As SL comes to an end over the next couple of years, in name at least, how successful a time do you think it has been for the sport? Are we in a better or worse place than when it began? It is just shy of a quarter of the sport’s entire history now!

What lessons need to learned, either to be carried forward or to try to improve and strengthen the game?

Worse state by a long way.

Lessons to be learned? The salary cap is killing the sport

I’d disagree, in so far as I think it is a mixed bag. Much of that reflects wider societal, cultural and economic changes, of course.

On the credit side, compared with the 27 years before SL, summer rugby has worked, facilities are typically much less dilapidated, and we have 12 or so full-time teams of fabulously impressive athletes.

On the debit side, even with Wigan’s overwhelming dominance in the final years of the limited tackles pre-SL era, from 1968 to the arrival of SL there 12 different RL champions. The end of Wigan’s hegemony at the start of SL and the rise of Leeds/decline of Bradford from the mid-2000s made it feel like a moving, vital contest. Some the stuff that looks dated now was still fairly new then. With hindsight, the best of SL was probably done by the start of licensing and since that was abandoned, it has felt a bit like rearranging the super8s and the golden points on the titanic. The gimmicks moved from being presentational to structural.

It had its time, and was not remotely all bad, but that time has passed.

The salary cap isn’t killing the sport (after all the NRL also has a cap, and flourishing) - having the cap managed by the people who benefit most from keeping it superficially low (in the short term at least) whilst not having any commercial activity for so long not discerningly increasing money in the sport over decades, leading to everything being cut to the bone financially are the things which is killing the sport.

IMG bringing in a commercial team, and committing to a prolonged schedule of increasing the salary cap, whilst repurposing the cap to focus more on empowering teams to keep their homegrown talent (rather than some ill conceived “providing an equal competition” as it currently is presented as, when it clearly doesn’t achieve that aim), bringing in minimum contracts for young players, limiting cap value to a set amount, and providing more incentives for investing in youth, both locally, and in target communities.

It peaked (in my opinion) between 2004-2007. During this period, the game had lots of household names, we could still sell out challenge cup finals, games felt more exciting both on TV and in person, it felt like we had more media coverage, a better commentary team in Eddie & Stevo on TV.....since then it has been on a downward trend for various reasons including a stagnating salary cap, the demise of the Bradford Bulls (loss of a big derby with Leeds), too many changes to the league structure including 14 teams, franchising, super 8s, middle 8s, back to 12, a poor commentary team on TV that struggle to get excited about the product on the pitch and failed attempts at expansion in Toronto, North Wales and the demise of London have made it a less attractive product.

Superleague is BOOMING in St Helens................................

Getting rid of the salary cap won't work as half the teams in Superleague don't spend the cap now?
Make all clubs have an Academy to bring more youngsters through, The winners of past Superleague titles have all had Academy's to fall back on.
Up the salary cap a bit but not a huge amount.

Which is kind of what I wanted to say, but If I said it the way you did, I would have just been called a troll by supporters of the clubs this applies to.

Should it not be about clubs trying to keep up with saints and Wigan rather than saints and Wigan being held back by Wakefield and cas etc? If some clubs don't spend up to the salary cap, tough but to stop the exodus of talent to the NRL, we should be increasing wages to keep the best players in SL.

Although the change to summer rugby wasn't universally popular, there is little doubt that it's a better spectacle in "summer" than winter.
Harder, drier playing surfaces keep the game more open (generally speaking) and more entertaining.
The cap is a problem but, primarily because of lack of investment into the game and not just because we have a salary cap.

Even though many clubs dont spend the full cap, it should have risen year on year (at least in line with inflation).

Ultimately though, the sport is still where it was and hasn't made too much progress in attracting new people to the game and the million dollar question is, whether the sport sees itself as a niche sport or a "national" game and depending on the answer to this question, where it wants to be in 5,10 or 20 years time. There has been little progress (perhaps zero) with this over the 25 years of SL.

