Some teams in the 2nd tier will have nothing to play for after 11 games as they can't be promoted - seems a short season, especially if they are a team in contention who have a slow start because of injuries.

Will the teams keep their league points from the first 11 games? The 'mid' 8 teams from the top division could have 0 points after 11 games whereas the lower division team could have 22 points, so the assumption is that they will start again. However, the top 8 sides will have to keep their points from the initial fixtures, they can't 'start again' as what would be the motivation for winning all the initial games?

How this all will be explained to some fleeting supporter I don't know.
I often get asked, how are WT doing? and generally the enquirer wants to know league position. I'm not sure I would know how to answer that if our future start under the new system was like our current season start. We would be in the scrap for 'relegation' after 11 games with no chance of a play-off or winning the title - even if we won every game after the first 11

Its a terrible idea.

I am not sure what they get but its nothing like £800K. This crazy plan would somehow have to come up with a massive amount of extra cash to give all the 24 teams an even financial chance.

And here is another question, how will the clubs sell season tickets ?

They will know less than half the fixtures and dates. Will they sell half a ticket for the first bit of the season and then another ticket for the last bit ?

Only going of what I heard Yorkshire radio last night.

Why do they want to over complicate things.
To me, and most I speak, with the way ahead is one up, one down.
With a proviso that certain essential and totally clear criteria have to be met.
No ifs, buts or special cases.

Its a way of reducing the top tier to 12, after that the second group will be cast aside like the championship have been.

Here's a radical suggestion,
3 divisions with the bottom team being demoted and the top team being Champions and promoted to the higher division.

You're being a bit opptimistic aren't you?

Can't help but thinky you've got that bang on dad!!
Chocolate coat it enough to make it look like being booted out aint half bad then once out BANG the door closes as does any support!!
The preverbial chocolate coated dog turd a la red hall!!

Silly idea.

In terms of splitting the money, if there isn’t any more forthcoming. Then a 60/40 or 70/30 split would be satisfactory.

I’m not sure what the current subsidy is, but if it stands at £1.2M per SL club this totals £16.8M per season. This roughly ties in with the £90M figure quoted as being the value of the most recent 5 year TV deal.

If this were to be split on a 60/40 basis the top 12 would receive £840K and the bottom 12 £560K. If it were a 70/30 then the top 12 each get £980K and the bottom 12 £420K. Any more than that and it becomes a futile exercise fusing the top of the second tier with the bottom of the first.

It does rather seem that Big Al has hit the nail on the head; some of the games power-brokers have been clamouring for a reduction in the number of teams in SL, so this feels like a complicated way to achieve that, whilst trying to convince the teams cast adrift that it's for their own good.

Without a significant uplift in TV money, either from Sky or BeIn for the 2nd tier, the whole thing becomes nothing more than an exercise in allowing Leeds, Wigan, Wire and a.n other to keep more money (and players) for themselves.

I'm trying to work out what a late run of wins like we had last season would look like in this proposed new structure; as far as I can tell, it would all be for naught - our season would have been over before that winning run even got started.

Serioulsy....... is Red Hall a crack den?

Reason I ask is that this idea could only be thought up by some one on drugs

This is cleary just a way to get rid of some teams

What a stupid idea the whole thing is. If they want to spice it up a bit make it simple, the bottom two clubs at the end of the season go down and the top two in the champinship go up. Is someone short of something to do, killing time by having brain farts and introducing them as new rules. Leave the game alone.

This.

I Hate it.

Some posters have already hit the nail on the head and the tag line should have read "Super League to be cut to 12 teams", the rest is just sugar coating the pill.
The one saving grace is that at least there is some advance warning, although as many have said, how do the lower ranked SL clubs sell a full season ticket and what the hell happens to player recruitment if you are on the edge of the top 12 (or 11 clubs)

As has been said it can only be a backdoor way of getting the competition down by two clubs and sod the rest. Ultimately, probably a couple of years down the line, the drawbridge will be pulled up again and the rest can coco. The proposal as it is just isn't feasable. How are two 12-team leagues going to fund fulltime squads with less money to go about? Sky are rapidly losing interest in RL so that isn't going to happen, we can't attract sponsors and crowds are down. And clubs going back to playing each other several times a season isn't going to increase interest, only boredom.

The biggest change needed in rugby league is in the corridors of power at Redhall and the boardrooms of many clubs.

It's official, Kermit has taken over from Nigel Wood (aka Miss Piggy)
The lunatics have taken over the asylum
etc.
Only Rugby League could create such chaos from what should be positive PR

Do we know this to be a fact because I thought RL was one of their more watched sports after football.

I've said before that it should be 2 conferences of 10 teams with the split based on odd/even league positions from the previous season.

Team play all others in their conference on a home & away basis, with a further 6 & 8 inter-conference games (not sure what basis the teams would be "drawn" on but even the RFL could sort that one!!!).

That gives a 26/28 game regular season. Top 4 in each conference play off to determine a conference winner. Both conference winners play each other in Grand Final.

Simples!!!

There's no way we can get the money for 20 full time teams and there's not enough decent players to fill them.

After all the rubbish we've had to endure over the last few years in the name of trying to keep the clubs/game solvent, I can't see a better way of sending a number of clubs to the wall than this.

The richer clubs who suffer injuries to key players at the start of the season will be able to weather the loss of income if they end up in league 2 after 11 games. The shortfall in attendances will mean that other clubs with full time players and salaries to match won't. What's the point of a full-timers v part-timers division anyway?

How do you sell season tickets for this new concept?

How do you fund the drop, and the other way round, how do you fund the rise to SL status without seriously compromising your financial means? Where do you get the players from in the short term to make the investment viable?

It'll line the pockets of the administrators, but the game can go and die.

I think you are all trying to make sense of a situation the RL given the chance would have introduced at the last round of franchise. The RL had the opportunity to make a three year plan, but circumstances forced their hands.
Promotion and relegation could have been over a three year period, with the team with a poor record over that period relegated and the team with the best record promoted. The rl could have said at that time we want 2 teams to drop down after a play off.
I have no doubt that the RL know what teams they want playing in SL, and have for some time. In wakefields case they were never wanted, and spoiled the party for Mr Lindsey when they won The trophy for league leaders and went on to beat Featherstone in the final. They received no SL money in our first season.
Bradford received great treatment. In Wales a so called new area nothing. I work in London and I understand they have told the RFL they will no longer be playing RL at the end of the season.
The RFL stinks its administraton dated, and works on the old working mens club principle. Please don't expect the RFL to put its neck on the line and run the game in a fair manner, THEY DO NOT WANT AND NEVER HAVE 2 TEAMS IN THE WF REGION.

Might be well watched but it isn't backed up by their actions. In recent years they have dropped the NRL, championship & northern rail, varsity match and now they weren't interested in the world cup or the internationals in future years. Throw in the fact that sespite having the rights they turned down the chance to show a challenge cup game in the 4th & 5th rounds and the dropping of state of origin and the anzac test and theres your decline in interest. They aren't all of a sudden going to pay enough to cover the extra teams in a convoluted superleague setup. And other providers just don't have the funds or the subscribers. If this is the answer we desperatley need a new question.