No, because it's still under the same group of owners that it originally was. IMG was acquired originally by William Morris Endeavor and Silver Lake Partners in a $2.4 billion deal to form WME-IMG. WME-IMG reorganised in October 2017 with the parent company being renamed Endeavor, and IMG and WME becoming subsidiaries of Endeavor. Then last year, TKO Group Holdings was created when the UFC and WWE formed a new publicly traded company. Before that Endeavour bought out Vince McMahon of the WWE, and before that, they bought out the UFC back in 2017 off owners the Fertitta brothers and Dana White. TKO is a subsidiary of Endeavor Group Holdings, which Ari Emanuel is CEO and owns a chunk of.
As a bit of info, if you used to watch Entourage on TV a few years ago, Ari Emanuel was the inspiration for the main character Ari Gold, played by Jeremy Piven.

How quickly we forget about our own history. We now have an owner with genuine financial resources who was able to secure our return to SL. I don’t want to think where we would be without him and it might have been us wanting the return of promotion and relegation.
The sport never pandered to any group of teams outside SL. I actually believe the Championship will be an exciting league but without much coverage.

We don’t forget about our own history. Whether it be promotion and relegation or IMG I have no doubt that Ellis would have made the required investment. That doesn’t have anything to do with changing and modifying the IMG structure after year 1 implementation though.

If we had failed to make the 12 I would still not want to see any large changes. You shouldn’t change the criteria when clubs are and have been planning to meet the current criteria. Let’s also not forget that recruitment has been completed by most clubs now too so if you change the on field importance of being promoted as a B regardless then clubs who have invested in other parts of the criteria have missed the boat.

If it absolutely has to be reviewed then you do so now for planning and discussion for implantation for 2026 not 2025 comp where pre season is starting imminently.

Absolutely boggles my mind how things don’t get properly structured and planned. Though I suspect this is more just airing out some concerns of the few and paying some lip service perhaps for future consideration and discussion.

I think the criteria is OK to modify as you learn and progress but you shouldn't be changing fundamental principles after a year.

Important to remember nothing’s changing though, and no one’s dicking about. It’s just Batley’s board saying they’ll put a motion forward to have some sort of P&R - their only hope of playing in the top tier. I don’t blame them as such.

What’s sadder is the coverage, which is designed to get people to click and groan and repost. Not blaming that on Matt Shaw as such, it’s just the state of play now.

Like that headline is about as untrue as you can stretch it while still being true