Absolutely right man, at least P/R means that more people would take an interest in whats going on beneath SL, although there will always be some bias to the elite division in any sport.

With regards to amount of games player i don't think the Aussies play each other home and away. Whoever you don't play twice one year you could the next in rotation. With regards to challenge cup they should tender some games to sky to see how this is received.

I agree wrencat there needs to be and its obvious to have bias towards superleague, thats where the best talent is, i just look at it from fresh eyes as when i look at sky sports news or another football programme even though premier league fixtures and chmpions league games feature as most important news they have lower league confrontations in amidst the action and tbh i dont really follow football but it gets everywhere and i end up knowing (unintentionally) more results in lower league football than in the world of RL. I know this is down to money the large fan base etc, but for me The SuperLeague show again focus's too much on the same teams every week- how the hell does that expand ur sport??? The superleague site should have updates and clear links to lower league websites there needs to be more support networks i think

Again, I agree with you. Not so long ago the results were always given for the 2 divisions of rugby league. I wonder whether there is some influence from elsewhere as to why we are publicised as a one league sport.

The simple answer is that franchising is supposed to STRENGTHEN the game and the only way it can do that is to continually add clubs to the franchise rather than a mix & match exercise every few years.

Clearly, this would soon lead to an unsustainable season for one league, but once we get to 20 teams you can have two "conferences" of 10 clubs. The two sets of ten would need to be based on (say) the odd & even places of the previous year rather than a straight split of the top 10. This would ensure that one conference couldn't be perceived as being "better" than the other.

Expansion of these conferences could continue every three years or so as other clubs are able to gain franchises.

Play-offs would determine the conference winners with a Grand Final deciding the overall competition winner.

Simples

Something similar to the current NFL then.

Interesting concept folks, effectively doing away with relegation and keep adding new clubs as the become strong enough to join the party. Not how it all began, but it could certainly work.
The important thing here would by tring to have a strong group of clubs. However, over time I can see there becoming a SL1 & SL2, perhaps with P/R between the two leagues.

How many SL clubs will vote for a reduction in funding, and on the flipside, how much money, when SL was initially formed, that was given to the 'lower league' clubs was frittered away on overpaid players rather than stadia and infrastructure to grow them?

You also have to remember that we're very lucky to have any Championship/Northern Rail games live on telly. Only football has a game live outside the Prem every week. Even union only has sporadic coverage and mostly towards the end of the season. (Cricket's two divisions are there just to provide competitve games though the season with the sole aim of producing England players. Financially, without Sky, most of the counties would be in deep, deep trouble.)

Frittered away ? , where were Wakey at that point in time ?



You are correct though , yes it was , and yes it still is in SL , hardly a single club has spent any of their own money on stadia or infrastructure

As for the Thursday TV matches , well if you do join us , you'll soon get fed up of them , as will your owners , as they will be losing probably £ 10,000 per game when on SKY

Overall though looking at this thread P and R seems to be more popular

As guilty as anyone, Belle Vue didn't change much between 1996 and 1999.

I can't understand how a club in the south would want to form when they know they can't join the elite through winning games? Maybe (yearly) the best team with a franchise application gets promoted and the bottom side in SL gets relegated, that way promoted teams are more suited to SL. And to weed out sides whose ground etc falls behind the criteria who aren't finishing bottom, every 3-5 years all franchises can be reviewed.

Or have normal promotion and relegation for 3 years and every 4 years have franchise promotion and demotion to weed out the SL strugglers/slums (such as us

)

The point is, that there must be a better way of promoting or relegating clubs between the divisions.
At the moment, we know that Widnes are to be promoted and the RFL had previously stated that one of the SL teams would be "relegated".
Although D-Day is towards the end of July, and assuming that there is indeed a team to drop out, it seems crazy that the paying supporter is left crossing their fingers, looking on smugly, or cr*pping themselves (depending on which team you follow).
What is most disappointing is the fact that on field performance, junior development and other important aspects may well be ignored and that certain teams appear bomb proof.

I agree that there would have to be split to 2 (& eventually 3) conferences but there would NOT be any form of P&R. As soon as you introduce P&R you create a pyramid system where franchisingis pointless.

Once you get to the point where the SL is being split into conferences it has to be done on an equal basis rather than the top half going in oe pool & th bottom half in another.

I dont think franchising is suitable in Rugby League anyway.
The idea came about as a vehicle to fast-track the likes of Catalan and Crusaders into SL, and of course protect them from relegation.
There is also the problem with clubs from league 1 yo-yoing between the divisions, due to the gulf in class between the 2 divisions.
Although I would regard Catalans as a success, the problem now is that the RFL could end up relegating a club which is stronger than the promoted team and stronger also than one of the "protected" teams.

Couldn't agree more. This is why if the RFL want to stick with franchising it means that clubs awarded a franchise will always be in SL, albeit that there might be a need to split the competition across two or even three conferences.

There's no real need to limit the number of franchises available & IMHO the more clubs that are competing a the highest level the more money is likely to come in from TV and sponsors.

No sure if you're right. There will only be a certain amount of cash available through TV sponsorship, which will end up being spread further and further.
It wont be long before the bigger clubs try and block additional teams coming into SL, just as they tried
with us all those years ago, in order to keep a larger proportion of the available cash.
Really, all clubs need to be maximising their non TV income, which has a positive effect all round and in an ideal world we should want to become less reliant on Sky income.

This thing with the Sky money I just can't understand.
Any forward thinking club should be thinking, "nice one an extra game, let's see what we can make", it proves that they are not just reliant on Sky's money and that they are a vibrant business, and worthy of being in SL.

ALL Super League clubs are reliant on Sky money, and can't trade at the level they are without it. One extra hoe match wouldn't make the money back.

How much do we get?
Would the amount a big club lose not be able to be recovered on matchday?

Approx. £1.2m per year. If the TV money remains static, an increase to 15 teams would see a £90k drop in income, an increase to 16 sees a drop of £150k.

So if the league went to 15 teams then any club who gets over 7000 through the gate for the extra game would be better off roughly speaking through ticket sales and match day revenue.

not beyond the wit of any club to recover money like that, i would have thought.

No it isn't, but then RL clubs operate on relatively small margins and every penny counts. I know they could make it back, but i'm sure they would rather have the guarantee of income rather than speculative.

Your probably right, it just makes you think the slick well run clubs would see opportunities rather than being short sighted.

I wonder if the new SL sponsorship deal for next season (Clipper, Probiz, Stobarts?) might make a difference to how the clubs perceive the number of teams in the league? If that deal creates new revenue for the clubs, they may be better disposed towards making the Sky money go a bit further?

Also, with the TV rights being renegotiated, maybe the Sky offer has been improved, or there's another broadcaster in the frame?