The viewership rating can't go down - we already get .75 (the minimum score).

That part of the point scoring may not go down, but if standards aren't maintained on all the scoring points required to get an A grade,you can actually drop from an A rating to a B rating,that is the point i am making.

Reading this just makes me sad at what the sport is doing to itself. Yes we all know the sport needs better infrastructure, digitalisation and marketing. But don't sacrifice sporting competition for it.

The championship has been super exciting this year. Look how close the relegation battle is, three teams on same points, two on same points difference. The battle for the play-offs has been excellent. Let's throw it all away so clubs can fill out questionnaires on social media following. All it does is set fans against each other.

Instead of talking about signing a decent scrum-half to take you to the top next year we're talking about signing someone who's good at TikTok videos. I'll give the IMG box ticking 3 years max before we change the structure again!

Anyway rant over and looking forward to visiting Belle Vue next year. The new stand looks excellent.

From next season every SL game will be shown live with the increased publicity and sponsorship that brings but maybe a reduction in supporter numbers.

Be interesting how saturation coverage effects viewing figures of individual games, especially by casual fans. I watch all the sky games (eventually), some viaplay and the majority of the streamed games but don't have time nor the inclination really to include any NRL for example (other than the Grand Final).
I rarely watch the Sky games live even when I'm not attending our games so I will probably end up with a stack of recordings waiting for time available that may or may not get watched. Could well be I do as now and watch just the highlights on the skysports website.

I checked and it does say broadcast Live in some press releases but they haven't agreed who will broadcast or on what platform.
Sponsorship won't be big on Our League. It will be more about the in ground visible to TV advertising I guess and we'll have to find a way to push that.
If our social media team does what IMG want them to, they will still have a massive reach.

I'd go so far as to say that, moving to the IMG grading system and away from on field performance, effectively means that RL at the top level is no longer a "sport".

For a club to be relegated or promoted due to a box ticking excercise is fundamentally wrong and far from "elevating" the game, it's more likely to have the opposite effect.

Sure, lets set some minimum standards and more importantly enforce them but, the future of the game looks very bleak just now.

I disagree. If we only want to talk about signing the good scrum half at the expense of infrastructure and 'fandom', we'll end up a really nice amateur sport where the best players are playing other sports.
Time has moved on since the days when people are happy to watch sport in a 100 year old wooden stadium.

IMG require certain minimum facilities for the media . I don’t know but would this be in the East stand or staying above the portocabins. The former could be a problem because any tv coverage would look straight at the West Stand which is not a pleasing outlook.
The other problem we have no control over is that IMG are tasked with expanding the game away from the heartland.

It's only size of the area for cameras. The more detailed criteria is for press and media which is covered by East.

Picking up on Lampy's point about having 3 teams in Wakefield area, it definitely works against us. None of us will ever get full 1.5 score on that. We all have 0.5 because of the population divided by 3 being less than 130k.

It works in Featherstones favour as they would never draw from the wider Wakefield area as it does for a team like Hunslet. They effectively get 1.5 points because they can draw on half of Leeds.
Which is quite unrealistic.

Minards tried to argue the case but clearly lost.
I'd also say we should include the Barnsley areas to the south. Both Cas and Wakefield draw from this but it isn't counted because its outside our postcode despite there being no competition.

York would get a point as their population is over the second threshold of 130k

Leigh and Wigan would each get 1 point as they divide the Borough but are still just over 130k

I agree that they should include wider. I live in South Yorkshire but still travel in.

Long term, IF IMG are successful in expanding the game, this necessarily impacts on many existing clubs, especially clubs like ours.

I don't think they 'tasked' with expanding the game.
They are tasked with strengthening the game.
Some scores benefit a team outside the heartlands but IMG aren't going out to find those teams.