12 teams only:

=#4000FFNecessary teams:

Wigan
St Helens
Warrington

Leeds
Bradford
Huddersfield (Birthplace, good stadium, not close to other clubs)
Hull FC (powerful fan base, juniors, excellent stadium)
Hull KR (great rivalry with FC, devoted but not huge fan base)

London (strategic location, great junior development)

Catalans (strong fan base, good stadium, youth)
Toulouse (will have good stadium, youth development, local derby).

=#FF00FFPossible remaining teams (debateable):

Wakefield (assume new stadium, strong but not huge fan base).

OR

Salford (strategic location).

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Two French teams creates local rivalry, is necessary to develop game of RL in France among youth, and strengthen national team, which will bring more money to French RL and Super League (eventually French clubs will be supported by Al Jazeera TV money, and 10 English teams can share Sky money).

When only 10 English clubs London can buy more quality English players, and better quality coach, than when there are 13 as is the case now.

Later increase to 14 clubs or 16 clubs only with new expansion clubs from England, Wales and France.

Castleford and Widnes are good clubs but cannot help the profile of rugby league in Europe or even in UK. Toulouse is big name in European sport, esp rugby XV, so will bring more French attention and more TV money to Super League.

10 teams with a 2 million cap. First for the drop are ones who can't afford cap without financial cripple.

The best players from the four dropped go into the weaker teams left in the ten, thus making them better and more likely to challenge the big teams.

Higher cap means imports will be better quality, also increasing quality of remaining 10 teams.

Bring back promotion / relegation so the 4 teams dropped (and other lower league teams) can fight their way in (provisionally) and stay in once they get a decent backer, can spend to the cap and build a quality Super League side.

and on a final note, 10 teams would mean less games so International fixtures, Exiles matches, Lancs vs Yorks, Magic Weekends, ect... could be expanded to keep the Sky people happy.

So you suggest that the new SL structure is based on loss making companies with a wealthy backer chucking money down a plughole? Preposterous ide.... oh, wait.

He's not far off though, if he had 2 FT 10's.
Certainly need £2m cap with a £1.8m min in the top tier, £1m spend in the second.

I don't see how saying decent backer means to you wealthy backer. There is a difference for me. A decent backer to me is someone who runs a club well.

1.65m cap for 14 teams is 23.1m.
2m cap for 10 teams is 20m.

So over all less money would be spent, the sky money would be split up between 4 less teams, which would cover the 400,000 rise in cap.

Where is this loss making structure you mention? Because by my reckoning we are making more of a loss now than if you adopt that system.

Not to mention a higher gate take for the cubs as games would be more competitive. Wigan get an extra 8-10k supporters at the ground for the game against Warrington compared to games against London for example.

If fans knew they were not going to get a blow out they might turn up for more games. Close competitive games will attract the part time fans, and ultimately sky would love to have more competitive games on the tv, and then we could demand more money for the better product.

10 Teams, top 4 Playoff.

1 vs 2 [Winner to GF, Loser to week 2
3 vs 4 [Winner to week 2, loser eliminated

Week Two

Loser Game One vs Winner Game two

Week Three

Grand Final [Winner week one vs Winner week two

Whatever the outcome, I'd like to see more emphasis on finishing top of the league and less play-off places. Too many teams are happy to just finish in the 8 and have a play-off game to look forward to.

The number of teams in the playoff is nowhere near as important as the number of teams in the league. The latter dictates the former.

12 teams is balanced and worked for years. 10 teams wouldn't mean less games, it would probably mean playing everyone three times. We've already tried that and nobody liked it.

If the money was there for a SL grant of 1.5mill I'd go for a 14 team comp with at least two of the teams being from France (pref three)

Personally, I'd go with a 14 teams Super League with a 6 team play off system. But if we had to go down to 12, I'd eliminate both London (poorest team on the pitch) and Bradford (dire financial state). Having said that, neither of these two will be eliminated because the RFL still seem to think London can work, and they won't get rid of Bradford. So I can see Salford and either Wakefield or Castleford (depending on who get's their ground sorted first) being dumped into the championship, if 12 teams is a nessessity.

Why does it always have to be an even number? I would go with 11 or 13.

In the current format, 14. I guess I'm biased though as I want room for my team to be included.

Well, you won’t be on your own.

Supporters of the top clubs, on the whole, will want less, those at the bottom about the same & those outside more, or two leagues of ten.

Then there are the big club zealots, who’d be happy with a league of four, playing each other endlessly throughout the season ad-infinitum

.

In my opinion and many others as well, there just isnt the talent available to sustain 14 top flite teams. Which is why I am surprised so many people have voted for a 14 team league but each to there own and as somebody stated earlier it is effectivley safeguarding your team, whoever that may be in SL.

