Smokey ta, you seem to enjoy shooting other posters suggestions down, while not really coming up with any constructive ideas yourself.

Come on, the sport is obviously in a mess, what's your suggestion?

Stop it maurice your talking sense but the franchise fairies will tell you its not the rfl fault no,its not the franchise failing no.Its some chairman who is cocking it all up.But can they explain how this super franchise system allows it?????

They would sooner see some 37 year old aussie being paid a fortune to plod round the field than use that money to make our game stronger

Time to go tricky dicky take your tennis racket with you

I have given my suggestions plenty of times. For your benefit, and just as an overview.

I would increase the league to 16 sides and give each club a place in perpetuity and only add to it as and when necessary.

Split it into two conferences of 8. You play the 7 teams in your conference twice, and the 8 teams in the other conference once, 4 home, 4 away. Top four in each league into play-offs, 1st conference A plays 4th conference B and so on in straight knock-out comp. Which would give us 22 rounds, plus 3 rounds in the play offs.

I would use the spare rounds to put in an international competition between the 4 home nations and france mid season. With GB competing in 4 nations competitions and tours.

I would scrap the cap completely and look at the make up of squads. Insist that clubs register a 20 man squad at the start of a season, either they leave a space spare or any transfers must replace a registered player, the only other players who could represent the club would need to be academy registered players below the age of 21. Clubs must have at least 10 players in their 20man squad who were registered to the club on their 19th birthday, and no more than 5 players who werent registered to a european club on their 19th birthday.

I would (and i did suggest this before the NRL) split the game into quarters, to increase ad revenue and as such the value of the product, I also believe this would result in closer games. I would also look to sell everything under the sun to sponsors ala IPL cricket to increase funds.

I think doing these things would put the game in position where it can build, and give the space needed for clubs to grow.

The two tier simply wont work. The SL two will just be the championship by another name.

Thank you TA.

I could pull holes in it all day, but its your vision and without 10000 words you have supported it.

Two tens is far better and ticks more boxes for the future though.

two tens does nothing but put 4 SL sides in the championship and 4 championship sides in championship 1. Takes money Sky has paid for SL, gives it to a competition they dont screen and forces SL to either play an extra round or lose the millennium weekend and makes the SL season uneven with some clubs getting 1 more home game than others.

If the magic weekend is included in the 3 games that teams play against each other then the home/away games will be equal. 13 home 13 away 1 magic weekend. 27 games just as there are now.

The 2 tier system creates a stronger second tier which would hopefully reduce the gap in quality between the 2 divisions allowing the reintroduction of P+R.

A lot of this all depends if more money can be generated through sponsorship/TV for SL2 but I think that ESPN/Premier Sports/Terrestrial Channels would invest more heavily in the second tier if it was strengthened.

TA is talking SL2 as the new PT championship, I am selling it as SL2 - a vibrant competitive FT comp containing clubs with realistic SL1 ambition showcasing British talent in front of good attendances in quality stadiums. I am assuming Sky will want a game a week

You are assuming Sky would want a second tier sport, they really only show 2nd tier football, not any other sports but only football.

You are assuming that a fully pro competition in the 2nd tier could be run on £500k a year.

You are assuming, for some reason, that demoting 4 clubs would drag up the standard of the other 6, rather than bring down the standard of those 4.

You are also assuming that Sky would be happy to pay the same for a 10 team comp as they are a 14 team comp, and that they would be happy to see their investment in SL spread to a sport the currently dont have the rights to and didnt really want before.

Fairly sure they are showing Championship RU, although the RFU might be paying them to cover it rather than the RL equvilant

You might be selling it as a vibrant competitive FT comp but I am not sure anybody sensible would be buying it

As far as I can tell, your solution to Bradford’s woes (and similar teams) would be to place them into a division lower than their current status and tell them to run a full time professional club on the income they generate despite the clear impact this relegation of status would have on attendance and sponsorship revenue

And £500k across a 20 man squad is a average of £25k a year per player – I think that value speaks for itself when you want to build a full time league out of it

I thought the 500k was the sky money and suggested that clubs should run £1m salary cap, which is plenty to run a full time squad.
2nd division RU is shown as is 2nd division football, bowls was on earlier tonight ffs and dominoes is on at 11pm.

As sex on legs states, the 500K would be the left over sky money that would be divvied up between the "SL2" clubs (As Maurice described it)
So as already mentioned the top 10 would receive the same amount and the SL2 could still operate full time on a £1M 'cap' (maybe a little less) This in turn would mean less of a gap when/if a club achieves promotion so a yo-yo effect is lessened.
The injection of this amount of money to former championship clubs should not be underestimated, it WILL bring up those clubs, however to say that those former SL1 clubs (lets refer to it in this instance for the sake of arguement) will be brought down a level isn't neceesarily a bad thing. they aren't getting hammered each week, they have less pressure to manage bigger wage demands and the financial risks overall are less also. They have to learn to trim back & be more efficient, rather than looking at it from the POV of less SKY revenue, look at it from a POV of controlled improvement with greater competetiveness which IS attractive to fans.
So for instance Bradford V Wakey or Cas v Fev in a theoretical SL2 wouldn't get more a than a few thousand? I think you underestimate how much a modicum of success & stability can turn people to want to support their club.
I believe a two tier full time system protects those clubs that are always on the edge financially & results wise yet it would allow former championship clubs to develop further, make substantial improvements with the additional money and all that it brings with it.
I'm sold already

I can't even be ar-sed reading this thread, it wasn't until I got halfway through that i realised it was yet more of Maurices paranoid rants about licencing.


