Quote: Grimmy "I don't really get where you're coming from with this £1m game stuff. '"
It is a proposal from the RFL for the 4th and 5th teams to play off to decide who finishes 4th regardless of the points position. They called it the £1m game because if you win you gain and extra £1m on the salary cap if you are not already a SL team as you will be going up (and presumably lose if you are a SL side if going down - back to the old problem of P&R between pro and semi pro leagues with players contracts ripped up no doubt).
Quote: Grimmy "The middle 8 is effectively a mini league where teams need to make the top 4 to survive so surely most games will matter. If it all ends up coming down to the result of one game putting a Championship club up then it's because the team did well enough to get into that position. Of course it's open to a bad ref call, injuries, bounce of a ball etc but that's only the same as the play offs and many other relegation systems.'"
At 4th they could finish several points better off than the 5th placed side and have beaten all sides below them in the mini-league. It's not just about only doing well enough to finish 4th its about whether finishing 5th despite being potentially very poor in the league is reason enough alone to give them a pop in a one off final.
It is a totally contrived fixture all about trying to manufacture a situation. It's got naff all to do with merit.
Quote: Grimmy "If this system is engineering the failure of a team you must hate the football system. 3 teams are guaranteed to be relegated from the Premier League next year, none are guaranteed to be relegated from Super League.
'"
I have no idea what the relevance of the above statement is.
Quote: Grimmy "I'm looking forward to next year and think it will be a vast improvement with regular season games being far more important and teams 5-8 being pushed to properly catch up with 1-4 instead of just hoping they can come good in a game or two the play offs. Likewise teams 9-12 will be pushed to make the top 8 to get big games at the back end of the season and avoid the prospect of relegation. Championship teams also incentivised by the possibility of making the Super League'"
You are ignoring the logistics. Only a few sides will get an increased salary cap to cira £900K and so the rest will be expected to play against these sides in the lower 12 before the split on a peanuts budget. As I said above if we do get movement between leagues the former SL side will lose circa £1m in salary cap spend. This is no different a situation in reality to relegation as was under the old system. You can't just shed £1m off your wage bill without sacking players. It is no way to run a so called pro sport.
You are also ignoring what happened in Switzerland where they ran this system in soccer which crowd wise is very similar to RL in the UK. Crowds dropped to around 7K a game. Sponsors did not want to be associated with two the two second tier competitions. They scrapped it and crowds went up 40%.