The bulls have gone into liquidation after racking up debts of £1million. Featherstone, Sheffield and Halifax have also had financial problems. Personally I believe this will continue with more clubs facing administration, liquidation and possibly extinction due to the way championship clubs are funded, with large variations depending on their finishing position in the league. This tempts clubs into over spending trying to get a top 4 finish, and running into serious debt if they miss out. This funding model does not happen in super league and needs to be scrapped in the championship, so clubs can budget, perhaps with the exception of an additional payment to the MPG loser as a type of parachute payment.

Hard to disagree with any of that.

The reality is that during "franchising", the gap between SL and the Championship grew wider than ever (despite the fact that the salary cap was stagnant) and the experiment to offer huge incentives to clubs finishing in the top 4 of the Championship, this competition is all over the place.
The disparity in funding firstly between SL and the Championship is huge but, the gulf in funding in The Championship is unsustainable.
Any club "chasing the dream" is under real threat of going pop.
Firstly, they will have to sign players on top dollar (relatively speaking) and for these to entice these players to sign, they have to be on longer term contracts, which are just not sustainable if their promotion push fails.
Plus, the gap between the top 4/5 and the rest (assuming that they too dont go bust) will grow further, making the league
too far out of balance.
Unless there is a significant rise in TV monies and a more even spread of revenue though the top 2 divisions, we may as well go back to some kind of franchising model.
How culpable are the games governing body for the current state of the game or, is it purely down to the individual clubs ?

We can only hope that the arrival of Toronto in the championship next season generates more interest in the competition. Maybe sky might actually televise a few games outside of the summer bash giving the clubs more money and more exposure.

The answer to the OP's question is obviously yes as proven in 2016 by Leigh Centurions.

problems for the championship

1. lack of tv coverage and the cash that generates
2. small crowds
3. players on full time contracts - not sure how many are part time

as well as lots of smaller ones

the championship would function better if all players were part time but the gap between them and superleague would just increase.


perhaps it would be better if it was a league of teams who were not striving to get promotion, with suitable reward and prestige for winning their championship, a stand along league if you will

' A worthwhile competition in its own right ' you mean ? , where have we heard that before ?

But fair enough , so , who are you putting in it ?

sustainable clubs

Batley for one. A great club who know their limitations and one with no desire to play in SL.

So that's 1 , how about the other 11 ?

Only in rl would fans strive to reduce the number of full-time clubs

ok then you try running a full time club on sub 3000 crowds with a lack of tv money and without a sugar daddy owner. but relax everyone it will never happen, there will always be well run clubs and badly run clubs. show me any league in any country that is fully sustainable

As I said , which clubs ?

There's nothing wrong with a mix of full-time and part-time clubs in the championship (its done batley no harm) but the long term aim has to be a fully full-time comp.
Let clubs find there own level. If Toronto & tolouse are serious then we'll see two more FT teams in the league soon enough. Then it'll be up to the likes of Newcastle to kick on and replace established clubs