Facilities, generally speaking, have improved, with new grounds for a number of clubs but, the sport needs to decide where it's going and there's heaps of work to do to keep the youngsters interested, both in terms of wanting to play and wanting to watch RL and this is the biggest challenge that the sport faces.

Some pretty hollow victories for saints these last few years in such poor times.

The cap is a distraction, whether you're pro or anti, imo. Recycling a post from the end of last year...

The cap is a red herring in more than one way, imo, and distracts from more meaningful stuff.

The UK economy is knackered, especially in RL’s traditional heartlands. So, while it is very disappointing that the cap has risen so little (or fallen quite a lot in real terms), it’s not like anybody is profiteering.

Other sports have flourished with caps in place, and seen their caps grow. I suppose it is a bit different if your league is the pinnacle of its sport, like the major US leagues or the NRL. But the CFL has a cap, and does okay - it just accepts that it has been left behind by the NFL. We’re not far off that for SL vs the NRL and I don’t think the NRL is a sensible yardstick anymore. The issue is money, and I don’t believe the cap is shutting out investment - and unless potential investors start coming forward to say it is, I’ll remain sceptical. In part because the cap itself is now a bit of a joke. It hasn’t brought sufficient competitive parity (although it could be worse, I admit) or financial stability to clubs. And it has so many loopholes we may as well not bother and save a few quid on the admin. It’s only benefit is that it annoys Wigan fans who imagine it holds their club back (it doesn’t, but if it annoys them that’s a minor plus).

I just don't think the cap is the answer here. Incentives to improve youth development across the game are needed but I don't think propping up the currently broken system using narrowly-relevant cap incentives would work.
The underlying problems are disparity in revenue between SL clubs, which isn't a easy or pain-free fix and the club- rather than player-centric pathways.

Sorry to disappoint you but it doesnt annoy me and it doesnt hold us back,we just havnt been good as St Helens last few years who have been dominant (apart from the CC ).This dominance will change maybe to Wigan or Warrington or Leeds etc but it will change.

That’s exactly how it should be.

Tough question to answer.

Super League is far better for being a summer sport. It is a much more comfortable experience standing on a terrace in a t-shirt in July than having to wrap up to stare into fog trying to catch a glimpse of a forwards game in a mud bath. The improved ground conditions have made for a faster and more free flowing game that is far more exciting to watch.

The grounds and facilities have improved tremendously, and the focus on making the sport more family friendly during the late '90s and throughout the 2000's really worked making for an overall better atmosphere.

What hasn't improved is the business side of the sport. The RFL are still a joke, still penniless, and still behind the times. The game has needed investment for a long time, and when you have a governing body that cannot support struggling clubs people need to ask why.

The RFL cannot even market the game correctly. Sky did a better job of marketing the game when they took on the Super League back in the mid '90s than the RFL do in 2023. Take the RFL's website as an example. It is a poorly built site, looks very amateur, is confusing to navigate, and is full of dead links and outdated pages. No wonder some profession clubs have websites that resemble home made Geocities sites from decades ago, and make basic mistakes in their advertising campaigns (Leigh Lopards - I'm looking at you). They need to up their game to attract new people to the sport. It all just looks too amateurish.

I may have a biased viewpoint as a long time Leeds fan who lived in Bradford during the late '90s to late 2000's (Leeds golden era and Bullmania in full swing), but more people just seemed more invested in the sport back then. There seemed to be more household names playing, and more people just appeared to be aware of the sport.

In regards to the salary cap - I thought it was great for the sport when it was introduced, and proudly told football fans how it is a far better system that should be adopted into other sports. Now I'm not so sure. Like others have said, it has got stagnant due to the lack of constant increases. The best players can get more money down under. Politics aside, I wouldn't blame them for making the move anyway, never mind for a higher pay packet. If we kept, or even attracted, all the best players then the rest will trickle down the leagues making the whole sport better.

The whole sport needs a shake up in England. We need to start at the top of the governing body and ensure the correct people are in place to help maximise exposure, revenue, and interest before it really becomes a minority sport here and we are all watching the southern hemisphere teams grow.

