Good point about shared grounds and add in the likes of Doncaster, Crusaders and Rochdale as well as the Leigh/Swinton ground share and it is fraught with problems especially as some of the football clubs will be looking to stage lucrative friendlies at the time the leagues will split.

A few clubs already do not get on swimmingly with their fellow groundmates and this sort of scenareo will not help matters.

But the thing is you are all comparing now and not 2015, salary cap in championship will be 900,000 compared to the 400,000 it is now. I can forsee the 2 clubs who get relegated this season plus maybe Fev & Leigh ( maybe fax ) operating with a mainly full time set up from 2015. Now this may not happen but there is a strong possibility that it could happen and if it does puts a total different prospective in things. The middle 8 in 2015 could end up in theory has Bradford, Castleford, Widnes & Hull KR ( bottom 4 in 2015 ) & London, Wakefield, Leigh & Fev ( all full time ) this would IMHO give a very exciting and close play off series for entry into 2016 super league

Who's playing for that? Hull KR came out and publicly said they need an 8,000 average attendance to make a profit not one of those clubs you mention have the potential to get anywhere near that.

Exciting for the supporters of the no-mark teams you've listed their. Meanwhile in the division all eyes will be on (the top

nobody will give a stuff if Fev beat London in front of 3,300 people.

And there lies a typical SL response we are ok jack but couldn't give a toss about anyone else, I as a Leigh fan would love the chance of watching the wigan's, saints & wire's of this world at the LSV even if we are getting beat I have spent the last few years watching games with no possibility of ever getting to the pinnacle league now we have that chance again however small & I can't wait for the new structure to start

Or probably not with teams carrying points forward those 7 games for the Top 8 could be pretty meaningless as the team sacraping in 8th probably has next to no chance of making the Top 4 play offs so I think the eyes the world will hardly be embracing this new format anymore than it will be filling the RL stadiums of the country.

In most seasons the top 4 will not change much across those 7 games and as with now the play offs fail to capture the imagination before OT this will just prolong the period that no one cares much about.

I don't think this will be a problem.
See my post on the bottom of page 7.
You know how many home game you will have and you allocate dates and book stadiums accordingly and slot opponents names in at a later date.

No you won't. You won't know until the last week whether you have three or four home games, or which teams are in your group and what their situation is.
Just imagine if Wigan, Huddersfield, Hull, Salford and Leeds are in the same group and their football/Union teams are all at home on the same weekend(s)

The split will only come after the football season has started, and well after their and Unions fixtures are published.

The spectators (and clubs) will only not know how many home games they will have if they go into the final fixture of the first league phase still battling for a top four spot (or 8th place in the second 12). In the first and third 8s the four highest placed teams get 4 home games, in the middle eight the four Championship teams get 4 home games. It's explained in the documents that put forward the format.

As I already mentioned earlier in this thread the plan for the format involves a Challenge Cup round (possibly even two rounds) taking place between the two league phases so no four day turnaround to be worried about.

The fixture issue is simple, by using a set format, fixtures in the second league phase are laid out for teams labelled as 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 and 8 at the same time as the initial fixtures are compiled giving 1, 2, 3 and 4 the 4 home games each. Exactly who a specific team plays, where they play them and when is then determined by the order in which teams finish in the first league phase. It is a similar principle to the one by which World Cup knockout phases are organised. All that is then left to do is make tweaks where for example the Hull clubs might be at home on the same weekend. Easy to do such tinkering while the cup games are taking place, it happens for tv on a regular basis.

Clubs with shared facilities would have to fit in games around pre-existing fixtures in other codes as they would have to with cup games. In the case of Salford they would have priority rather than Sale as it would be at the end of the RL season and the beginning of the RU season and each club in that stadium has priority of use at the business end of their respective seasons.

'"

Have sky been consulted about the restructure? The current deal runs until the end of 2015. It seems a strange way to treat your broadcasting partner(s).

Example; after the 8/8/8 split who owns the tv rights to the second group of 8? Is it Sky or Premier Sports? Super League clubs playing Championship clubs.

Wouldn't it have made sense to leave the restructure until the end of the current deal and renegotiate on the basis of presenting a new competition?

Also on another point - more games with fewer teams in the top tier means more games involving the top clubs. As has already been stated we could play Saints twice in the regular season once in the MW once in the cup then once after the split and then twice in the playoffs. That goes also for other fixtures. There is such a thing as overkill. Playing Saints Leeds Wire and Huddersfield 4 or 5 times a season just devalues those games. Any loss can be avenged in a few weeks thus affecting the intensity. My belief is that such familiarity will drive down standards not raise them. The great thing about the derby is that you look forward to it. Playing Saints five or six times negates that.

Proof; look at the playoff attendance at Wigan in 2011 against Saints.

Actually, there's a shed load of stuff that's gone wrong over the last few years and I'd put Wakey's & Cas's problems down to simple mismanagement & poor book-keeping. The licensing principle has it's problems, but it's not to blame for everything you cite here, in fact you go a long way to bolstering my point via your "criminally wasted it" bit. I agree that they have wasted the opportunity but that cannot be put at the door of licensing.

The new system can work if there's more money from the broadcasters - perhaps they're hoping BT will wade in & start a bidding war - both tiers have to have similar amounts of cash or there's no point & the split to three groups becomes as meaningful as the stupid Club Call in the current play-offs & we can probably all have a good stab at which teams will be in which groups 5 years ahead.

it all sounds complicated to me. Am i missing something here?

