Just on the 10 teams thing I've managed to find the link here........


No absolute guarantee but SL tried it the other year and lost the vote..................It's worth looking these things up.

"OLD MATERIAL? REALLY??

With respect dismissing a major vote on the structure of the game in which clubs differences were laid bare, because it was a year ago and where the Superleague giants got a bloody nose from the RFL and the Championship clubs doesn't help one bit. Effectively that vote settled the "matter" only at the time, but to pretend Superleague are going to take that on the chin and in 2022 they are going to divvy up a lot smaller TV deal across what?? 37 clubs plus six more with Ottawa, New York, Vancouver, Timbuktoo, Valencia and Belgrade making 43 clubs -well you have to be joking.

The whole reason Lenegan, Moran, Davey, Koukash Pearson and Hudgell were at bitter loggerheads with the RFL was that the RFL took large amounts of the SKY deal and gave that to the Championship. As a result Superleague embarked on a long battle with the RFL for control of the game. Superleague won that and it will be Superleague NOT the RFL who negotiate the SKY deal this time. How can you indicate that looking back at these major events off field aren't helping the debate going forward???

The result of the battle between the Superleague clubs who now have McManus Fulton and Carter on board, and the RFL was the impending closure of Red Hall and the mass redundancies therein. The next stage in the ongoing dispute is for the Superleague bosses to negotiate the 2022 deal. In forcing a vote in which SL basically said "we are planning to dump 17 clubs"sent a very big signal to the game, you appear oblivious to? OK the vote was lost then but you cannot pretend that is the end of it when at some point in the future the new SKY deal can pay Superleague clubs ONLY for Superleague rights in the same way they did on all the TV deals before the one Solly and Wood negotiated, "shafted" Superleague giving £millions to the Championship.

Read it all up carefully. McManus appears to be saying SL "[iwon't leave the championship out of the SKY deal[/i", but he doesn't define what he means by the championship? is it the 27 existing clubs? or the 10 clubs he was planning for?. In that vote a year ago the championship was going to be only 10 clubs if Superleague had had their way. YES the vote was lost but the clear signal was still there. The next SKY deal will be negotiated by Lenegan, Pearson, McManus and Hudgell and most likely the money will be organised such that only 20 clubs get a share.

The vote on that will NOT include Championship votes this time - they will be helpless....This is NOT "old material" is it??

The vote on the new deal will be taken by Rimmer for the RFL (who have ONE casting vote) and Lenegan, McManus, Caddick, Hudgell, Pearson, Carter, Fulton, Davey, Moran and whoever holds Salford's vote. TWP and Catalans should abstain as guests, the championship get no say and this time whatever Superleague want Superleague will get. It really is worth taking notice of what happens off the field as it will shape the game 2022 onwards, you may have noticed Nigel Wood reappear with Bradford, and TWP not signing up a raft of new players but securing their squad only for 2020 and 2021. You may have noticed not a peep from NY or Ottawa who both passed up chances to join next year. You may have noticed Les Catalans can no longer be bothered with the development of French players any more.

You may have noticed most tellingly Perez has jumped ship and is now at Bradford working for wood It DOES help to carefully watch the politics and the events of this matter it then helps us see which way things are going, and that ain't Transatlantic, it certainly ain't 43 clubs......

it is interesting that Hull FC have partnered with Bradford, AP keeping friends close and enemies closer?

You can bet that any one of those Chairmen's priorities will change when one of them gets relegated at the end of the year, the question is who will it be.

Plus Ottawa and NYC haven't passed up anything as there will be an announcement soon about their plans for 2021. What that is, is anyones guess.

All the chairmen will accept relegation as long as they are replaced by other chairmen of full membership owning English clubs who meet Superleague standards. Outside of the 10 English chairmen in Superleague, you have the following Gentlemen and their clubs who retain Superleague ambitions.

Mr. John Flatman......YORK
Mr. Semor Kurdi.......NEWCASTLE
Mr. Nigel Wood .......BRADFORD
Mr. Chris Shaw.......WIDNES
Mr. David Hughes....LONDON
Mr. Derek Beaumont....LEIGH

Four of the clubs clubs are already committed to player development and accept a mandatory requirement to run reserves. York are struggling on that issue as the local amateur game doesn't have the numbers. Should Leigh go up reserves should appear. Player development was made mandatory for SL clubs with the advent of the reserves league, and that mandatory requirement was stretched to Newcastle, Bradford, Widnes and London. We therefore now have 14 English clubs at the forefront of the game, who are in good shape and good hands to move forward into the new era of the re-vamp of the game and the new TV deal in 2022.

York will need to boost playing numbers in the city, AFAIK Salford will meet the Reserves criteria.

Whether Superleague stays at 12 clubs in 2022 or drops to 10 we shall have to wait and see, but it could not be more clearer that Superleague has already set it's criteria for future membership of the revamped Elite competition in 2022. The current Superleague competition is now playing out it's final two years of the contract i.e. 2020 and 2021 under the signed arrangement agreed between the RFL and the Superleague.

It is very clear that the current English SL clubs are already making plans for 2022 - wether that is 10 or 12 clubs they have 15 English clubs lined up for that, all of whom will have to meet the rule of running a Reserves side. ]It really is not hard to see the intent behind the sudden introduction of a rule that puts the likes of Bradford and Widnes in the driving seat in the queue for Superleague 2022 onwards, and leaves Les Catalans and Toronto stranded as ineligble for Superleague 2022 onwards.]

