I get where your coming from but I don't get how it would improve OUR national game when



Now I know you said mixture of both, so please don't take my point in the way that I have completely dismissed that.

However, surely having this to improve our national game would include having more British players than Aussie's/Kiwi's? Say the RFL did this and for arguments sake, Workington Town, Barrow Raiders and London Skolars (a bit of a weird pick but they were the first teams to come to mind strangely) were chosen to go into a tier, now at current strength they are nowhere near SL standard. So what's the first thing they do? Raid the NRL for fringe players, all have squads jam packed with Aussies and Kiwis, maybe a few British players thrown in there. For me that doesn't in anyway shape or form boost our national game.



The two tier system works in the NFL;

A. because Gridiron is one of the "Big 5" (along with Baseball, Basketball, Ice Hockey and arguably Soccer) so therefore the talent pool is huge. Then look at RL at home, and our talent pool is mainly up North. Although it is growing down South.

B. The size of America itself. The distance between the NFL teams is huge, therefore putting teams in a close(ish) region in a league makes sense rather than have New York v Texas (not a clue on any NFL teams so that'll have to do ) Where as in England it's easy to go to ground's around the country.

I don't think what you've 'proposed' is a bad idea, it's just IMHO it just will never ever work unless RL is spread accross Europe and played all over at a very high standard. Then something like this would definately work, although if RL accross Europe was strong I'm sure we'd have a RL version of the Heineken (sp?) Cup.

Will you ever fathom how the quote function works?
No

Can it work? Yes, of course it can, but will it be allowed to work? Probably not.

Why not , who would stop it from working ?

Clubs ?

Fans ?

Players ?

I should imagine it could work and work quite well what with having regional set-ups say...

1)Bradford
2)Castleford
3)Halifax
4)Huddersfield
5)Hull FC
6)Hull KR
7)Leeds
8 )Harlequins
9)Toulouse
10)Wakefield

With the Western group being

1)Barrow (or combined Cumbrian outfit)
2)Catalans
3)Crusaders
4)Leigh
5)Salford
6)St Helens
7)Warrington
8 )Widnes
9)Wigan
10)

Now I am struggling to find a club that may well be able to fund a full time operation however all the other 19 clubs I have put into two leagues either are or have aspirations to become one. We know Featherstone are keen to improve all areas of their club and are looking at putting in a licence bid sometime in the coming 6yrs so I do not see why we cannot find 20 clubs.

This would then allow both leagues to have a kind of origin game where the best players from each league are picked and play a one off game against each other. This can then be made into a kind of Magic weekend where you can have an England game as the main event but before it have the origin style game, Wales vs Scotland and a France vs Rest of the World 17.

The end of season playoffs would be the top 4 teams of each league working in a similar way to how it works now.

With the reduction in league games allowing for more international warm up games and also to move the season further into the summer season it makes a lot of sense. Yes the Sky money is already streatched too far with 14 teams but this isn't something we are talking about for next season it is something that may take 5/6yrs to get up and running. By then sponsorship deals could be done for each league and possibly a new TV deal will be up for negotiation by then?

On the flip side however I do enjoy travelling to all grounds around the country, the variation from week to week is great and how boring would it be if you finished in the bottom half of your league only having 18 games plus CC games and friendlies, the off season would be sooooooo dull! I can certainly see the argument for this kind of change but also see a massive argument for keeping it the way it is.

I can't actually believe that there are so many people saying this is, or even might be a workable idea, as i said before this is one of the worst ideas i have ever heard. Can anyone saying anything along the lines of 'this is a decent idea;' 'I should imagine it could work and quite well' 'can it work, yes of course it can' please answer the following questions:

A) Given that many clubs in the league are struggling financially, with all but two running at a loss, is it wise to add more teams to teh league, spreading the sky money (which makes up a large proportion of some teams total income) ever thinner?
B) Given that a reduction in sky money will hit the clubs with the lowest incomes hardest, and that these clubs are already struggling to spend anywhere near the salary cap limit, do you not agree that vastly reducing the sky money will only make SL more uneven, and more predicatable?
C) If so do you think this will be good for crowd figures? and tv viewing figures (and ultimately the value of the next SL tv rights deal)?
D) Do you think the majority of the england team playing in a much more uneven league will be good for them, and increase their chance of winning a major tournament?

Adding more teams to the league will obviously result in a drop in standards (adding almost 50% more teams as most are proposing would dramatically reduce the standards in SL), where the hell are we going to find another 100+ players, if they were out there, and of SL quality, they would already be playing in SL, not in the academy league or the championship.

E) Do you think reduction in standards would be good for gate receipts and tv viewing figures (and agian ultimately the value fo teh next tv deal)?
F) Do you think playing in an even further diluted league would be good preparation for the England players, and as a result make England more or less likely to win a major tournament?

I have plenty more, but lets see how you do with these for now...

I agree in part, at this moment in time adding more teams is a very bad idea which is why my club voted for a 12 team Super League rather than 14.

As I said this isn't something that would be looked at in the short term so the Sky money and any further sponsorship would have to be worked to accomodate a 20 team set-up before this was even looked at in any detail.

Crowd figures wont drop but with less games comes less income, also fewer big games means fewer large crowds so it would appear crowds would drop in this instance. As you say less income means less money for big players or more big players leaving less in the pot for you average Joe that keeps the team ticking over.

Is the idea a viable one...possibly however all clubs would need to sort their finances out and run at a profit so as this will not happen I would say no it wont ever work and will never be an option for the RFL.

The fact some fans think this idea might work shows that confidence is being lost in the current format. As you have stated money is being lost by 12 of the 14 clubs at quite an alarming rate. What can be done to address this? I deffinately do not have the answers to that, my previous post was just showing how it might work and in theory it could, but as with everything else in this sport, what works on paper usually doesnt work in practice!

I mentioned something similar ages ago but along the lines of a 20 team, two tier system; Super League Premier and Super League One.

Basically, it consists of 20 franchised teams, with a one up, one down annual promotional system between the two divisions.

I can't be bothered going into the full extent of my ideas - if you want to know, ask questions or find my old post.

RFL - they'd f*ck it up.

We could call one "Rugby League Raw", and the other "Rugby League Smackdown"

That was a cracking telly show, that. I do miss that annual swear-a-thon in the small hours of ITV.

I personally wouldn't add anymore teams to the league, 7 + 7 Conference is fine, with 2 teams added at the most in the future. Fixtures could be divided between Intra Conference Home and Away, and 7 Team in the other conference at home or away, leaving 9/10 home games and and 19 overall games, leaving time for a good break before Internationals.



As said before, I would not increase the clubs immediately, and if I would, it would be by two.



I don't think it will necessarily effect crowd figures, but I think it will work to make games between conferences, like Leeds vs Saints, and Leeds vs Wigan, would be much bigger spectacles if marketed properly. e



I don't want to add new teams into the League - if by any it would be to 16, with Toulouse and another club coming in.



With even a 16 team league, there would be little in change of the quality of play, gate receipts would not be really effected imo.



It would not be diluted, and I think it would benefit them with less games to play, more rest and time to prepare as a team.

Have a look at the history of the game pre 1973 and how the fixtures were made.

Sometimes there is nothing new under the sun.

The conference type idea does have merit but should be based more on the NFL model IMO