I have to do a dissertation next year relating to accounting and finance and I was thinking about doing something on either the salary cap or the franchising system we currently use in rugby league. The only problem is I'm not sure if my uni would take it seriously as a research topic as I'm not studying a course that directly relates to sport. Has anyone on here done any rugby related research before?

I'm not sure why they'd care what the subject was, within reason, provided it was rigorously examined. Is it an undergraduate dissertation?

I'm currently doing a dissertation about rugby league in the media. Though I'm on a Sports Journalism course.

I'll take this as a chance to ask mods...

Is it okay to post a link to a survey to help with the research on this forum?

You will discuss your topic with your supervisor, before you start your research you will submit a research proposal, in that you will set out what you want to do and why, how you will approach your research etc...at this point your supervisor will advise, I see no reason why you will not be taken seriously, rugby clubs are predominately businesses.

Did mine on participation levels last year. It was a Physical Education course.

There is no reason why your university would have a problem with it, as sports clubs are businesses after all. However, I'm not sure I would advise it too much. There isn't a lot of research, journals, reports, etc. about rugby league finances to look and compare it compared to other subject areas which makes it difficult to compare and contrast research.

Do you know what sort of question you want to be asking yet? What are you actually trying to find?

I would be looking at the long and short term impacts of the Salary Cap and Franchising upon the profitability and competitiveness of the Super League, the Co-Op championship and their member clubs, especially the ones who are doing well out of these changes (Saints with the salary cap, Celtic and Les Cats with franchising) and those who have done badly (Wigan with the salary cap, anyone who wins the Championship with franchising). A lot of my references would probably be NRL and NBA related as they've had both the systems for ages and there seems to be a fair few papers about it.

Saints were doing rather well before the SC appeared. I'd have a good think before you commit anything to paper!

Haven't done the research yet, I'd always assumed Saints were hard up judging from their ground, attendances and the area they're based in.

I did research in 1999 into the Performance Profiling of elite RL players v Amateur and it eventually got me a job! It was with the University of Teesside, I then wrote a complete program of novice lessons and scheme of work for Year 7 RL in my PGCE for Liverpool John Moores in 2004.

A glut of research is done into all aspects of RL by under and post graduates. Wonder if the RFL has ever thought of collating it for use by the game? Would be very very foolish not to, its free!!!! Students would love to see their work published and acknowledged. I would.

Did mine on football in Bolton and Rochdale. As long as you're able to justify your chosen subject and your research criteria are sound you shouldn't have any problems.

They have used some at Carnegie in the past I think.

What they should be doing is a Rugby League Studies module. They have a Football Studies one, so why not? I'd have well loved to have done that!

Shouldnt take too long to cover the national free to air tv section