The RFL should make them. The remaining Sky money could be divvied out for 10 full-time teams in division 2 too.

As I keep saying, it'll never happen anyway, so it doesn't matter.

Isn't that french tv channel now financially backing catalan? if thats the case surely that would release another million+ that could be put towards increasing the number of fully pro clubs

Sky should calculate the worth of the product on a combination of hours of programming, number of viewers and advertising revenues - I see nothing in the ten team top tier structure that would decrease these, they should if anything increase. As with the clubs they should be convinced that the long term benefits far outweigh any short term concerns.

Ryan Hall scoring in the corner is the most exciting thing to ever happen at the New Wembley and one of the few occasions Rugby league registered on the national radar in the SL era. The future of the game needs England to win and regularly compete in tournaments and for the general public to see this, a well structured league system with a top tier where the players have to be at and give their best every time they take the field is the best chance we have of achieving this.

rlHere's my idea in a little more detail...rl

The current deal is worth 18m between 14 clubs, it is signed for the next 5 (inc this one) years.

Your two divisions on Sky has salary cap totals worth £28m between 20 teams. To cover those payments our 5 year £90m TV broadcasting contract would need to be a 5 year £140m contract, and what do sky get in return for an extra £10m per year? 9 fewer rounds of Super League or 18 games, and 2 fewer SL play off rounds, taking the number of SL play offs sky screen from 9 down to 3 and 18 games from what is in effect, a new name for the championship, a league which Sky weren’t prepared to pay anything for,

Premier Sports meanwhile don’t pay anything of note for the championships, yet the best teams are taken out of this league, but somehow they are going to find £6m a year to cover the costs of 8 teams with a £750k SC.

Its simply not realistic. We struggled for years to find a broadcaster for the 2nd tier, we aren’t going to get one which pays enough to sustain a £6m in salaries for the 3rd tier.

I concour , I just didn't want to be the one to p155 on his chips

We have what we have , just more thought and work needed to improve what we have and where we are heading to in the future

I know it will never happen, but it's what we should work towards I think.

The ' structure ' is fine , the financial costings are way out and the match numbers are the issue , other than that , bring it on

Two divisions isnt sustanable. Sky would care about Superleague and thats it. There just isnt enough money in the game for it to work. The focus should be about how to get SL up to scratch and more competitive. Splitting the league is a simple solution.

I dont see why people assume that the NRL can do it without promotion/relegation but SL can not.

The NRL doesn't have the monsters of the Premier League and Champions Leagues on their doorstep , effectively taking the vast majority of the money that goes into sport in Britain/Europe , it is just that simple

Im not sure it is.

What we need to do is improve the product of SL until it reaches a level where we have a surplus. A surplus of money and a surplus of players. At that point it can filter down to the lower leagues. I can appreciate the principle in investing in the lower leagues and using them as a foundation, the problem is that the SL financially supports pretty much the entire game. If SL is weakened the entire game is weakened.

What we need to focus on is our product. Realistically we have one product, SL, we are developing another quite nicely International RL, There is, I think, merit in pursuing another product, international club RL. If we can have those three, successful products to sell to broadcasters I think we can start to move towards more virtuous cycles. Where RL isn’t a poor relation in terms of Salary and the game can attract more, better players, improving the game, improving the product increasing its value and allowing us to attract more better players and so on. This then filters down to the lower leagues when a better standard of player cant get a game in SL, so they drop down, improving the lower leagues, improving that league, improving the quality of their product, improving its value and allowing it to produce more, better players again increasing its quality an as so its value and so on.

But splitting the league doesnt remove those monsters. Splitting the league will not guarantee that every club spends up to the salary cap.

Disagree , lower tier RL will never be be financed by TV revenue , the money currently coming from central funds [ a grey area of where it actually comes from ] to the Championships is between 15-35 % of the clubs revenue , the Championships would survive without it [ although it would only be the established heartland clubs ] , having players drop down from SL would not increase the value of those clubs to the paying supporters and local businessmen who finance these clubs

TV revenue props up 80-90 % of SL , without it we would have a 3-4 team league

The Championships need to go in a different direction to SL , as you have rightly said in the past , they are essentially 2 different sports

Not saying it would on either accoumt , just pointing out why the NRL operates differently , and why we will never be able to work that way

Like to bet that all the Im alright Jacks who assume their club would be in a reduced league would soon change their tunes if they were under threat.
Anyhow how can the game be perceived by the general public to be progressing if they see a reduction in competing teams.