by 2020 i would have a 16 team superleague all based on franchising along the line of the nrl. i would also look at the possibility of introducing bye rounds for some of the teams. all teams play each other home and away, and no magic weekend - instead properly marketed on the road games to be introduced. this way we don't get the same 2 teams playing each other 4 times or more a season. end of season top 8 play off again along the lines of the nrl. like it or not the nrl system works, it produces high quality games and they don't tinker with the structure as much as we do. i know people will say we don't have 16 teams of sufficient quality but really if we can't put together a 16 team top flight given the developments in the game over the last couple of years we might as well not bother.

Agree the bottom play of has got to go its crap and stinks that a team who finish bottom don't go down and a team who finish 2nd bottom do its not fair and nether will be

Plus I like the fact that you can get a team like the cowboys finish 8th and still make the grand final. This whole super 8's concept in theory sounds great but what we have seen is the gap between 4th and 8th is so wide that it's near enough impossible for the team in 8th to reach the semi finals.

A straight up play off system does allow it. Catalan near enough did it! Yes I rememaber that the play off system was full of one sided games before anyone brings that up.

I think we should go to at least a top 6 or just 5 play off system and ditch the super 8's. The aim of the competition should be to expand it and create at least 8 strong teams every season.

And finally yes let's ditch this ridiculous MPG.

I think the Super 8 system has led to teams at the top of the Championship becoming stronger than they were before, meaning that if they were to expand the league to 14 then the quality of the teams wouldn't be as thinly spread as it was last time there was a 14 team league.

The suggestion that the winner of a comp made up of mainly part time teams should automatically replace the bottom team in SL is ridiculous

Super League 1 and Super League 2 is just playing around with words.
Super League 2 = Championship

TV companies are hard enough pressed to show SL, never mind second tier RL.
You could call it whatever the feck you want but, it will not matter.

Far better to expand the comp properly, to either 14 or 16 clubs and if this number cannot be funded, why the hell are we adding more expansion clubs into the mix.

The game is spitting in the wind and trying to expand what essentially is a domestic competition all over the world and whilst it will bring some short term exposure, the medium term is just bonkers and this will be born out at the end of next season in the qualifiers, when success will depend more on how the fixtures fall, than which is the "better" team.

There has to be a serious increase in the TV deal to make it worth while or, quite simply, we should not be getting involved in the North American experiment and even with increased funding, we are gambling with the games future.

There needs to be a clear strategy to deal with the games expansion, with appropriate increases in funding. If not, we are committing harakiri.

The structure is a red herring. The clubs need to generate more money through their fan base.

Just alternating the structure will do nothing to get more bums on seats and more people watching and hoping TV will be the saviour

take your point but TV is the saviour of nearly all sports nowadays - gate money is becoming less and less important, especially at the top end

In reality it's a bit of both, but before we can go to broadcasters and demand more, we need to look at whether we as a sport are offering more.

The clubs simply have to expand their reach and grow their audiences. We need more people engaged with the sport, and we need more of the sort of people that broadcasters and advertisers are willing to pay to reach engaged with the sport.

And this is where I disagree with the anti-expansion sentiment, because I don't see heartland clubs doing that. I don't think they are capable of marketing the sport to those people, simply because I don't think they're good at marketing, because those new audiences aren't there, or because they have saturated their market. I simply don't see certain clubs growing their reach and their crowds beyond what they currently have. Clubs like Huddersfield are still giving away season tickets for £120-odd every year - is under selling the product really what passes for marketing over there?

I see teams like Catalans, like Toronto and like London as a way to address that. Clubs with potentially big markets, with an opportunity to reach the audiences that broadcasters and sponsors will pay to reach and an opportunity to expand our playing talent pool.

I keep reading that the sport needs to "focus on the heartlands", but what does this mean? Does it mean giving clubs more money? If so, from where, and what should this money be for? Does it mean giving more a place in Super League? If so, can those clubs sustain a competitive team - and how do those clubs enhance the sports appeal to new audiences? In short, what is the "end game" of "focusing on the heartlands"?

All these suggestions go to show that the answer really isn't that simple.

If we didn't have so many weak clubs this wouldn't be such an issue.

6,888 fans turned up yesterday to watch arguably there most important game for years.
6,888.

I think it's a fine balance of expansion whilst not throwing away tradition. Expansion needs to be exactly that, expanding the comp not just the geography. What I mean is that introducing eg. Toronto will be good but to do that we shouldn't collapse leigh which is what we seem to do.

TV is critical but to appeal to tv we need to fill stadiums as well. Why would tv be interested in a product fans can't be bothered to attend.

No easy answer

That's an interesting point.
However, I would suggest that TV is mainly interested in itself and not actually interested in what it may be showing, other than having something to air for "x" hours per day/week.
Since the onset of SL, we have gone from playing fixtures on Sundays, to having them on Thursday, FRiday, Saturday and Sunday, which has rock all to do with anyone wanting full stadia, it's purely down to Sky wanting to maximise the number of hours that it can fill the screen in the corner of your room.
We have effectively made it harder for actual fans to watch games in order to give Sky more games to broadcast, which necessarily, reduces the quality of the "product" on view.

