Clubs will offer season tickets extensions after the first 23 games, I reckon season tickets will increase for the first phase of the comp as the initial cost outlay will be approx 20% cheaper.
The season ticket extension for the bottom 4 in tier 1 will drop off but I reckon the top 4 tier 2 will rocket knowing they will have a pathway of promotion against the non qualifying superleague teams.
So in reality the season becomes a 2 stage one with the 2nd phase being an optional one.

What will be the format of the Magic Weekend? 2 more games in 2016?

So, if I am reading this right, it's theoretically possible that the 4 bottom Superleague clubs could all be relegated in one season if the Championship clubs finish 1 to 3 in the middle league and the fourth one wins the sudden death match? (Not that I would ever expect this to happen though).

Great innit

I think I get it, but to be honest I don't care.

Probably best just to wait for the fixture list and see what happens next year. It's a ridiculously over-complicated system to decided two simple issues;

- who wins the league, and
- promotion/relegation.

That's RL all over though, isn't it. Great game made complicated by morons who run it.

If you look at 2013 Hull KR who finished 8th were 9 points a drift of Wigan in 4th place. Realistically how could a team turn around a 10 point swing over just 7 games to make the 4? Personally I'd start afresh after the regular season ends. The only advantage for finishing top 4 should be just an extra home fixture.

In the 2nd tier there is no advantage between finishing 9th or 12th so why should there be one for the top tier?
I agree with everything else but this.

Wouldn't that put us back to literally where we are now? Once a teams safe in the 8 there's no incentive to carry on, and sacrificing a home game for 4 - 5 weeks to rest your squad and prepare for the 7 games is something a lot of teams would take.

Saints finished in 5th 2 points behind Wigan this year. Had the two forms continued saints would of finished in the top 4 instead of Wigan (potentially) meaning in this system you wouldn't be able to afford a slide like Wigan had towards the end of the season before the playoffs.

Realistically, do you deserve that much of a chance if you are 8th after 23 rounds?

I'd put more emphasis on prize money on the place a team finishes in the regular season. For instance finish a couple of places lower and it hits the clubs and the players in the pocket. Perhaps the RFL should look into the prize money with less prize money for the Play-Offs and more for league positions finishes?

The play-offs should be for the prestige and the Championship should be for the allocation of prize money!!

Take away emphasis on the playoffs and the season ends with a damp fizzle instead of a bang, as clubs have had their pay day.

Also, prize money of any significance requires the league to have sponsors and that's a whole other story

The Grand Final is about the prestige. Tell me any club, player or fan who wouldn't want to be there regardless of the prize money?

The same can be said about the challenge cup. The challenge cup is about "prestige" but would you want your club to sacrifice league position for the sake of it? Even more so if that league position determines the clubs ability to bring in new players.

I'm not saying people don't want to get there (just like people want to get to the challenge cup) but it would make the emphasis on finishing as high as possible, so the playoffs/ grandfinal will generally be competed by burnt out teams and make it feel like an after thought. Which would dampen the end of the season.

Should a team that finishes bottom in Superleague have the same chance in tier 2 as the 9th placed club who have just missed out on the play-offs?

Nope.

I believe there should be various advantages (not playing a championship club in round 1 and playing 2/3 of the home games they have against the sl teams are two advantages they should receive off the top of my head)

Whether this will happen remains to be seen. I can't even find whether they'll play super league scoring (2 points a win 1 a draw) or championship (3 points and bonus points)

But regardless 2 wrongs don't make a right

Just imagine this scenario. Leeds Rhinos have a catalogue of injuries during the regular season and finish 8th. Leeds are 10 points behind 4th place but now have all their star players back for tier 1 fixtures. They then win all seven games, are the form team but still don't make the 4. Surely we want the best 'in form' teams in the play-offs?

We want the best teams over the course of the year. Without becoming even more convoluted and complicated, the way to do that is having the teams who won most throughout the year. There's no other way to determine whether the Leeds team with no injuries would of faired any better in the previous 23 rounds. Teams can only play what's in front of them etc. so the teams with the most points compete.

I personally really like the top 4 playoff, it's clean, simple, rewards those who are consistent throughout the year and keeps a bit of mystery. And no club call ... Everything is better with no club call.

