Quote: FlexWheeler "We did licensing already. People got fed up and complained there were to many dead rubbers, so they got rid of it, and if we reintroduce it the same will happen.'"
This is the problem, there is no ideal solution to this. Licensing gives better financial security and you have a lever to drive clubs in the right way. As others have said make it a requirement for each club to run its own scholarship / academy programme and a reserves team. Make growth of the local amateur game a requirement, minimum salary cap spend etc etc. It also gives clubs financial security to plan for the future. BUT you are correct, there will always be a sense of dead rubbers from some games as the season progresses. There’s no real way round that, unless franchises were taken away for consistent bottom of the table league positions.
On P&R there is excitement right to the last weekend - I’m sure sky would prefer it, so there is a strong case to run that model if your biggest financial partner would prefer it. However for me it promotes short term thinking of teams like Salford not running an academy set up and I don’t believe the game is strong enough to support those clubs dropping down to the Championship. The relegation of teams can cause serious financial problems, usually meaning the team has to go part time - that isn’t good for development.
I’d much rather a P&R model, I just don’t think the game is strong enough to support it. So in the medium term I’d advocate a format that allowed the teams the chance to stabilise from Covid and grow. Review after a few years and remove those that are bottom of the pile each year if it is happening.
The strategic thinking behind licensing is that teams should be added every few years, to the point we can support two professional competitions, a SL 1 and SL 2 if you like. But we are a long way from that. So let’s look to add a new club to the top table when finances (TV deal) allows it.