Clearly a totally nonsense system where it pays to be relegated or play in small stadium.

Rugby League really is a joke sport sometimes. We've got a two match test series coming up which was rescheduled due to a player getting married. Can you imagine any other professional sport doing that?

Surely that was the Stobart lorries?

Stobart deal
Papa John's sponsorship with clubs only getting paid in pizza
Not making the most of opportunities in London, Toronto and Toulouse
Buying the lease to a big hole in the ground in Bradford
Continuing with loop fixtures
Not capitalising on the success of the 2013 world cup
Worldwide talent search for a new CEO that led to someone from inside the organisation getting the role

There's lots of mistakes from the rfl that meant they had to get IMG involved, if IMG weren't involved, you wouldn't have seen clubs like Cas and Wakey making long overdue improvements, the playoffs and grand final seemed to have more media coverage than previous years....I think the stadium capacity is a fair point, our games would have a far better atmosphere if we had a 10k crowd in a 12k stadium rather than 10k in a 25k stadium

While it’s frustrating, I reckon at the moment we score between around 0.4-0.5 from a possible max of 1 point for stadium utilisation, no reason we couldn’t average around 15K if we had a competing side, that would take us to 0.6 points, I doubt IMG will be around for another 3 year cycle but that’s not the point.

For perspective after a quick look at last years attendances as a rough average it looks like Leeds (highest overall graded side initially) will score around 0.6-7 for the same criteria. Wigan will be around 0.5-6, Saints around 0.7 of a point. Those are the benchmark clubs, I doubt they’ll be too bothered about not getting the full point. Rovers will likely score near the full 1 point, but they’d still love a bigger ground though and I’m sure they’d sacrifice 0.2 of a point for extra revenue.

Long winded post but the point being that the reason we are not a grade A club is mostly down to poor performance on the field and horrendous salary cap management. Get the other stuff right that’s within our control and missing out on a max 0.75% of a single point on the stadium becomes much less significant.

With regards the IMG gradings, I would hope there is another phase of grading in the next 3 years.

I think all SL clubs should have a min capacity of 12k with the aim getting clubs towards 15k in the future. There is no point in just growing the game on social media, clubs need to keep growing the number of fans attending games.

SL crowds across the board are actually a lot healthier across the board than league attendances in the 80’s and 90’s. Challenge Cup and Play Off crowds struggle more.

Also there should be attention given to clubs who run Academies. It’s great that there has been ground improvements with scoreboards and advertising boards, but I’m still amazed player development has been ignored as is needed to sustain the future of the game.