Just using them as possibly the main 3 teams, you then have batley who can beat anyone in the league you have dewsbury with a cracking ground and you have the potential at Many other teams.
To me it isn't about how many fans the teams have now we can't judge till after a couple of seasons..

Batley and dewsbury would destroy the fantastic work they are doing by trying to be SL clubs. They would at max get the levels of attendance used as a stick to beat Salford with this year, an attendance which is entirely unsustainable at pro level.

You are right, we can't judge it now, it's in place, in a few seasons we will see its results. People are saying we will see rises in attendance across the board, new interested benefactors and sponsors funding expansion and benefits throughout the game. I think we will simply entrench a split between the big clubs and everyone else, whilst we will bring up the to championship clubs it will force down the lore SL clubs and grow the big SL clubs and forget about everyone else.

I think people have forgotten that if this is to even come close to working the gap between the top SL clubs and the championships is what needs to be narrowed because if it isn't we only have two possible outcomes a 22game season where 4clubs get hammered and an exciting 7 game play off, or a 22game competitive season and an end of season blow-out.

But it's in place now, I hope to god it does work, I just have no faith whatsoever it will.

So because they will play 7 games outside of the regular SL rounds (3 against SL sides) they are effectively Championship sides for being in the middle 8?

When you add it up, every side that starts in the SL will play at least 26 games against SL opposition.
They will likely play at least 2 games against former SL sides.
And a further 2 games against the other two best Champ sides.

They have more games. Just as many against SL opposition. I don't see the big issue in that they're playing considerably more "lower level" games than they were before. It's comparably very similar. Instead of playing 4 games against 13-14th in SL, they're playing 3 extra games against higher SL opposition, and likely 2 games against the 13-14th clubs mentioned.

What????


The point of my comment is I lost he will to live half way through your explanation... Now add that the game wants me to spend money on supporting this vision... And we might have a problem.

No because their focus changes from long term growth to challenging to short term staying up. Every decision is taken with a risk/reward problem in mind, the risk for a lesser club (relegation) is far higher than the reward(a place in an 8 team comp they are virtually guaranteed not to win from the first kick off). It's a change from now where they are not expecting to get in the 8 but focussing their season on giving themselves the best chance to get in, to having their entire season based around making sure they dont finish bottom four in the 2nd part of the season, the longer the same clubs are involved in those battles the more and more irrelevant the first part of the year becomes

And they may not be playing at a massively lower level than they were before (though it is a lower level) they are playing at a massively lower level than the top 8 which exacerbates the gap

No. I'm a Saints fan and so, without wanting to sound arrogant, it's unlikely we'll face the prospect of not being in the top 8.

My opposition is twofold:

1) I think the principle of 'franchising' is correct. It guarantees stability, allowing SL clubs to plan with a sense of certainty. As I said, the prevalence of younger players being brought through has been tangible evidence of the change of approach. Before this we had the merry-go-round of the same journeyman players jumping between lower-SL clubs and the promoted team(s) because the clubs were terrified of relegation and didn't have the time to build a team from within their own ranks. It acted against the flow of young players being brought through, and as such worked against the longer term interests of the game.
I do recognise that the clubs in SL are there by accident of timing, and it is, I accept, unfair on those clubs outside of the SL club. IMO, their challenge would be to make the Championship a competition in itself which attracts public interest.

2) the new structure is overly complex. I've tried explaining the SL play-off system (and, indeed, that of the WC) to non-RL fans, and I see their eyes glaze over and their interest wanes. The SL play-off is unnecessarily complex (and should have fewer clubs than , and this new structure will amplify the view of the non-RL fan (whose money we need to attract if we are to progress) that RL is too complicated .

There needed to be 10 clubs present for it to be possible for a vote to take place. Once a vote took place it needed a majority in favour to be passed. The 7-6 vote was just something that somebody mentioned they had heard (a rumour). People had also been talking of a walkout from the meeting when the meeting had not yet begun (another rumour). Some rumours will be true, some won't. There were enough present to allow a vote to occur and that vote approved the proposals. That's all that really matters.

The fact stands that SL clubs and the RFL have brought this about by making a mockery of the franchising system. People take great pleasure in comparing Bradford/Widness/London to Fax/Fev/Leigh but that cant ever be a fair comparison whilst on is on 1.8m of central funding and the other is on less than 100k. If you give either Fev, Fax or Leigh 1.8m a season and competitive games to bring in the fans the comparison would be much less favourable to the SL clubs.

Correct my view exactly

Regarding the season ticket issue, while it is a valid concern some people are making assumptions based on what they think their club will do and then, like the stereotypical daily mail reader are frothing at the mouth based on their own (or sometimes someone else's) assumption without actually knowing how clubs will deal with the issue.

There has been no mention of any centrally dictated method for grouping and selling match tickets. As it has been previously it will be up to the individual clubs to sell season tickets in whatever form they choose to.

There seem to be a few possible approaches they could take.

1 ) A club could sell a season ticket for the initial 12 team phase and then have the 3 or 4 (not seven, away games are not on season tickets unless you are a child) second phase home games treated as pay on the day individual games as with cup and playoff games.

2 ) A club could sell a season ticket for the 11 first phase games and then offer a bolt on group ticket for the 3 or 4 second phase games.

3 ) A club could choose to sell a whole season ticket that covered all 14 or 15 games in both league phases.

4 ) A club could offer a range of options prior to the season starting so that individual fans could purchase the package they wish. Fans could then opt for a whole season ticket regardless of opposition, an initial phase season ticket with bolt on where payment for the bolt on was automatically taken after round 21 (for example) unless they chose to opt out prior to round 21, or an option to buy a first phase ticket only with a chance to opt in to a second phase bolt on.

Individual clubs will decide which type of season ticket system would work best for them and their supporters and use that. There is no certainty that every club in a particular 12 team league will operate or try to operate the same scheme, nor that every supporter at an individual club will have to buy a season ticket under the same scheme. The price and format of season tickets for 2015 will not be known until September at the earliest. If people want to bemoan the system then it will be fine but to whinge now about what they assume will happen based on something else that they assume will happen as if it is set in stone is just pointless and daft.

It's going to be interesting attracting new fans when half of the current fans will probably struggle to understand the format.

It's another complex and unnecessary 'innovation' and I wouldn't even know where to start trying to explain it to my mates who follow other sports and catch the odd RL game.

There will be many fans who won't even bother with the details of the new format, they'll just turn up to the games whenever their team is playing. I may be one of them.

Now I can agree with this to a point. My point is that I never started watching RL because of the type of system in place.

I started watching because I enjoyed the spectical and the competition between the sides.

IF this adds to the entertainment and the competition, then knowing how the structure works will be irrelevant to new fans.

A bit like the WC, did new fans kick up a fuss that not all the league were even and that 3 teams came out of some leagues less out of others???

The structure is there, but no one watches for the structure. They watch for entertainment and the passion of following your local side.

so how much was the funding before the franchise system? It not like those clubs haven't had a chance before is it. Its more like enough years have passed for some people to forgot how bad super league was with promotion and relegation and the amount of journeyman that was in super league to try and avoid relegation.

Not much difference to today then??

"Overly complex", "struggle to understand"......its actually very very simple.

It seems its only complex to SL fans. The SL clubs have agreed to it...they didn't have to and if SL or indeed Champ clubs bankrupt themselves trying to stay or get in SL1, then that is entirely the clubs fault not the RFLs. Time for the marketing guys to actually earn their salaries and market their club.

No one has a divine right to a position at the top table.