In my opinion and many others as well, there just isnt the talent available to sustain 14 top flite teams. Which is why I am surprised so many people have voted for a 14 team league but each to there own and as somebody stated earlier it is effectivley safeguarding your team, whoever that may be in SL.

If you take in to account playing ability, stadium quality, finances and attendances then London would drop out and also bradford (takeover depending) but the more likely teams to drop would be salford and cas to form a 12 team league!

2 leagues of 10 would be my personal choice however that would be too radical a step in such a short space of time so a 12 team league would be a good compromise.

The key to a successful SL imo is a high quality fully professional 2nd tier, so teams promoted dont take as long to adapt and relegated teams dont completely walk the championship. However this is far easier said than done and would require 10s of millions of pounds of investment.

Having our TV deal split between several broadcasters could increase revenue but i doubt this is possible. 4 televised games a week split between FTA channels, sky, espn and premier sports would be brilliant in terms of revenue and sponsorship.

An even number of teams is required if you want to have a magic weekend

And on what basis do you form that opinion?

dont offer either anything off the pitch and poor fan bases and terrible on the pitch especially cas

Wow. Disagree completely on both points. Poor this season but generally we've done quite well. Attendances are steady. As for offering nothing off-field that's just naive. Glad you weren't judging licences if you're taking everything at face value based on limited knowledge.

The RFL appeared to do that

Of course your glad. If SL became a 12 team league next season or come the next franchise period, what advantages would Cas have above other contenders?

Leeds, Wigan, Wire, Saints, Hull, Catalan are all dead certs to be in the league.
Huddersfield, Hull KR are both probables to be in the league
Salford, Wakey, Cas, Widnes, Bradford and London would be fighting out for the remaining 4 spots.

The RFL dont want to get rid of London or Bradford because they both add something to the league in one way or another. This is pending on Bradford sorting out there financial mess. They are big club that offers a lot to SL. London is the RFL love child so wont dis own them.

That leaves 2 from Widnes, Cas, Wakey and Salford. Widnes have the biggest backer and a decent stadium so they would get in.

That leaves 1 from 3. Although Salford have a new ground its still pretty poor and they offer little on the pitch as well as off it even though they have a massive potential to tap into being just outside manchester. Apparantly they are on the brink of administration which doesnt help there cause but are not as big a club as bulls so will get less help from the RFL. Nobody would really miss them that much, compared with other teams.

So that leaves a toss up between Wakey and Cas. Wakey are further a long with there new stadium, better on the pitch and imo more potential to challenge for playoff places.

So unfortunately for you thats bye bye Cas. Just my opinion but thats how i came to it!

Which 2 clubs do you think would be dropped?

All the more reason to go with an odd number then

The real issue isn't how many teams are sustainable now, but how many are sustainable long-term. Standards may have dropped a little in recent years due to Aussie/Kiwi mass signings not being possible any more (at least to the sort of standard as was available in the past). That means that an increasing number of players have to come through junior development. It should surprise nobody at all if it takes some years for clubs across the board to take time to put in place a decent development 'funnel' of juniors compared to the far easier task of signing 25-year old NRL hacks.

On the playing front, the question should be, how many clubs would be sustainable if all SL clubs were really focused on junior development and overseas players were limited to 2/3?

People are naive IMO if they assume any question on the number of clubs can be made sensibly without input from Sky. If I were a Sky negotiator, I'd agree happily to SL cutting clubs, so long as I paid SL proportionately less in return. Why on earth would I want to pay the same for a 10-club league, with the consequent increase in repeat fixtures? You can put an argument against that, but in a commercial negotiation that would be my starting point. I'd bet that Sky also value the Broncos and Cats more than any two current SL clubs outside of Leeds, Wigan and Sts (a separate negotiation if I ran the RFL would be to make Sky put their money where their mouth is on this and either underwrite or take an ownership stake in the Broncos, like they do with the Storm in Aus).

Precisely. For example, Irn-Bru pay a certain amount for 'X' number of appearances as SL sponsor per season. Fewer weekly rounds means the cost of their sponsorship will have to drop accordingly. Fewer weekly rounds also means fewer advertising slots during SL broadcasts, which means less income directly related to SL for Sky. Sky aren't stupid - they'll soon cut their RFL payments.

Plus - unless a few thousand additional fans suddenly crawl out of the woodwork at every club for this new, ultra-intense SL, clubs are looking at a loss of takings. Unless we want more manufactured repeat fixtures, a 12-team league means 2 fewer home games, a 10-team league means 4 fewer home games. Taking the 2011 average attendance of 9,615 and an average ticket price of £10, that's a £192,300 drop in home gate income for a 12-team league, or £384,600 for a 10-team league.

And that's not taking into account the loss of income from matchday revenue such as food, drink, car park spaces, corporate hospitality, pitchside sponsors, player sponsors, programme sales, programme sponsors, etc, etc. That income will all be cut with fewer games.

or simple solution 12 team league and what they used to do of the top 6 play each other 3 times the following season and the bottom 6 play each other 3 times

in that case just call it a 'weekend'...