Lower tiers ? , so who do you suggest Salford merge with ?

They could merge with Swinton and ad another 250 fans to their weekly total
There needs to be more professional clubs in the sport, not less but, some of the clever ones just dont get it.

If we keep on losing clubs from the professional ranks, eventually we wont have any and the likes of Wigan, Leeds and Saints will probably end up converting to Union and that would be the saddest end of all.

Those that formed The Northern Union would be turning in their graves.

They could merge with Swinton and ad another 250 fans to their weekly total
There needs to be more professional clubs in the sport, not less but, some of the clever ones just dont get it.

If we keep on losing clubs from the professional ranks, eventually we wont have any and the likes of Wigan, Leeds and Saints will probably end up converting to Union and that would be the saddest end of all.

Those that started Rugby League would be turning in their graves.

I'm not sure that we've advanced our top tier a single iota by shrinking superleague and sacrificing Bradford and London. We've not enhanced the game a jot in fact we are in a commercially less attractive wilderness.

When I first joined these forums about 17 years ago there was some nutters claiming the game was dying. I thought they were tinfoil hatted loons. But now I'm staggered to find myself thinking we are in genuine trouble. The convoluted plans and lack of any consensus on this thread illustrates to me how adrift we have become as a game.

The Broncos would be very grateful if they could get 2,000-3,500 to home games yet they haven't done in years....

Theres not one club in SL that can survive without the income from SKY. They all got sucked in years ago and now the game is paying for others sins. The structure will change to again support the failings of SL.

SL as a product as now run its course, 12 teams with one up,one down isn't the answer either, they are just prolonging the inevitable. Holding out for the next fix of income and the cost will be the game.

Could any professional football club survive without sky money? Or any RU club?

It did before, it could again but on a dramatically reduced income level and players would have to adhere to this or find themselves a proper job.

Said it once, said it a 100 times but the CC final needs to move, yet again in the Super8’s we have two teams focused on Wembley rather than go all out in the 8’s, and like Hull last year Warrington have a very tough task of playing on a Thursday after a cup final.

CC Final needs to be where the Semi’s are now, in the break before the 8’s with the Semi’s in late May or June.

In what way were they sacrificed?

London got relegated and Bulls committed financial suicide. They engineered their own downfalls.

Th emain thing against expanding SL to 14 clubs is that the chairmen of those clubs only want a 12 way split of the Sky money. Similarly with the number of fixtures.

I agree with the SL clubs in that we need to go to 1 up 1 down with top 5 play-offs. But as soon as Carter said they would be loop fixtures i had my head in my hands. One of the main problems with Super 8s is that they are too many games against the same clubs. Wigan/Saints derby could end up playing each other 6/7 times.

I feel its being rushed through. This is half the reason licensing and the 8s didn't work. Licensing didn't have definitive rules set out. Wakefield, Bradford & Crusaders should have all been thrown out when they went into admin. But because this wasn't set out, the RFL ended up making it up as they went along. FAIL. The 8s, again many people had worries about the 8s, but the RFL only looked at the positives, didn't look at the negatives, waved a load of cash at the clubs and thry voted it through fail.

Its happening again. They're trying to rush it in for 2019, have come up with the ridiculous loop fixtures which we all know don't work, and could still see a wigan/saints derby 7 times in a season creating fan fatigue (which is one of the main flaws of the 8s.) we'll be back here again in 3 years wondering what went wrong when crowds shrink because they're bored of the same fixtures. I'd rather have a other year of the 8s, but take out time as a sport to get a proper structure sorted that will stay for ghe next decade

Carter wants loop fixtures because it's easy for him. The more he can flog the talent, with as many games as he can get away with, the less effort he has to invest in actually trying to sell the games he has. He says that the 'short notice' of the eights system makes it hard to sell tickets, yet there were 16 days between the fixtures being announced and Wakefield's first home game - ample time to come up with a sales strategy for that event (as evidenced by much smaller clubs like London Broncos, who have been actively promoting this game with a part-time operation).

Carter is undoubtedly good at what he does, which is bean counting. There is nothing wrong with that, but let's never pretend that he is in any way a visionary that can take the sport forward. His MO is protectionism and cutting the costs, not seeking out the opportunities.

And this whole proposal by Elstone and crew is about protectionism. It's about removing risk for the smaller clubs, allowing them to bumble along investing as little in business growth as possible and reducing their cost base without consequence, and for the bigger clubs it is about how much of the pie they can take, rather than how they can make the pie bigger. Anybody who doubts Ian Lenaghan's motives behind this simply needs to look at Wigan's accounts and take note of the reporting of an "operating loss of £605,286" due to a "significant reduction in sponsorship income" due to a "loss of a major sponsor" - on top of the previous year's £180k+ loss.

The Rfl and super league really need to get this right. Get it wrong and the game will haemorrhage more and more fans. Nobody wants loop rounds. Every fan simply wants straight round robin home away fixtures, nobody wants more than a top 5/6 play off’s. nobody wants any more than 1 up one down. Its simple nobody wants convoluted fixture list or convoluted play off p&r systems. I do not care whether its 12 or 14 teams but i just want a full home away fixture list printed in november so i can plan work/leisure/hobbies/holidays around my RL.

You need "loop" fixtures, because without them, you have 11 home games and 23 in total.

That does not give a sustainable income stream.