Love the way that Widnes get hammered on the VT for the performance of their first team (only 5th in the league! Shocking!), and then a decent (consequential?) financial result is published, get hammered again. Things that make you go hmmm..

If you use the results of the Under 18s and Under 16s Academies this current season then yes, yes it is!

I'm with you on most of this, except the bit about franchising being good for SL. I haven't seen any improvements as a result of it.
I think franchising is killing the game below SL, without bringing any tangible benefit.

I predicted around 1,750 for our match against Sheffield , we had just over 1,500 on , and the reaction to us losing was more indifference than real disappointment , yes a day out in Warrington on the beer would have been nice , but it still would not have meant much really , in fact in some respects , to actually win the final and not be able to go up as we did last time would be incredibly frustrating

I expect Fax to win it this year , and I know they will feel ' cheated ' if they do

SL just gets better and better

And who can blame them

If only it did.

I am.


So I think it's done nothing to improve SL, you think it's done nothing to damage SL. That rather suggests that the effect of franchising on SL is largely neutral. Therefore I would argue whether it's "a good thing" or not is all about it's effect outside SL.


Falling crowds, clubs going bust, lacklustre Championship GF, I'd say there's plenty of evidence of damage being done outside SL.

It's all very well saying that the clubs need to market themselves etc, but it's very difficult to persuade people to watch a losing team or a team that is perceived as having "nothing to play for". You can argue that the perception is irrantional, but watching team sport is irrational. A lot of us turn up to watch teams who realistically only have the slimmest chance of winning a prize, but we still do it because there is a chance, however small.

Whether you like it or not, in the lower leagues the prize is promotion. Imagine if we turned up to watch Quins but were told at the start of the season that even if we topped the league and won the GF we wouldn't get the trophy, how many fans would keep turning up? (and by the way this isn't a cue for another of your rants about marketing, we all know that Quins couldn't market free booze to an alchoholic). I'm willing to bet that even the die hards who are turning up now would start to dwindle in number.

What franchising has done to the Championship is take away that slim little chance of the prize that every club starts the season with. That irrantional hope that fans hang on to. The denial of that hope is what's causing the damage.