Wasn't there something similar to that a couple of years back with Wakefield winning the last 9 games of the season to try and get into the playoffs?

Being owned by by a rich air travel magnate and being owned by the super-rich Mittal family. That's how.

I like the idea, but I do recognize it's not perfect.

But no system is.

The current system really over-rewards mediocrity.

The new system has brought up 2 issues which I agree with, as opposed to the hypothetical scenarios.

The 2 factual issues are the restart for the middle 8.
And the way you price a season ticket.

The second issue is easily solvable and should be well with in the sales and marketing teams capability for the clubs.

The first issue is tricky. You can't carry all the point over as SL2 teams at the top would have more points than 9th placed SL1 team.
Resetting to nil, gets rid of that.
But it then takes away the points, takes away any reward for the higher placed sides in both SL1 and SL2.

You would imagine that the gap in funding that SL1 sides get, will give them some advantage. I would not expect any change in the current 3 year programme as I think a 9th placed team would be far to strong to get relegated anyway.

But if it was an issue, something like Magic Super beetle said about fixing the fixtures to the higher placed teams advantage. OR maybe something like carrying a bonus point across. But that would take away from the competitiveness of the middle group.

I just think a team that gets into 9th will be far too strong to loose, so many matches that they get relegated.

I haven't read all posts in all the related threads, but no-one seems to have picked up on the point that there will be a 'million pound game' every year as in middle 8, 4th plays fifth for the final SL spot.
Perhaps the Championship teams best bet would be to go all out for this fixture, rather than trying to outdo the big boys over several games?

It's an idea, however that relies on the championship teams colluding.

If you did not go all out against the big boys and another championship team did and beat just one of them. Then they would be in the position to take that 5th spot, (or higher).

It's fine to say beat everyone around you, but you can't plan for other teams to just ignore the SL sides and so you can't ignore them either for fear of losing out.

That game should be good hopefully!

However it could be frustrating if a SL team finishes 5th and then beats a 4th placed Championship team in that game!

I agree with this, it's by no means perfect but no system would be. The people being heavily critical of this proposed system seem to not understand it and just want our system to be exactly the same as league football. When we have got a part-time semi professional second tier and a full time professional top tier it would be a massive step backwards to go back to one up one down P+R IMO.

Licensing was supposed to put us in a position where any SL teams who weren't performing adequately enough could be replaced by teams from below who'd had time to build towards getting facilities up to standard to make the jump up. In reality even though plenty of SL clubs could very easily have been relegated, no team from the Championship could really stake a claim for taking their place with any argument other than "we could do just as badly as they did."

This proposed system provides a good compromise between not rewarding mediocrity at the top by giving a more sensible PO system where finishing outside the eventual top 4 no longer means you still have a claim to be champions, whilst also giving most of the other teams something to play for throughout the whole season, and now giving teams from the 2nd tier the opportunity to prove (on the field at least) that they are worthy of competing in SL. There are definite issues with it, I don't like that the MW is still an extra fixture when it doesn't need to be, and there are big question marks over how funding will be allocated, salary cap, TV deals etc., but these can't really be commented on until the details become clear.

All in all, I think it's better than the system we've currently got, and is definitely better than one up one down. It may need a few tweaks here and there in the first season or two, but really if the RFL have decided this is the best way to go they need to stick with it, and clubs, fans, players, sponsors etc all need to get behind it. There's been far too much chopping and changing of the league structure since SL started.

Cas have yet to recover from losing their last ‘million pound game’. Whilst that game itself may have been well attended, surrounding that game both clubs had atrocious attendances, the game itself was an awful error ridden affair played out between two sets of aussie reserve graders. Wakefield fielded 15 out of 17 overseas players that game. Lets hope that having one every year isn’t as damaging.

Simple solution, ALL clubs use the Championship quota, problem solved

That wasnt hard, was it?

Yeah, that will work. All those contracted players can have their contracts cancelled, and they will happily just walk away. No chance of them challenging it or anything and we definitely wont see loads of players suddenly getting british passports like before.

You have obviously thought this through

Those with existing contracts ( not many longer than 1 or 2 years I would guess ) could be honoured, but if it became a rule that when playing a game all clubs must apply the ' lower ' clubs quota ( as has been suggested before for Challenge Cup matches ) then it would be up to the clubs who they recruit

Problem solved, not hard is it?