Real and achievable? , so not much then?

Clearly not enough people or Mr Wright wouldnt have been so negative about them.

If so many people enjoy these rollercoasters and like relegation battles, why are teams in and around a relegation spot uniformly so poorly attended? Why, considering you believe them to be a positive, is there such a direct correlation between the higher up a table a club finishes in a season and its attendance for that season? Where have all these people who just love a relegation battle been for the last 100 years?

And also, if people love a championship promotion race, why does that championship promotion race have even fewer people attend than the SL relegation scrap?

If so many people love Promotion and relegation, why, in general, are championship promotion races less well attended than SL relegation scraps which are less well attended than a mid table SL finish?

Google what the words real and achievable mean and you will find out.

Given the nature of his views, this SmokeyTA should put himself forward as the new Stalin to bring back the Soviet Union!

He might like the idea of a few officials in a room at Red Hall sitting there planning everything. But this is sport. All the governing body has to do is set a simple structure and provide opportunity for all.

When the Rugby League clubs agreed to move from a single league to a league split into divisions in 1973, it was on the basis that there would be automatic promotion and relegation between the leagues. i.e. success should be won on the sporting field - not in a smoke-filled room.

Since the advent of Sky TV money, nobody is suggesting a return to four up, four down. The proposal is for 30 clubs in three leagues of 10 - Super League 1, Super League 2 and Championship. The ten Super League clubs would still get their £1.2m per annum with the next tier clubs getting just under half that.

The incentive that the RFL then needs to put in place (for potential financial backers, club directors, supporters, players and other staff (doctors, physios, admin staff, marketing people etc) is automatic one-up, one-down promotion and relegation between the leagues.

Allied to no cap on spending (but with 6 points deduction for going into Administration and relegation to the bottom league if you go bust) this would be the structure to motivate and incentivise everybody in the game and lead to the best reaching the top.

The RFL then just needs to stand back and let the clubs get on with it.

Just one point, if I were a club director under that new structure, is that I'd make sure every contract included provision for what happens if the club is relegated.

Stalin (sorry, Smokey) won't agree - but what do others think?

Stalin was of course known for his over-bearing control of Rugby League, that and morons using his name in arguments.No, it has to do what is best for the game. Not stick to some strange idealogy you seem to have invented over the last couple of weeks.
Who cares? Really? Who cares about some admin from 1973?
Everyone but a few Wigan fans will see it for the obvious nonsense it is quite quickly Mr Krushchev

The point is, there are a growing number of people realising that the current situation is NOT what's best for the game.

The gulf is so big that those in SL can't afford to drop and those outside can't afford to join unless they have a sugar daddy. In my book sugar daddy does not equate to "well run club". More than half the clubs in SL are in dire straits and can't afford to be at the top table despite "years of opportunity to grow".

The facts of life outside SL are so severe that it is nigh on impossible to challenge for a place and this looks like only getting worse. If clubs like Bradford had been demoted it is quite likely that they would have been destroyed, which to me just proves the point of how bad life without £1.2 Million central funding and without the oxygen of TV coverage is.

RUGBY LEAGUE SHOULD NOT BE ABOUT MAKING THE GULF BETWEEN THE CHOSEN FEW AND THE REST BIGGER IT SHOULD BE ABOUT GROWING THE WHOLE GAME.

A two division structure should allow expansion clubs to be introduced more gently and a safety net for top tier clubs to fall into and re-grow rather than plummet.

More than half the clubs in SL arent in dire straits, and if you want to discount or ban all private investment into the game, then how are you making up the shortfall?
Those ‘years to grow’ are four years in a recession, lets be realistic/

And those problems you mention were apparent under P+R, in fact the only reason for the move to franchising is because those problems were so obvious during P+R. We aren’t going to solve those problems by going back to the system which caused them.

This is the big hypocrisy of it. A two tier structure doesn’t grow the whole game, it doesn’t benefit the whole, it doesn’t even affect the whole game. A two tier structure will benefit only a very very small amount of clubs. 6 of them. And it will damage at least 4 others. Every single negative you want to level at franchising can be levelled at the two tier structure. You want to say the bottom of SL will stagnate, then the bottom of SL2 will do the same. You want to complain that it pulls up the draw bridge, then SL2 pulls up the drawbridge too. Yet we also have the negatives of relegation aswell, it would be the worst of both worlds.

A two tier SL would be a franchised SL, just one with two tiers. The fact that those who were so against franchising are so for a 2 tier SL simply highlights the huge hypocrisy of it and the fact they argued so vehemently on a point of principle against the ‘pulling up of the drawbridge’ when their club was on the outside, yet are so vehemently in favour of the drawbridge being pulled up behind them when they are on the inside simply shows that their argument wasn’t one of logic or principle but of convenience.

Rubbish. Automatic one-up, one-down promotion and relegation between all the leagues has never been in place & when it does come in will apply to all the proposed leagues in the professional game, SL1, SL2 & Championship.

Allied to no cap on spending (but with 6 points deduction for going into Administration and relegation to the bottom league if you go bust) this would be the structure to motivate and incentivise everybody in the game and lead to the best reaching the top.

Potential financial backers of clubs applying to join the professional game at Championship level would then see a route to the top and to a bigger share of the Sky money, in perhaps only two years, if they are willing to commit sufficient money initially.

They (serious potential financial backers) won't come in at that level now when they can't spend on buying a decent team (because of the very low RFL imposed 'salary cap' in the bottom division) and there's no transparent route to promotion to SL1 (and they're at the mercy of paid officials sitting in a room at Red Hall).