Great for the armchair viewer but not great for the actual fans and the chopping and changing of fixtures, just to suit the broadcaster has a negative effect on attendances and ultimately means that the "true" fans struggle to make it to every game.

My club had every on of it's Super 8 fixtures changed, all at relatively short notice.
Some of these were because our game was on Sky and others had to be moved due to the ripple effect of other games being chosen.

Please tell me how this can help ANY club improve it's attendance's.

I struggle to see the issues with the current structure - it's one with a lot of competitive games, and plenty of showpiece events that can attract audiences and TV coverage.

I definitely see an issue with changing the structure every few years. It makes the sport look amateurish. It annoys people within the game to an extent that it both stagnates growth and actively turns people away from the game.

Licensing, one up-one down P&R, and the current structure have all been tried. They all have their positives and negatives. We should just disagree and commit to what we have, and instead focus on growing the sport's audience - that doesn't happen without marketing effort. If the RFL hired a decent marketing director and put in place a long-term plan that would be a good start, at the moment I suspect they have no idea on what type of audience they want, let alone how they attract them to our game.

Whatever system we have it'll attract complaints.
An obvious example is that any system that churns out a few dead rubbers gets criticisized for that, but introduce more jeopardy and soon enough somebody will be along to complain about coaches being under too much pressure to take a chance on young players.

The thing is to accept and acknowledge that every choice is a sacrifice, and then stick with your choices understanding what they entail. We've now pretty much exhausted the main options and seen their advantages and disadvantages - from yo-yo clubs, to 'clear, indepently assessed crit... hang on a minute, Bradford are in trouble!'

It would help if we had a better system for policy making. The RFL attract a lot of flak, but they have to put everything of importance to a vote of the club owners who have disparate preferences - so if we do ever manage a coherent plan, it'll be more luck than vision.

TV isn't the saviour of anything other than the bank balances of pro sportsmen.

The problem with the marketing is that it isn't just the RFL's problem to fix. The bulk of the marketing actually has to come from the clubs - and that in my view is where the key point of failure is. The clubs are the primary point of consumption, and the building of any audiences comes at that key point.

The RFL's "consumer" marketing isn't that bad - not perfect, but not anywhere near as bad as some will make out. The problem is with how the game is marketed commercially, but this is where the RFL are hamstrung by the clubs.

The RFL can only approach prospective sponsors and sell the audiences that are provided to them by the clubs, but when the clubs aren't growing their audiences or reaching new audiences, not attracting enough "ABC1" audiences (despite there being plenty of them on the doorstep of RL land), and grossly under-selling the sport with poor marketing initiatives and poorly executed cheap ticket offers, there is relatively little they can do.

If I were the RFL, I'd be spelling out an ABM strategy to each and every club. Tell the clubs that "in three years time, we want the Super League to be generating £x million in sponsorship, we want the competition to be sponsored by y and we expect clubs to generate annual ticket sales revenue of £z million" - and then give the marketing directors at each club an opportunity to present their marketing strategy to attract the audiences that will help them to achieve that.

The RFL needs to be more ruthless with the clubs who are underperforming but without the framework of licencing, there's not an awful lot they can do with those that don't perform.

Well smart pants, we are doomed to the championship now, so good luck with your theories, and blame some F@@@@R else.

Well I wasn't making this about Leigh, but whatever.

Have a nice day Cokey.

The main problem with franchising was that it was based on exclusion, not inclusion. Teams at risk struggled with investment because it was seen as a three-year deal that could be taken away if the seats were the wrong colour, or whatever. It should have been once you're in, you're in, subject to remaining solvent.

When a team wants to join, merely present a business case. Subject to player quality (expand the salary cap and overseas quota), the league can cope with a fourteen team league, as it currently has a 30 game season. You would then have a 26 game season, to allow space for play-offs.

The only questions to resolve are:
1. how to expand
2. how to keep it exciting at the bottom when the top is sorted

In terms of expansion, a conference league could be adopted. East and West. Play each team in your own conference home and away, and home or away from the other. Top four from each go into the play-offs, similar to the old style but points determing position.

As it expands, go to three. Top two from each, with two wild cards (ie, the two best of the rest).

One of the conference leagues could quite easily be an overseas conference.

14 team Super League, no relegation, Toulouse and Toronto in.

Why do we need to keep the teams at the bottom playing for something. Don't like this whole idea that every team needs something to play for through the whole year.

All sporting competitions has teams who end middle of the road. No idea why super league has to be different.

But the ones that people turn up in numbers to watch don't. Middle of the road in the Premiership is different to being out of the top 8 running half way through the season. £25 becomes a lot to pay for a match that isn't much more than a friendly.

No, but you have done.

Really? Prey tell....

Or continue making a show of yourself. Either one is fine with me.