It's a great point that maybe most loop fixtures see little money handed over at the Turnstyles, but would less games affect season ticket prices that may have to adjust down?

Maybe the "Middle eights" for the MPG showed there arey always a couple of clubs in the Championship that could give SL clubs a game.

Maybe the number of applicants for 12th. spot showed clubs are ready and willing to make the league back up to 14

As we did have 14 club leagues for 26 regular games back in 2014 and well before that

Is the problem the top owners like to have their "third games" against big rivals like Hull/HKR Saints/Wigan than against London and Featherstone?

Anyway great post and 14 for me all day...........

Well your right because the bigger clubs have already put the idea of a 10 club Superleague (and a 10 club Championship) to the vote about 18 months ago.

Thus we were looking at all clubs playing each other three times, and probably will be again as SL looks for a 10 way split of ALL the SKY money.

I don't know when this will be brought back on the table, but now won't be the time. Once we are well into the 2021 season and season tickets are all sold, top SL chairmen will probably look to run that vote again. Kind of keep asking until you get the right answer??

That should be the time when we can see exactly who would be up to making up a 10 club Superleague. The reports all point to very very serious money problems at some clubs that either wipe out their SL ambitions, or mean they would have to drop out of Superleague.

If you have lost a lot of money due to Covid, and don't have a rich enough owner to balance the books then SL may be beyond your club.

I would suggest that for 2021's potential 10 club Superleague simply list the 10 club owners with the most personal wealth...........

That's likely to be the make up of SL and at least that will mean Newcastle and London in and a truly national game

(there's always a silver lining)

Ooh err. Can you say that?

Well the fact is that the game is miles in front of where it was in the sixties and seventies.

Stadiums are better, crowds are bigger, player development is more professional and TV deals still come through.

So Covid apart the old man of the M62 is still alive and well and aged 125.

If you want to see a Rugby League "dying" try the French game

If you want to see a dead Rugby League try the Canadian game.

This is how spectacularly wrong you can be. You have fallen for the idea France and North America are the future, so much so that you think the English game is dying?

I think you are more than a little confused as you state that you don't talk about North America anymore yet here we are on a thread about loop fixtures and you couldn't resist go back a couple of pages and re read what YOU have written re Perez and Gridiron and only coming on this thread with your reply because another had been locked.

This thread is about loop fixtures not substituting Wakefield, Castleford and Huddersfield with Toulouse, Toronto and Ottowa again it's YOU that mentions North America (although you don't apparently) and expansion.

BTW you lost me when you suggested that Cup Final crowds don't skew attendances and used them to advocate loop fixtures total nonsense.

That's a fair cop.

I will not mention North America ever again................................................

The point was that no matter how many times Leeds and Bradford played the crowds were enormous in RL terms

I don't want to see clubs playing each other so much, but at least the way it was done, and the result was more big crowds.

More money isn't "nonsense"........

This begs the question if we played 14 clubs in SL with a 26 round season would gate revenue rise or fall??

Thoughts??

Money isn't nonsense I never said that it was and in addition I don't think anyone thinks that there isn't a financial reward or indeed an appetite to play in a Cup Final and that's where your point loses validity in my opinion it's not really a loop fixture and you understand this despite denying it.

Here's an example using my own club as an example,

Warrington might play Wigan three times as regular fixtures, Home Away and either a loop fixture and or Magic, if they met in another game and that game was a CC Final or GF, would that crowd be larger smaller or about the same as the previous encounters?

If Warrington and Wigan didn't make those one off event games and thought well instead of having a week off we will upgrade the Locker Cup to a do or die fixture would that generate the same revenue as a CC or GF appearance?

As far as loop fixtures are concerned, I look forward to the big games but don't necessarily want more of them against the same opposition, familiarity does breed contempt, surely it's better to have more quality across a wider base.