what Leigh would get against that same club if they were playing in SL.
It wont be a vehicle for new clubs. Nobody should think it should even try. The very best contribution to expansion it could possibly make is as a proving ground for expansion clubs. Nothing more. It wouldn’t be the determining factor over whether that expansion club thrived or failed, it would barely be an important factor. Im not denying it would be better to have strong championship as a proving ground than a weak one it just wont be a huge part of it.

But there will be less young players playing at a higher level, and more playing at a lower level because kids who would come through at lower SL clubs would now come through at championship level. This will harm the player pool.
Whether SL has had chance to do this or not is irrelevant. They are still more important things to spend our money on than bringing up the level of the championship to that of the clubs we don’t think are good enough for SL
I didn’t say it was brought about because of championship clubs bitching and whining, I said the thing the championship clubs have been bitching and whining for will destroy them. It will massively and hugely damage them

And it probably is what some bigger clubs want, and really who can blame them.

Who has suggested nothing back, extra monies spent ON the Championships would be expected to improve those competitions and the performance of the clubs in them

Exactly as the money provided by SKY is expected to improve SL and the clubs in it

What complete and utter rubbish

Quite possibly, I'm sure you'll be chuffed when it happens

thats an impressive level of misguided nonsense. Even for you.

When you go to a shop and by your ale and some stout as treat for the wife, do you do it because as an investment in the local spar in the expectation it will improve? or do you pay money for a product which you then own? Sky pay money for the SL product, not as a gift to the RFL because they like RL you great wazzock.

It is fundamentally different to what you are asking for which is a gift from SL to the championships (on top of the gift they are currently given every year) and an improvement in the championships as a competition has a very limited direct benefit to SL.