On behalf of other Leigh fans, I'd like to apologise for the stuck record.

Without licensing, RL would have vanished about 10 years ago. The money that isn't in the gamee now would have been spread even thinner, leading to a complete collapse.

Simple as that.

My apologies for skoot he rarely gets to games these days since studying 'How to Run Sport with little knowledge' at Scunnie tec, he sits next to Lewis and opposite Woody

I am impressed that licensing saved the game several years before it was even introduced

It was thrown in with the RFU contract, they screen a whole 11 games of a 22 round season + play-offs.

So these clubs who we move down, are on the edge financially now, so we give them lower crowds, lower exposure, £700k less TV money all for the opportunity to cut their wage bill by £650k?

Work it out fellah, bejesus it aint rocket science!

Two levels idea is not a bad thing.....but I'm not sure some are understanding the effects

The days of promotion and relegation were not so great.
Relegation usually damaged a club. Probably with the exception of Cas it takes a long time to recover and come back.
You lose money straight away because of crowds and sponsorship slipping away. The players mostly just join the team coming up or become fringe players elsewhere.

What a big league does is let the likes of Wakefield and Salford get the big days against the top clubs to make it entertaining for people to watch the big games and gets them a higher profile.
Of course the regulars will still watch but the numbers will be much smaller unless you are playing the top teams.

There will always be a gap between the two tiers. Creating a 10 strong league will make that league stronger but will not help the level below............especially if it still a franchise. P&R would have to be in place which would then hurt the top tier.

I think we are better making the current league stronger and supporting the next tier we have now by helping them build to a franchise.

But lets have a look at the detail.

you suggest that we play 9 teams 3 times to give us a league of 27 weekly rounds. We already have 27 games so there's no extra game to balance the income. Plus a 10 team league won't have a top 8 play-off so there will in all likelihood be no extra games for anyone, and less for some.

The 10 teams will get money cut from their income. Daft.

Now let's look at the division 2. the four teams from the old SL will have their budgets cut by just over half, and I'me guessing their attendance, sponsorship & sales will suffer similarly. Daft.

The 6 teams who stay in the second tier will get an additional £350k. Great for them. The teams relegated to the third division (Championship if you like) will have their money halved also. Daft.

So out of all the 26 teams that will be affected by this 6 will be better off whilst the rest are considerably worse off. Not what this game needs at all.

In July ? 2011 a team was to be told that it would lose its licence for 2012, now that could have been multiple teams as I understand it. So put simply a FT SL club was going to be given a few months notice that it was being dumped without a parachute into a PT league for at least the next 3 years - and people knock the alternative.
Like it or not SL is 3 divisions in 1, the bottom third are no bigger/better than some Championship clubs who are dieing without promotion. Two divisions brings these together, provides an opportunity for expansion, provides a realistic platform to move between divisions, increase intensity at the top and starts to eliminate the laughable system we have in place.

How do you build a brand when the team keeps losing? When you are at the bottom constantly the fans stop going, see Hudds three years at the bottom, relegation provides the opportunity to go on a winning run and build again. Winning is a habit.

People base the difference between the divisions on what it was not what it could and should be. The move has been made harder by expanding the top division too much and there were disadvantages to being promoted, some teams over came them and some did not, that is sport!

Id be 100% for having P & R back as ive never been a fan of the franchise system we have now but even I think that it has nothing to do with Bradford's plight. Its an unpaid tax bill, nothing to do with how the RFL runs the game as a whole

The 10 teams will get the same if not more money as more games will be closer, attendances higher with more regular derbies between these top teams. Each team would have more TV exposure (as fewer teams into the same match covered games) so sponsorship money could potentially increase.
Now, lets look at the Div 2, you see you're looking at it from a direct money in from sky POV, that isn't the be all & end all. The 4 teams to drop have to run with a much more limited budget than before so you learn to be more efficient, this holds you in good standing for any potential return to the top echelon and reduces risk of financial losses comparative to before. not having enough money in the pot for a full time competetive squad with the better teams leaves you to rot almost every year, going bust because you've overextended yourself & had bad managment is the ultimate price to pay.
Teams going down with limited finances then have to look at developing their local talent even more so instead of lucrative hand outs to over the hill Antipodeans.
There's no reason these 4 clubs wouldn't remain competitive if not near the top of the tree so fans despite the fact you're in 'div2' will turn out, sure not in the same numbers when facing some of the big teams

You're not looking at the potential bigger picture.
I'd also like to know how you reckon the 350K increase for the 6 remaining teams in 2nd echelon & the halving of income for tier 3 teams?

they have p and r in every other sport i can think of and it works.its the 1 thing about rugby league i hate with a passion.thats what makes football more exciting. knowing that teams like swindon town or bury can get promoted to the premiership by what they do on the pitch. not how big there fan base is or any of other of the daft rules that have been brought up.