The depressing part of the whole article is that all the funding will go to the 20 clubs.

So all the hard work that has gone into league 1 clubs, will mean nothing. All the spreading the word in Newcastle, London Skolars, Coventry, the keeping clubs like Hunslet, Keighley going after the RFL screwed them over with regards promotion to SL. Will mean nothing because they're aren't going to get benefactors and will struggle to get the finances required to keep them going.

Why are we so keen to kill the heartlands? Destroy clubs with proud histories? Narrow our appeal even more?
Just for the sake of pure money grabbing by chairmen, and on an expansion system that may or may not work.

The fact is that, when it comes to marketing, the game is in the 4th division and has been for a long time (e.g. when the whole super league was set up there was no money held back to market the game and no targets for clubs to expand). As a result there is now not enough money in the game and, as a professional sport, it is now in the doldrums. I don’t know how to fix it but the next 2 seasons may well be the make or break period for the game. We might see the major clubs might either break away or join the NRL as a second tier competition with promotion/relegation opportunities.

I would like to see expansion towards the west coast of America also. Do you think this is feasible and achievable?

Regards

King James

It's a no-brainer.... It's guaranteed.
Santa Monica Maulers.

why dont you get a team on the moon as well.

If they are the teams which will be the future of RL then there is a clear 2 division split (east west of whatever they want to call it).

Surely that would be Sizzling Santa Monica Maulers.

Eh? Did you read it through properly?

Under these apparent proposals, P&R isn't being scrapped, there'll still be P&R between SL2 and the 3rd Tier, providing certain criteria are met, so any of the clubs you mentioned can still aspire to SL, as well as the sport attracting outside investment. Nobody is destroying anything, L1 only get about £50k as it is - if a club can't make up a £50k annual revenue shortfall, do we really need em?

It's fair to assume the 20 clubs will consist of Toulouse, Catalans, Toronto & NY. 20% are 'expansion' clubs.

It always amazes me how easily Jean can derail a thread, fair play

Bad idea IMO. It would mean two less clubs benefiting from having Leeds, Wigan etc bringing good away followings. More games against the same opposition is boring for fans as well. We would also face the realistic possibility of only having 8 English top flight teams, which wouldn't be good for our national side. I can see the benefit in removing focus from League 1 though to be honest, a lot of those sides would be just as well playing in the NCL.

The only potential benefits I see in this, are that the SL2 would be a stronger competition, which they may have more chance of selling a TV contract and sponsorship for. Plus it would be beneficial to the likes of Featherstone and Halifax (for example), who may get 3,000 crowds hosting the likes of Widnes and Hull KR, rather than 2,000 against Rochdale and Swinton. I don't think that's a good enough reason to do it though. The only way I'd support it, is if they raised the cap for SL1 so we could attract/retain more talent, and used the extra weekends for internationals, if we could convince the NRL to play ball.

Seems like if this went ahead it would be the first step towards franchising. There will be promotion between tier 2 and 3 to start with but with all funding going to the 20 super league clubs then the 3rd tier will just get weaker and weaker and it isn't fantastic now. With 4 clubs dropping down to that level as well we will lose a few clubs there and they would have to be the expansion teams such as coventry, newcastle, hemel, skolars simply because they are the weakest teams so the slight progress that has been made there over the last few years would be completely undone. With certain criteria needing to be met by those clubs to be promoted then it is unlikely that many, if any, will be so after a couple of years that is when franchising would probably come in and a lot of 3rd tier clubs would be completely forgotten about.

You'd also have to wonder whether with so much focus and money being concentrated on the 20 super league clubs would the amateur game be a bit neglected. One criteria of super league 1 and 2 for me would be that it would be absolutely required to run a reserve league to develop and bring through younger players that way.

One positive I suppose would be that the competition would seem a bit more modern and a system of franchising would be more appealing to the north american market. A more modern competition would perhaps bring in more investment and so more money and a better tv deal, especially seen as this system would clearly include london and a number of north american sides. Of course, while we would want a london side in the competition, currently they would clearly not meet the criteria for a decent stadium and decent crowds and you can't just conjure up 10,000 people crowds overnight so some clubs would have to be given a certain amount of leniency for a couple of years you would think.

Newcastle I'll give you, but what progress has been made at Hemel? They use Dewsbury reserves, get hammered every week, with a man and his dog in the crowd (they report around 100, but I've been there and it's definitely exaggerated). No harm at all in them dropping down to the NCL IMO, I don't think they would even be in the Premier Division.

I quite agree that Hemel wouldn't exactly be a loss, I was just meaning that the current policy of expansion as a whole, rather than at individual clubs, over the previous few years will be completely undone, I was just listing a few expansion clubs off the top of my head as examples of who would be dropped, but yeah, Hemel's inclusion in the pyramid is pointless. Another couple of failed expansion teams in Gloucestershire and Oxford are merging of course so it will be interesting to see what happens there and whether that Bristol side will play any part in a future 2 tier Super League should it happen. It seems like the list of teams that could potentially be included is just getting longer and longer with french teams, north american teams, bristol, london.

20 teams clearly isn't enough so some of these expansion teams will have to be dropped or some existing heartland teams and that isn't exactly going to make the existing rugby league fan base happy. Though I say 20 teams isn't enough but with less teams the quality might be better, at least in Super League 1. There certainly isn't enough decent talent to go right down through the 20 teams.

The top amateur clubs would walk League 1

Regards

King james