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?

If the number of teams increases, this will not necessarily mean an increse in the number of fixtures.
IMO the number of fixtures would remain roughly the same, but we would have an imbalanced fixture scedule, therefore there may not be additional income from any "extra" fixtures.

Picking up on RDM's point. Have 2 Conferences - Super League UK & Super League Europe where all teams apply to join one of the leagues. With 20 teams, 2 conferences of 10 gives 18 games + play all other conference once = 28 games in total.

Top 4 play off for conference champion with champions then contesting Super League grand final.

P&R from each conference in alternate years based on 2 years aggregate points.

Forget the Exiles. There would be a ready made "Origin" waiting to happen.

There are also double the advertising and promotional opportunities and more TV agreements available.

If you must retain the Magic Weekend then there would be one for each Conference but to be played mid season as genuine development events rather than being consigned to Cardiff as the season opener. At the moment this can only be in Cardiff and the experience will deteriorate as the Welsh realise they have the game over a barrel.

This concept could work, but who would be in your SL UK league and SL Europe pools.
At the moment we have only one non-uk team and whilst I agree that it would be great for the game to have a strong French/European conference, we are light years away from this.

Who are the other TV companies fighting for these rights? If there was a bid from ESPN for the current package, I imagine it would come as a joint (if not in name, then in spirit) one with Sky. The relationship between the too is much more [iEntente-Cordiale[/i than the' war' of Sky and Setanta, and you can see why that is beneficial to both parties when you see what happened to Setanta in the end.

Last time I looked all SL clubs are in Europe and all bar one are in the UK.

If the TV rights can be sold in smaller packages then there is greater chance that other companies might be interested in a proven product that provides attractive, cheap TV. There have never been more TV companies than there are now.

Producing live sport on television isn't 'cheap' though - not just the rights, but transmission costs, staffing, equipment... And while there may be more TV companies and certainly channels, it doesn't mean they'd be interested in showing rugby league, union, cricket, snooker, darts or whatever sport you choose!

Indeed, so how would you propose to split the two pools of teams.
Yorkshire/ Lancashire and make Quins, Catalans and Crusaders fit the numbers.
You would end up with too many repeat fixtures, a bit liks the SPL.
Far better to have a larger SL (if this could be agreed by the clubs), although the idea behind SL was to have fewer, more competetive teams, to allow us at some point to compete with the Aussies and we have gone backwards with this !