The Championship is to increase to 14 clubs from 2019, will Super League follow? www.totalrl.com/exclusive-propos ... p-from-l1/

The Championship is to increase to 14 clubs from 2019, will Super League follow? www.totalrl.com/exclusive-propos ... p-from-l1/

Nothing official at the moment.

I wonder if your chairman will stop throwing a tantrum stating that the structure shouldn't change now Bulls would be a beneficiary.

Sounds like he's actually rejected it. We'll still be accused of being the RFLs pets etc if the RFL push it through

Is there a link stating this?

Where does this leave League One? Will more new clubs be added to make up the numbers?

Well, there will probably be Leigh for a start.

Mick Gledhill (Bradford journalist, well clued up) put it on facebook. I can't go on there from my work laptop to link it.

I reckon they'll be 14 teams in SL, as the SL chairman quickly realise loop fixtures don't work, but still need the extra home games.

More SL teams means less money for each of them. Absolutely no chance of them agreeing to that.

Not necessarily given Championship sides already receive central funding totalling something like £1.5m between them and Leigh got a parachute payment of £500k. That leaves only a shortfall of £1.6m.

Also the Sky deal when announced said that £146m would go to Super League clubs over the 5 years with them getting £1.825m each. So this begs the question of where the £37m or so difference is going and to where? Competition prizes and finishing position bonuses of £7m per season?

Could we just not lower the prizes across the sliding scale to fund the difference? Should clubs finishing outside the top 4 really get prizes/finishing money? Do Widnes deserve anything this season for their contribution to SL?

I get the feeling that we are going round in circles with various people suggesting the very ideas that did not work last time. There are some definites that have to be taken into account though. We need a certain number of games at home to be profitable being the biggie. What are the main criteria for the Super League of the future? That might be the best starting point. I would suggest;
1. Teams must be run in a financially responsible way.
2. ……..

The RFL also get a share, not least for providing administrative functions for SLE as well as to 'run' the sport and some of the deal is for Sky's right to show some CC games. Somewhere I have a link to how the money is distributed and will post if I can find it.

PS The SL clubs all chipped in from their £1.85m to fund Leigh's parachute payment.