TWP's rection was to send McDermott out to admit they won't be developing any players, and of course the club has no players at all contracted to play in 2022. Deals are only being extended to 2021. As for Les Catalans, no reserves, no academy and they are currently looking for more English players to add to their first choice team. Why do these clubs bother to play on? I assume they are contractually committed to see their time out, and not spit the dummy out.

Expansion was always about expanding the pro player pool, TWP and Catalans are (1) failures on that, it was about TV deals that paid money, TWP and Catalans are (2) failures on that as well, and currently 14 English clubs meet the new criteria for inclusion in Superleague post 2021. Those are the facts of the matter.

Meanwhile at League Express Towers and RL Weekly heights these giants of the RL press have gone a bit quiet on their to date unstinting support for the Transatlantic dream. They would do well to start to discuss and champion this element of apparent resurgence in the English game.....

Because the TV deal sells subscriptions to English fans. English fans love Hull.v.HKR, they love Leeds.v.Bradford. they love Wigan.v.Leigh, they love Hull.v.HKR, they love Warrington.v. Widnes they love Castleford.v.Wakefield......... That's 12 clubs English fans adore, and key games they look forward to. They also like the idea of expansion so London.v.Newcastle looks to be a great fixture for TV don't you think??

You called me "Myopic" in an earlier post, I think with respect it's you that can't see the future, and it ain't Ottawa.v.Toronto, New York,v,Boston, or Toulouse.v.Catalans, unless they can find any SL quality players and overseas TV deals? Can you see any?? you have better eyesight than me???

Why are you bringing me into this again as I was happy to agree to disagree and leave it alone? I'm only replying as I didn't call you 'myopic' as I would never be so disrespectful - I said that while you made some good points, some of your arguments were rather unbalanced/myopic. If you took that the wrong way then I apologise.

Mr Woods is a minor shareholder at Bradford and not on the board, never mind the club's chairman. And I suspect Mr Campbell at Featherstone might argue with your list......

You may have some figures for this but, do you think that Sky's priorities lay with generating advertising revenue or selling subscriptions.
It's a strange situation but, IF there were millions of people watching Sky but, getting the service at a "discounted rate" via a dodgy Sky box, it would still be worth it for companies to pay Sky for advertising and it's quite possible that the number of subscriptions isn't the b-all and end-all.

If you want to sell your products or services via a TV network, you wouldn't be bothered whether the people taking note had paid Sky or not.

Of course, Sky would much prefer that everyone watching their channels was paying full whack but, second prize is heavy demand from advertisers and in relation to your post, is these adverts were reaching the public in N. America and those people were spending big on those products, everyone's a winner. The same applies in France or, any other country.

It would be interesting to know if there is an appetite for the sport in any of the non playing countries or the smaller playing nations and perhaps those places should be where we try and expand the game

Interesting times indeed, unfortunately none of us know how it will play out. However I do think it will be bad for the game if your prediction of a 10 team Super league comes to fruition.

You have no need to apologise I didn't take anything personally so nor should you. But you chose to enter the debate and you said“It obviously isnt a necessity to feature English clubs. Sky shows a lot of international sport; NFL for example which dominates the Sunday evening schedule and has plenty of advertising between plays, so it obviously isnt a necessity to feature English clubs”. [/i

Far from being a "myopic" view, my counter view is it is a factual reality borne out by Adam Pearson's statement on this. It is most necessary to feature English clubs to get Subscriptions SKY don't get from abroad, and have English eyeballs on advertisments set up to stimulate the English market. SKY MUST have 9 English clubs in SL and that doesn't mean we must have three overseas clubs beyond this. Clearly SKY would be happier with the whole of Superleague being English. why would we not offer them that? You can OF COURSE choose if you wish to reply or if you want to leave it alone it's your choice to take, but not to impose on me the idea I can't reply to you.

I wish to correct your view so the debate can be advanced. SKY don't want overseas clubs. No SKY no game.

What would be bad for the game is the game going Trans-European. The very first time the clubs sit down with SKY as regards 2022 onwards the elephant in the room will be "substitution".
Note I do not say "Expansion" what "expanded" when TWP replaced London?? NOTHING

SKY have already said there is no deal if there aren't nine English clubs, what they haven't publicly said is that the more English clubs the better the deal. As above if the chair of the SKY/SL meeting on behalf of SKY says [i"of course we would prefer English clubs, but we can live with nine"[/i will Lenegan still push for the inclusion of Catalans, Toulouse and Toronto (forget for now the pipe dreams and stick with the reality)???

On the ten club thing is appears everyone gets to play each other 3 times. It appears if it's an English league everyone gets 3 derbies. I suppose that we would be merely following Scottish soccer? We already do the repeat fixtures thing where some clubs play each other 3 times? However the ten club thing could have just been invented as a short term tactic to freeze Toronto and the French out so I concede SL could still stay at 12 - we shall see.

You had already replied so I was confused why I was getting a second reply? Anyway all I’d like to add to my point on NFL is that the rights are not free. I’m sure they are not nearly as much as Superleague but Sky outbid BT for them so they won’t have been cheap and I can guarantee they will be more next time (which is soon I think).

I’m fully aware that NFL markets itself on much more than just the action on the field and RL would struggle to come anywhere near that currently. However, my point is simply that there is a precedent for sports without English teams to be successful here and turn Sky’s head. Elstone/Super League seem to have no interest in pursuing this avenue though so my point is fairly irrelevant.