12 team league = 22 fixtures, plus 1 if magic continues, thats 4 less than before, which means 4 more free weekends?
Start the season later, like early March ( it is summer rugby? ) , and go back to top 5.
Promotion/ relegation goes without saying..its a competitive sport, lets bring back the competitiveness/uncertainty, that P and R bring.

4 less games than before? No thanks! Bad for the clubs, bad for fans, bad for sponsors, I can't think of anyone who would want less games apart from maybe the older players. Say what you want about the new system but it should at least produce more competitive games of real importance. 2 league points mean almost nothing to the big sides under the current system sadly and it's good they're changing that

What an absolute load of tosh served up again by the RFL. I'm sure they go out of their way to make it as complicated as possible to justify their job roles. It's like the card game 'Go Johnny go, go, go, go' from 'League of Gentlemen' sketch.

Why not just go to 12 teams, top 5 play offs with the winner having a week off, 2v5, 3v4 then the week after the winner plays the lowest ranked winning side and if they win go to the GF along with the winner of the other game.

Winner of the Championship goes up automatically, no play offs.

Also bring back GB and proper tours.

That's a good point about the tv rights particularly for the middle 8 as it will affect the first season at least. You would hope that the RFL were speaking to both Sky and PS about that issue.

Re repeat fixtures you can't play anyone twice in the playoffs under the new structure as there are only semi finals and a grand final. Play a team once in the playoffs and one team is in the final and the other is out. You could play the same team six times (twice in first phase, once at MW, once in second phase, once in playoffs and once in cup) but that can also happen now (twice in league, once at MW, twice in playoffs and once in cup). While having 3 or 4 league fixtures may be a problem to market if fans aren't going to attend a playoff semi or GF or a knockout cup game then that is probably more to do with the fan themselves (interest in particular comp/ability or willingness to pay for outside of ST games) rather than the number of times the opponent has been faced already.

Teams split after the 23 games into the three 8's.

Taking the top 8, they play everyone else once, so the regular season is 23+7=30 games.

The play-offs then start for the top four which means two more games if you get to or win the Grand Final which is 32 in total as opposed to the current 31.

The more I read and understand the better it sounds to me.

It might be ok for us Wigan fans as we have a good club and a good team.
Those who finish in places 9-12 after 22 games then play Championship clubs.
What will happen to their crowds, increase, stay the same or decrease?
It's my bet that they'd decrease. So this plan will be financially damaging to the lower clubs.
For the last seven games (almost a quarter of the season) they'll be paying SL wages to players effectively playing in the Championship in front of Championship sized crowds. If these games are to be pay again and not in the season ticket then the attendances will really be adversly affected.
Wigan can go for the whole season with season tickets on the basis of finishing in the top four and getting four additional home games making 15. Even if they finished 5-8 then there's still 14 home games. Lower end clubs can't do this and they are the ones in financial difficulties now.
I do think that by the time the next broadcasting contract is due another new system will be introduced.
The vote for a reduction of SL down to 12 was unanimous. No wonder.
IL and his mates will probably have the majority when this happen as the two relegated will probably be from the Wood/Hetherington axis. The abstainer will probably come on board when this is voted, Saints may do as well.

At the minute the teams who will likely be finishing 9-12 are the teams who aren't currently reaching the POs, so they will be going from a guaranteed 13 home games to a guaranteed 14. It's not like all SL fixtures generate massive attendances, games like Featherstone v Castelford would get larger attendances than London v Cas, for example. There's no reason why the clubs can't provide STs that are valid right up to the end of the weekly rounds, so there's at least one extra fixture with walk-up attendances generating revenue that would not happen under the current system. A couple of those games would likely be against teams who were pushing for promotion so would likely bring a decent following. 2 of the "Championship teams" would likely be 2 teams that are currently in SL.

What would the attendance of Wakefield v Bradford be in August under the current system, with one team in 11th and the other in 12th, neither with anything to play for, for example? Would the figure be higher or lower if both were playing knowing that they could slip out of the top 4 of the middle tier and miss the cut for the following season's SL. It's all guesswork atm, but at least the new system ensures meaningful games for the majority of the 24 teams invloved for the full season. That's better than we have now.

If a team finishes 9-12 and incorporates all games in season tickets then fans are paying for 11 SL home games and 3 Championship home games at 14 SL game prices.
A Widnes fan told me there's no way their fans would buy a full price SL season ticket the following year on that basis when they've paid for a season of SL and then end up watching Championship rugby.
On the other hand, if they go for an 11 game SL season ticket and then pay on the day for the Championship games their crowds will drop massively. Also would they charge SL walk up prices or Championship prices.
The clubs who are 9-12 face a drop in crowds, a drop in price per supporter and revenue loss that might well be unsustainable given they are still running a SL club infrastructure.

A Widnes fan on the VT said he payed £167 for his season ticket,i think that works out at less than £13 a game.

is that really a good example?

I think the games after the split are going to be the big unknown as to what happens crowd wise.

It may be a top four club has secured it's top four slot before the split or a game into it. Equally a team placed 8th may not have a realistic chance of making the four. Unless these games are part of the season ticket for the entire league season I can't see how they are going to get the revenue they would otherwise.

I think there is a danger the games after the split end up as popular as the early rounds of the playoffs are at the moment.

Agree with you Dave O.
They could even be a popular as Challenge Cup games between SL and Championship clubs. Also agree that this is an unknown, it shouldn't be though.
SL clubs should know by now what their plans are re a top 1-4 place, 5-8 and 9-12. To vote for this they should know what the revenue consequencies are and have it all worked out.

Me too.

There will be an advert some time this season for all clubs.

"PR position at X R.L. Club"
Degree in bull a primary requirement, you'll need it.