Being a London fan we are out on a limb compared to 95% of the rugby league teams in regards to finances through gate receipts, merchandise etc but looking at this piece, Super League is so far behind the NRL, i do hope that IMG come in and actually make a difference to the game as under the RFL leadership, SuperLeague has not really improved. I do not know salaries at Super League clubs but I am guessing the younger players are not even earning what the women players will be earning in Australia next season. https://www.sportspromedia.com/news/nrl ... expansion/

Being a London fan we are out on a limb compared to 95% of the rugby league teams in regards to finances through gate receipts, merchandise etc but looking at this piece, Super League is so far behind the NRL, i do hope that IMG come in and actually make a difference to the game as under the RFL leadership, SuperLeague has not really improved. I do not know salaries at Super League clubs but I am guessing the younger players are not even earning what the women players will be earning in Australia next season. https://www.sportspromedia.com/news/nrl ... expansion/

Too much tinkering would be my biggest criticism.

At the start we had mergers proposed then the game chickened out due to a backlash and a first past the post league table with a focus on Paris, Sheffield and London.

Quite quickly Paris and Sheffield fell by the way side and we switched to a playoffs and Grand Final format. I suposse the 00s were relatively stable then we switched the Franchising. The game then got bored of that and went back to promotion and relegation and teams based overseas were the focus. We then had the disaster that was Middle8s, now back to franchising again.

So a change in approach every few years or so, and expansion teams are the big new thing then quickly die out, rinse and repeat.

The problem is that NRL is the biggest sport in a sports mad county. RL in the UK is a niche sport, that has very little support outside the M62 corridor. I know you are a London fan, but that is the exception that proves the rule, and you even claim to have noticed how they suffer from lack of ticket revenue and merchandise sales.

I don't think that IMG will dedicate enough money to change this, and without substantial financial backing that will support franchise teams in other parts of the country for more than a couple of years (like has happened in the past), and fund a long term professional media campaign to bring in more interest, as well as turn the whole sport more polished and professional, nothing will change. We will still be seen as that odd 'northern rugby' that nobody understands or has an interest in. It will take decades and hundreds of millions, if not billions, to get the traction to be a major sport in the UK that rivals the NRL.

This is the biggest problem. The RFL have a good product, but have to tinker with it in the hopes that some novelty will suddenly bring in a boat full of new fans, new investors, and plenty of cash. If anything it just shows how unstable they actually are.

They need to speculate to accumulate. They desperately need money to invest in promoting and supporting what they have first. Get the sport to a national audience, and then think about expanding when they have organically grown the fanbase.



PSG didn't want to spend the money on anything but football. As soon as they realised it wasn't going to turn a quick profit they quit. Harlequins did the same.

The other franchises, Celtic Crusaders, Gateshead Thunder, Toronto Wolfpack, etc, all realised how expensive it was and how the RFL couldn't support them whilst they gained traction. Fan support was probably lower than anticipated as well. It is only the Catalans that have weathered the first few years, but it cost them a lot of money doing so. It helps that they get plenty of away fans traveling to them on beanos, something that Gateshead or Celtic Crusaders couldn't attract.

Its no surprise that Jacksonville never joined the party.

Nothing to do with away fans. Last year, Leeds took 2 eight seater mini buses to St Helens. Didn’t do St Helens any harm did it as they won SL with ease. On the flip side, st Helen’s took 3k to Leeds

It is when you need the income from gate money. Something that Leeds nor Saints need to worry about. Comparing two of the most supported clubs in the country to new clubs with no fanbase doesn't really work.

If the so called 'Totally Wicked' Stadium had any atmosphere at all, there may have been more Leeds fans travelling. More atmosphere watching it at home with your grandma.

Saints can’t even get 3K to attend Grand Finals.

2 teams in hull as well.

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There has been two teams in Hull since before the birth of Rugby League. It will be a sad day for the sport if they didn't both exist. The Hull Derby dates back over 120 years.

There was pressure to merge them for the Super League in 1996 and play under the name 'Humberside', but there was too much backlash so Hull FC were rebranded as Hull Sharks for a few years before reverting back to their true name.