Quote luke ShipleyRed="luke ShipleyRed"Magic weekend got rid of, as now just a money making tool instead of what it was it's original purpose.'"
The original purpose of Magic Weekend was to make money. It only came about because the RFL received an incentive from the Welsh Tourism Board to hold it. "Expanding the game" was never a primary purpose of Magic.
And at a time when the game sorely needs more money, scrapping a profitable event that offers some profile seems utterly ridiculous.
Given the current state of the sport, we really need to put more emphasis on the commercial side of the sport and focus clubs on commercial growth, not short-term survival.
Personally, I would go with 12 teams in a franchise model, with a much more robust set of criteria than the previous model. The old franchising model encourgaed the wrong behaviour, and didn't force clubs to focus on the long-term.
Once we have enough clubs that are financially stable, then talk about opening up the trap door once again.
Why 12 teams? Well, two reasons. I think people need to remember why we dropped from 14 to 12 teams in 2015. We reduced the number of teams because we didn't have the talent to create 14 competitive clubs, and the quality of the league fell as a result. Since that time, player participation has fallen and it has become harder for clubs to attract overseas talent. So why would we suddenly decide to spread an even thinner talent pool further? It makes no sense.
Secondly, this is supposed to be Super League, emphasis on the "Super". This isn't and shouldn't be an "everybody gets to have a turn" school fete. It really wouldn't harm this sport to insist that the top league needs to be made up of "the best of the best", not "the best of the best, plus anyone else who think they deserve a go". If we want to drive up standards, it's in our interests to set the bar high.
