Quote: JB Down Under "Sadly the game does not have enough money in it for two ten team full time competitions so we can not have P&R as teams coming up will be too weak and teams going down will be combated on and off the field.
Finding a way to fund 14 ft clubs in SL and enough money in lower divisions to be sustainable as part time development clubs is the priority for the RFL.'"
Exactly. The problem we have is money. We have enough to sustain a professional competition for 14 clubs, but only if they're supplemented by cash from sugar daddies. No drama there - that's the position of nearly every pro sports club. But we don't have enough cash to either (a) give money to the less well-supported clubs of the championship to go professional, (b) raise the salary cap for those clubs with cash, because to do so would make the current league-within-a-league divisions even more entrenched, or (c) to compete with the NRL or RU for top players.
There are two answers to this. The first is to focus hard on youth development systems so that we produce enough decent talent to replace the ones who get poached by richer competitions. To be fair to the cliubs and the RFL, that is certainly in a lot better state than it was. The second is to get more cash from TV, more cash from sponsorship and more cash from international tournaments.
The problem is that the RFL have, in the last decade, proved themselves to be utterly useless at raising cash. The Stobart free gift of the whole competition for 12 lorries was an utterly insane decision which has come back to bite us this year, because no sponsor is going to pay large bucks for something which the owners value so little that they gave it away. In addition, the negotiations with SKY over TV deals have been so poor by comparison to other sports commanding a similar audience. The canny international execs at SKY must watch Nigel wandering through their door with his begging bowl, and start laughing behind their hands.
As others have said, this is an attempt to address a problem we don't have. Our problem is not a lack of games between the top 12 clubs and the next 12, or a lack of fixtures. Our problem is a lack of money, and I'd rather the RFL actually used their time and energy employing someone who might actually be able to get some companies to part with some cash, and deliver a decent TV deal, than waste it on this nonsense.