I wouldn't be averse to 2 leagues of ten as long as we also looked at the whole RL calendar and growth of the game.

SL is a good idea but the SL NL gulf is too massive to support P and R.

But where was the continued expansion plan or even where is the support for the current structure?

What I dont want to see is the shrinking of SL and SL2 becoming the NL.

It may be stronger but I`m already getting bored of playing teams in the same competition then the playoffs.

I would start the season with a northern rail style comp with 4 leagues on a regional basis of 5 teams from SL1 and SL2 playing each other with the top two from each league then qualifying for a quarter finals day which would replace magic weekend with competitive fixtures. My only proviso would be that you cant meet the other qualifier from your league again until the final.

The semi finalists from this comp would also get a bye into the last 16 of the challenge cup ( I would play the semis of this comp on the weekend of the last 32 of the challenge cup)

At the same time the NL National rail quarter finals could be slotted in as well to give 8 fixtures over two days and make it an RL weekend not just a super league one.

Then SL 1 and 2 start the week after the revised Magic weekend.

We have the two 10 team divisions playing each other home and away in there own division.

This gives the same number of home fixtures as now.

Top 5 team grand final series in SL1

2 up 2 down with the SL2 league winners automatically up and then next 3 and bottom 2 in SL into a finals series for the last slot.

To me this approach is the best way of lessening the gap between SL1 and SL2.

We can then look at a gentle expansion of these leagues over the next 25 years.

I would not shrink the cap in SL2, there would be equal share of the bulk of the TV income, but also fees for TV apperances and I would introduce prize money for each place in the tables like the premier league in Football.

Bottom of sl2 may recive 10K and top of SL 200K if each place was worth 10K.

I would not however have dual registered SL1 players in SL2.
Loans of under 23s would be acceptable on a maximum 3 month basis.

We had P+R for about 30 years of history. Yes it isn’t the default position or intrinsic to our game, or even the most used system in our game, but you cant pretend it didn’t exist. Unless you are still a bit upset we didn’t let completely unrealistic clubs like hunslet in?
Nonsense. Clubs done exist just to spend more money. Clubs would be more incentivised and motivated by a realistic chance of success not by spending more money just because they can.
Where were the 4 years ago when they could do that? Have these investors only been born in the last four years? Are investors put off because they cant spend money? What about the many more clubs below SL2?
They didnt come in when we had P+R, what do you think has changed in the past 4 years that means investors would come in now if only they could spend lots of money?

I would not argue that a team in a relegation spot will get more fans than a team in a Top 8 spot.

But that does not mean that P&R are not important. A team in a relegation battle may have less fans, but it's arguable that they will have more fans in a relegation battle than they would if they were just finishing last with no threat of relegation. So it's not comparing the bottom club with the top club, but comparing the bottom club in two different senarios.

The same applies for teams in promotion places, saying that the top of the championship do not have more fans than the bottom of SL is not the arguement. The arguement is they would have more, than they currently do if there was the carrot of promotion there for them. Also if promoted they would receive a boost of fans in the new competition.

So in principle I am for anything which introduces more of a sporting concept and less of a closed shop senario, however the way SL was set up, means that self interest will come first. SL and it's format cannot be altered without the incumbants changing it from within. If that means less money in either SL1 or SL2 I can't see the incumbants going for it.

However it does not mean it could never happen, but for it to happen it would need to be more gradual, say at the next licence a further expansion to 16 teams, at this point clubs may well be willing to split into 2 leagues of 8,9 or 10 as the difference in money from TV at that point will not be so great.

As a fan though a league of 10 would just be too small for me, we (Saints) played Wigan 3 times in the league this year, by the 2nd installment fans where already getting bored as we had played Wigan in the cup as well.

I'd much rather have 2 equal divisions, whether that be of 8, 9 or 10, but probably 8 to start with. You play everyone in your division home and away, then play some cross divisional games to make up the numbers. The cross divisional games, bias the leagues and so they make a playoff between the top 4 teams in each divison more justified than the present league and playoff system. But I can't see clubs going for that either.

Sorry but it was an overly long post, but I would go with these divisions

Wigan
Saints
Warrington
Catalan
Widnes
Wrexham
Salford
Toulose

Leeds
Bradford
Hull
Huddersfield
Hull KR
Cas
Wakey
London

The cross divisional games would more than likely be the top 4 from each league and the bottom 4 from each league playing each other. It would increase the number of intense games. Reduce the number of less intense games, but it does not draw a line between top teams and bottom teams playing each other and it allows for those all important derbies for everyone baring london, but until we get another london club ready there is not much we can do about it.

Just a thought!

Like anything it is relative. Relatively speaking people dont want to watch either a relegation battle or a promotion race. They want to watch top tier sides being top tier sides. It makes massively more sense to build towards a 20 team SL than a 10 team SL and a renamed championship.
2 conferences of 10, player the 9 other teams in your conference once, the 10 in the other twice top 4 from each conference go to the play-offs.

The problem we would have is that we dont have the money, clubs, or players to support that right now and would need to build towards it in 5-10 years time.

No it does not.

It still leaves a huge gap between the top tier and "the rest" making it just as difficult to get in and just as painful if you had to drop out.


You keep on with this myth!

The proposed two tier system would not contain a "renamed championship", it would be an SL2 with different teams, with proper funding and with a transparent method of moving up and moving down. It would give hope and targets for lower clubs to progress and provide a safety net for higher clubs.

No, it would be a renamed second division. Whatever you call it, however many teams in that league and the leagues above and below it, it's the second tier of the sport. What's the history of TV and spectator interest in the second tier of sports?