First of all i'm doing this before conersgiantsfan thread starter does

Would splitting SL in to two top divisions of 10 similar to NFL improve the national game ? Those top teams going in to a playoff system against each other at the end of the season

i mean currently we have 14 teams with 17 places in each team up for grabs

meaning 238 places up for grabs and limited quota rules

now with a split of two top leagues of 10, you

1) increase the teams from 14 to 20
2) increase the amount of NRL talent
3) decrease the amount of games in SL leaving room to expand elsewhere eg internationally, another domestic cup, etc etc
4) create an extra 102 playing spaces

There may be an arguement that we don't have enough quality to bring in an extra 6 teams BUT wouldn't the mixture of top Aussie pro's and with the top british pro's playing for these other teams because they may want to play for their own town team at some point not improve the guys who are playing in the NL.

Would it not improve the standards and depth of the british game ?
Initially no but with a little patience would it not be better in a few seasons time ?

Thoughts.

It's Conor thank you, and yes, probably it would.

I think its the logical progression if the game is to expand with a solid financial grounding, forming conferences within super league europe, but i doubt we would see something this revolutionary within the RFL.

Minor leagues will pave the way for this kind of system I think, and once they improve, then forming a champions league type system.

Italy is prime for this right now, as is the AMNRL, Serbia, Ireland, Germany, lebanon, with them being new enough that old rivalries, bitterness and senses of entitlement would have no bearing on a strong governing body putting a solid financial package to run these leagues, smaller conferences reduce running and travelling costs, whilst boosting local(ish) rivalries, and a few games against new opponents each season thrown in adds spice. Less games means more oppurtunity for rep games, and with growing popularity, bigger crowds, as if there are only a certain number of oppurtunities to see your team a year, you are more likely to make the effort to go.

I now strongly believe that the future of our global game lies with the innovations of these new nations, and not with the old hierarchy in this country, where we have become a minority sport, commanding less and less of the big event status, as a result, spending the last 10 years trying to innovate to gain market share over rival sports.

One of the biggest loads of garbage ever posted , the o/p was reffering to short term growth within this country and with mostly existing clubs

A ' Champions league situation ' , with Serbia,Germany, Lebanon and Italy

You need to stop smoking those funny cigs

Increase the NRL talent?

What about increasing the British players? Why do we think weakening the NRL would help?

would result in Leigh in SL , I dont think it is the way forward , yes financially it would provide more derby games that should in theory make us all more money allowing for a reduction in games , therefore giving time for rep games of one sort or another

I would still prefer a two tier situation with unequal funding but allowing full time squads and P and R

Ah, the old 'massivley reduce each teams income from sky, even as most teams run at a loss, spending less than teh salary cap, whilst simultaneously hugely weakening the strength of the average team, and thus the intesnsity of the matches, at a time when england already dont have a cat in hells chance of winning a major tournament' plan... sounds like possibly the worst idea ever if you ask me.

Knowing the RFL, they are probably considering it. As we speak they are probably ringing round random football and union teams in far flung desitnations in europe, miles form anyone who actually gives a toss about RL, trying to see if they can make it happen, without having to bother letting in any proper rugby teams into the expanded league

Nail on t'head. Any changes like this would have to be approved by SLE (who, on a separate note, no doubt voted in the three year fixed licenses in the first place) which is run by all fourteen clubs, therefore it is unlikely to happen.

If this was done (doubtful) I don't think a complete split would be the best way forward - who would want to lose St.Helens/Wigan/Warrington vs Leeds/Bradford/Huddersfield/Hull/HullKR etc matches to play poorer quality matches (albeit closer ones). 20 teams is far, far too many. Maybe in a few more years 16 might be a possibility, and a split into 2x8 may be possible.

With 2 leagues of 8, H/A matches against your other 7 and a single match against each from the other league gives a more sensible (imo) number of games a year at 22 (plus CC, playoffs and internationals). It would also match our 4 tiered playoff structure (1st=2nd, 3=4, 5=6, 7=icon_cool.gif which would be divided into the top 4 from each league.

Just my thoughts, I don't think I would mind it following that path rather than just reducing the number of fixtures on a random basis, which will have to happen at some point (like the NRL) if players keep complaining about burnout.

EDIT: But naturally if the teams are the ones voting things in, only the short term goals that benefit the existing franchises will be selected.

It woudn't work for one simple reason: there aren't 20 clubs that are capable of putting together a full time professional outfit*. IMO there are currently at most two clubs outside SL with that immediate potential - and of course some recent events (including but not limited to Wrexham and Wakefield) may lead some to argue that there aren't 14 club in SL atm capable of being run as full time professional outfits.

* and that covers a lot more than just the first team squad.

I know that there aren't 20 teams up to standard but do you think it would bring up those clubs that aren't up to standard a lot quicker than it would now ?

The improved gate receipts, interest, tv monies would bring in more money to invest in the club as a whole surely ?

Just to check: you're not really arguing that the way to get clubs which aren't capable of running a full-time professional operation ready to run a full-time professional operation is to get them to run full-time professional operation while they're not ready to run full-time professional operation? Are you?

If so, why stop at 20? Let's have everyone from Saints to Skolars operating in a full time professional comp, with all the associated costs, on the grounds that they will eventually be capable of operating in a full time professional comp (unless they go bust first, of course)

How do you improve them then if throwing etra money at them isn't the answer ?

Most of the clubs in the championship have been a top flight club at some point in their history

Finding 6 more clubs
Featherstone, Widnes, Leigh, Barrow, Halifax, Sheffield

I'm not going to argue with you because i don't doubt you know how this works better than i do but how much more does it differ from a few years back when most of those teams were top tier clubs. They still run a match day, the only difference i can see is the logistics of extra numbers in the ground ?

