But it's not 'franchises' for you, is it? How come the Cincinatti Bengals are still in the NFL? They've been consistently sh*t for years after all. How come the Packers are there? Relative to the rest of them, they're a very small town.

Franchising is supposed to be about raising the standard of everyone who has one to an appropriate (in this context, elite) level, then expanding that base for those who aspire to join. For an organisation to lose a franchise they should be either persistently failing to meet the required standard over an extended period or have commited such a heinous sin as to make their continued participation utterly untenable. Given that no organisation is going to willingly commit suicide in that way it should be a very rare thing indeed, wouldn't you agree?

They don't need to be A licenses though do they, because in reality it is impossible for a club outside of SL to put together a bid good enough for an A license. The best they could achieve would I guess be a "strong C".

I imagine that every existing SL club ought to be a B or strong C by 2012 and if I recall correctly clubs can only move up or down 1 grade at a time so even a B would guarantee that clubs inclusion for 6 years which sort of makes life very difficult for any potential new entrants.

so you would be more comfortable with the owners of say Castleford moving the club lock stock to say leicester?



i think eventually yeah, but right now we arent at a position where any club is meeting the eventual required standard, any of them,

some arent far away, probably only leeds and hull could say they are close, but both can and need to improve,

the rest arent close, some are very far away indeed

the minimum standard we are asking now is pretty low, and as the league is structured now, i dont believe it is possible for all the clubs to make a the standard we will ask of them, some have made very little progress towards that,

its worth remembering that in your example, there has been many changes to the make up of the the NFL mostly in moving to bigger cities

for clubs outside SL yes, but we are talking about the clubs already in SL



and if that was the case great, but there will still be clubs who wont, without the stadium improvements, and with the faillings they currently have in youth development, i dont see Hull KR getting a B

similarly, without a new stadium i cant see Cas or Wakefield getting a B, ill ignore celtic for the moment as they are different but i doubt they will be at 'b' status either, nor Salford without their stadium improvements,

there are 4 or 5 clubs who are a bit away from making B status,

in 2012 i would hope to see Wigan and Saints get to A status, for Sts most of that depends on their new stadium, possibly huddersfield making a jump too,

i would also fully expect Les Cats to be at B grade, and im confident with a bit of luck Quins can too and Bradford to still be a 'b' club,

if that is the case, and we have 5 or 6 'A' grade clubs, and 4 or 5 'B' grade clubs, then the standard to attain an 'A' and 'B' grade will rise and the 'C' grade clubs will be judged on progress towards that

so then we have the 4 'C' clubs, HKR, Cas, Wakefield and Salford, who are at risk, maybe one or two get their stadiums, maybe HKR build that new stand and scrape a 'B' maybe Salford get theirs, then those two are sitting pretty,

which then only leaves Cas and Wakefield as 'C' clubs it then becomes pretty easy to drop one of those two, and even easier if only one gets a stadium

you may disagree with the ratings i have given, but im sure you can see how some clubs are at risk unless they improve

Yes, the ratings are debatable and I agree that clubs are at risk if they do not improve. But it is conceiveable is it not that all the current "at risk" clubs improve in sufficient areas to make strong C or (if you like) weak B applications. That I think is an almost insurmountable challenge for any club with aspirations to join SL, if the number of teams in is not going to be increased.

Why would an existing club even if it is still a C be removed to be replaced with another C grade club?

I appreciate that there is a place promised for a Championship side next time but I don't think that necessarily means an existing SL club will be demoted or that any future similar promises will be made.

I suppose Cas might be analogous to the Packers, and it's true that various NFL franchises have relocated from time to time. Little old Green Bay isn't one of them. Of course, who's close or far away from the SL franchise standard is pretty subjective. You didn't mention Wire for example, but didn't they get an 'A' grade too? We all have our favourites...

To extend the NFL analogy though, if the Cas board did decide it was in their best interests to relocate I would certainly condemn them, but at least it would be their business decision to make... it wouldn't be a precondition of retaining their franchise. In that light it won't happen any time soon, given that British fans' psyche is different to Americans'. British precedents for such a move have hardly been a resounding success.

I reckon that the table at the end of the the third season will look like:

1.Leeds
2.Warrington
3.Hull FC
4.St Helens
5.Wigan
6.Hull KR
7.Bradford
8.Huddersfield

Bill, I think this is one of the problems with the way the franchise criteria is set out. Like you say, clubs that are outside of SL and making great strides are handicapped by the fact that they aren't already in SL, whereas a club in SL that is underperforming can still look good in comparison because they are being propped up by SL.

Example

I think that if a SL club cannot achieve even a B status after having over 3 years in the SL then their SL future should be in extreme doubt. If clubs can't sort their grounds out then they seriously need to look at other parts of their franchise. We'd all love as many clubs as possible in SL, but there's a limit, and there are too many decent clubs building in the Championship who want to make a real go of it to just let C grade clubs drag them down. Cas, Wakey, Rovers, Celtic, Quins, Salford need to be showing progression. Rovers are building their crowds and upgrading their stadium. Cas don't seem to be moving forward or backwards at all but are getting somewhere with their stadium which should move them up a level. Wakey are improving, but they were REALLY poor before so is it enough? Salford desperately need their stadium. Celtic and Quins can't always play the expansion card.

There's Widnes, Leigh, Halifax of the heartlands clubs and Gateshead, Toulouse and Sheffield of the expansion clubs in the Championship that have access to a SL quality ground and are building as clubs. There's no room for complacency.

Not really some Championship clubs will be very fairly treated , some wont

That's the way it is

Please lock this one.

I hate to think about all the time this has wasted for so many.

What utter garbage, four games in!

Agreed.

We can open it again after 7 games........only joking.

Let's at least give it a season before debating.

There are two types of fans that want expansion, those who want all clubs to grow and better themselves, whilst new clubs come into the fold, and those who only care about certain clubs, and would be happy to see 10 teams die out if it meant a couple of big city teams prosper. Both sides have there reasons, but as an RL fans i want all rl teams to prosper and belive in taking measures to do this, as opposed to helping some clubs but not others.

I think your right that a conferance system is the way we have to go, though i think we should aim for 2 12 team league (32 game season, with magic weekend) something like

leeds
bradford
huddersfield
wakefield
castleford
halifax/sheffield
hull fc
hull kr
quins
skolars
gateshead
scottish team

wigan
saints
widnes
salford
leigh
wire
catalans
toulouse
irish team
cumbrian team
celtic crusaders
birmingham/liecester

How did you get a 32-game season?

And if we got to that many teams (which won't happen for years, if ever!), you could maybe go with a three 8-team conferences, with another cup competition in the middle.

32 games a season is too many with playoffs and the challenge cup on top, your looking at elite players playing 40 games a year before any internationals,

plus 8 teams from yorkshire in a 12 team league? a bit much isnt it