What i don't understand is how clubs like cas n wakey have had to improve their grounds in order to be safe in the superleague but Bradford can stick a scoreboard on top of an old caravan play on a subbutteo pitch surrounded by some old red brick dust from derelict council houses and start saying we're ready .

The bar is set ridiculously low when teams like Cas reckon they will be close to been an A grade. But the problem from Bradfords point of view is that after next season there is a very good chance there will be 12 A graded teams in SL and with it been near impossible for a Championship club to score 15 points the door to SL is slammed well and truly shut for them unless they to 14 teams which we know greedy SL chairman will not let happen.

There was talk that SL could be expanded because teams making these improvements to get the A grade should generate more income but as we have seen with the Cas situation its actually really easy to manipulate things and get more points and not increase income that much.

I said at the time that Bradford were the one team where I didn't expect their score to increase from their original mock score as it looked like they had over egged things so its going to be interesting to see the Bulls fans reaction if that actually turns out to be the case.

Well I'm under no illusions. The drawbridge has been pulled up. Barring utter implosion at a SL club I can't see them ever relegating anyone and expanding the division and sharing the money between 14 rather than 12 will go down like a cup of cold sick.

Unless they syphon off the remaining Champ/L1 funding....

The irony about the ludicrous IMG rating system is that 7 out of the 11 SL clubs (excluding Catalans whose accounts I cannot get hold of) are insolvent by over £2 million, far greater debt than the championship clubs. It doesn't matter who is owed the money ....... a bank, a sugar daddy or Larry the Loan Shark ......... debt is debt is debt. So if a dodgy "off field" system is concocted to manipulate the structure of SL, then solvency should be the biggest factor.

Please SKY, pull the rug and let SL implode. Then let's get back part time RL with 2 divisions where rewards are earned on the pitch.

There's a reason SL clubs pushed to allow ground values to be included in the 'solvency' criterion and why a couple had theirs revalued.....

Cas' 'improvements' have actually made it worse for the normal spectator but because the IMG stadium criteria are massively biased towards corporate/media facilities the club gains and their spectators lose out.

Aren't Fev knocking down the terracing behind the sticks replacing with hospitality boxes just to improve their own IMG rating?

Not really as it'll make no difference to Fev's IMG rating for stadium facilities. I suspect that it's because it's cheaper to do that than renovate the terracing for standing. Without said terracing I'm not sure what the capacity will be but it'll be getting close to the minimum requirement of 5k to be able to gain points.

At a fans forum not long after the provisional announcements the Club basically said that there was no way to ever get into SL under the (current) IMG scoring system so they wouldn't bother tying to.

Sky lost 224 million in 2023 so hopefully will happen sooner rather than later.

Quote Listenup94="Listenup94"Sky lost 224 million in 2023 so hopefully will happen sooner rather than later.'" I've no idea what the viewing figures are like for RL on SKY, but the BBC games were disappointing: https://www.seriousaboutrl.com/more-dis ... gue-97074/ Would of course be catastrophic for SL to lose TV coverage because sponsors would also pull their support if they're not having eyes on them. Did Channel 4 decline this season?

Quote Listenup94="Listenup94"Sky lost 224 million in 2023 so hopefully will happen sooner rather than later.'" I've no idea what the viewing figures are like for RL on SKY, but the BBC games were disappointing: https://www.seriousaboutrl.com/more-dis ... gue-97074/ Would of course be catastrophic for SL to lose TV coverage because sponsors would also pull their support if they're not having eyes on them. Did Channel 4 decline this season?

Lingard sacked by Cas so presuming he is available but also wondering if this changes the situation with Muzza.