If you take in to account playing ability, stadium quality, finances and attendances then London would drop out and also bradford (takeover depending) but the more likely teams to drop would be salford and cas to form a 12 team league!

2 leagues of 10 would be my personal choice however that would be too radical a step in such a short space of time so a 12 team league would be a good compromise.

The key to a successful SL imo is a high quality fully professional 2nd tier, so teams promoted dont take as long to adapt and relegated teams dont completely walk the championship. However this is far easier said than done and would require 10s of millions of pounds of investment.

Having our TV deal split between several broadcasters could increase revenue but i doubt this is possible. 4 televised games a week split between FTA channels, sky, espn and premier sports would be brilliant in terms of revenue and sponsorship.

An even number of teams is required if you want to have a magic weekend

And on what basis do you form that opinion?

dont offer either anything off the pitch and poor fan bases and terrible on the pitch especially cas

Wow. Disagree completely on both points. Poor this season but generally we've done quite well. Attendances are steady. As for offering nothing off-field that's just naive. Glad you weren't judging licences if you're taking everything at face value based on limited knowledge.

The RFL appeared to do that

Of course your glad. If SL became a 12 team league next season or come the next franchise period, what advantages would Cas have above other contenders?

Leeds, Wigan, Wire, Saints, Hull, Catalan are all dead certs to be in the league.
Huddersfield, Hull KR are both probables to be in the league
Salford, Wakey, Cas, Widnes, Bradford and London would be fighting out for the remaining 4 spots.

The RFL dont want to get rid of London or Bradford because they both add something to the league in one way or another. This is pending on Bradford sorting out there financial mess. They are big club that offers a lot to SL. London is the RFL love child so wont dis own them.

That leaves 2 from Widnes, Cas, Wakey and Salford. Widnes have the biggest backer and a decent stadium so they would get in.

That leaves 1 from 3. Although Salford have a new ground its still pretty poor and they offer little on the pitch as well as off it even though they have a massive potential to tap into being just outside manchester. Apparantly they are on the brink of administration which doesnt help there cause but are not as big a club as bulls so will get less help from the RFL. Nobody would really miss them that much, compared with other teams.

So that leaves a toss up between Wakey and Cas. Wakey are further a long with there new stadium, better on the pitch and imo more potential to challenge for playoff places.

So unfortunately for you thats bye bye Cas. Just my opinion but thats how i came to it!

Which 2 clubs do you think would be dropped?

All the more reason to go with an odd number then

The real issue isn't how many teams are sustainable now, but how many are sustainable long-term. Standards may have dropped a little in recent years due to Aussie/Kiwi mass signings not being possible any more (at least to the sort of standard as was available in the past). That means that an increasing number of players have to come through junior development. It should surprise nobody at all if it takes some years for clubs across the board to take time to put in place a decent development 'funnel' of juniors compared to the far easier task of signing 25-year old NRL hacks.

On the playing front, the question should be, how many clubs would be sustainable if all SL clubs were really focused on junior development and overseas players were limited to 2/3?

People are naive IMO if they assume any question on the number of clubs can be made sensibly without input from Sky. If I were a Sky negotiator, I'd agree happily to SL cutting clubs, so long as I paid SL proportionately less in return. Why on earth would I want to pay the same for a 10-club league, with the consequent increase in repeat fixtures? You can put an argument against that, but in a commercial negotiation that would be my starting point. I'd bet that Sky also value the Broncos and Cats more than any two current SL clubs outside of Leeds, Wigan and Sts (a separate negotiation if I ran the RFL would be to make Sky put their money where their mouth is on this and either underwrite or take an ownership stake in the Broncos, like they do with the Storm in Aus).

Precisely. For example, Irn-Bru pay a certain amount for 'X' number of appearances as SL sponsor per season. Fewer weekly rounds means the cost of their sponsorship will have to drop accordingly. Fewer weekly rounds also means fewer advertising slots during SL broadcasts, which means less income directly related to SL for Sky. Sky aren't stupid - they'll soon cut their RFL payments.

Plus - unless a few thousand additional fans suddenly crawl out of the woodwork at every club for this new, ultra-intense SL, clubs are looking at a loss of takings. Unless we want more manufactured repeat fixtures, a 12-team league means 2 fewer home games, a 10-team league means 4 fewer home games. Taking the 2011 average attendance of 9,615 and an average ticket price of £10, that's a £192,300 drop in home gate income for a 12-team league, or £384,600 for a 10-team league.

And that's not taking into account the loss of income from matchday revenue such as food, drink, car park spaces, corporate hospitality, pitchside sponsors, player sponsors, programme sales, programme sponsors, etc, etc. That income will all be cut with fewer games.

or simple solution 12 team league and what they used to do of the top 6 play each other 3 times the following season and the bottom 6 play each other 3 times

in that case just call it a 'weekend'...