I get where your coming from but I don't get how it would improve OUR national game when



Now I know you said mixture of both, so please don't take my point in the way that I have completely dismissed that.

However, surely having this to improve our national game would include having more British players than Aussie's/Kiwi's? Say the RFL did this and for arguments sake, Workington Town, Barrow Raiders and London Skolars (a bit of a weird pick but they were the first teams to come to mind strangely) were chosen to go into a tier, now at current strength they are nowhere near SL standard. So what's the first thing they do? Raid the NRL for fringe players, all have squads jam packed with Aussies and Kiwis, maybe a few British players thrown in there. For me that doesn't in anyway shape or form boost our national game.



The two tier system works in the NFL;

A. because Gridiron is one of the "Big 5" (along with Baseball, Basketball, Ice Hockey and arguably Soccer) so therefore the talent pool is huge. Then look at RL at home, and our talent pool is mainly up North. Although it is growing down South.

B. The size of America itself. The distance between the NFL teams is huge, therefore putting teams in a close(ish) region in a league makes sense rather than have New York v Texas (not a clue on any NFL teams so that'll have to do

) Where as in England it's easy to go to ground's around the country.

I don't think what you've 'proposed' is a bad idea, it's just IMHO it just will never ever work unless RL is spread accross Europe and played all over at a very high standard. Then something like this would definately work, although if RL accross Europe was strong I'm sure we'd have a RL version of the Heineken (sp?) Cup.

Will you ever fathom how the quote function works?
No

Can it work? Yes, of course it can, but will it be allowed to work? Probably not.

Why not , who would stop it from working ?

Clubs ?

Fans ?

Players ?

I should imagine it could work and work quite well what with having regional set-ups say...

1)Bradford
2)Castleford
3)Halifax
4)Huddersfield
5)Hull FC
6)Hull KR
7)Leeds
8 )Harlequins
9)Toulouse
10)Wakefield

With the Western group being

1)Barrow (or combined Cumbrian outfit)
2)Catalans
3)Crusaders
4)Leigh
5)Salford
6)St Helens
7)Warrington
8 )Widnes
9)Wigan
10)

Now I am struggling to find a club that may well be able to fund a full time operation however all the other 19 clubs I have put into two leagues either are or have aspirations to become one. We know Featherstone are keen to improve all areas of their club and are looking at putting in a licence bid sometime in the coming 6yrs so I do not see why we cannot find 20 clubs.

This would then allow both leagues to have a kind of origin game where the best players from each league are picked and play a one off game against each other. This can then be made into a kind of Magic weekend where you can have an England game as the main event but before it have the origin style game, Wales vs Scotland and a France vs Rest of the World 17.

The end of season playoffs would be the top 4 teams of each league working in a similar way to how it works now.

With the reduction in league games allowing for more international warm up games and also to move the season further into the summer season it makes a lot of sense. Yes the Sky money is already streatched too far with 14 teams but this isn't something we are talking about for next season it is something that may take 5/6yrs to get up and running. By then sponsorship deals could be done for each league and possibly a new TV deal will be up for negotiation by then?

On the flip side however I do enjoy travelling to all grounds around the country, the variation from week to week is great and how boring would it be if you finished in the bottom half of your league only having 18 games plus CC games and friendlies, the off season would be sooooooo dull! I can certainly see the argument for this kind of change but also see a massive argument for keeping it the way it is.

I can't actually believe that there are so many people saying this is, or even might be a workable idea, as i said before this is one of the worst ideas i have ever heard. Can anyone saying anything along the lines of 'this is a decent idea;' 'I should imagine it could work and quite well' 'can it work, yes of course it can' please answer the following questions:

A) Given that many clubs in the league are struggling financially, with all but two running at a loss, is it wise to add more teams to teh league, spreading the sky money (which makes up a large proportion of some teams total income) ever thinner?
B) Given that a reduction in sky money will hit the clubs with the lowest incomes hardest, and that these clubs are already struggling to spend anywhere near the salary cap limit, do you not agree that vastly reducing the sky money will only make SL more uneven, and more predicatable?
C) If so do you think this will be good for crowd figures? and tv viewing figures (and ultimately the value of the next SL tv rights deal)?
D) Do you think the majority of the england team playing in a much more uneven league will be good for them, and increase their chance of winning a major tournament?

Adding more teams to the league will obviously result in a drop in standards (adding almost 50% more teams as most are proposing would dramatically reduce the standards in SL), where the hell are we going to find another 100+ players, if they were out there, and of SL quality, they would already be playing in SL, not in the academy league or the championship.

E) Do you think reduction in standards would be good for gate receipts and tv viewing figures (and agian ultimately the value fo teh next tv deal)?
F) Do you think playing in an even further diluted league would be good preparation for the England players, and as a result make England more or less likely to win a major tournament?

I have plenty more, but lets see how you do with these for now...

I agree in part, at this moment in time adding more teams is a very bad idea which is why my club voted for a 12 team Super League rather than 14.

As I said this isn't something that would be looked at in the short term so the Sky money and any further sponsorship would have to be worked to accomodate a 20 team set-up before this was even looked at in any detail.

Crowd figures wont drop but with less games comes less income, also fewer big games means fewer large crowds so it would appear crowds would drop in this instance. As you say less income means less money for big players or more big players leaving less in the pot for you average Joe that keeps the team ticking over.

Is the idea a viable one...possibly however all clubs would need to sort their finances out and run at a profit so as this will not happen I would say no it wont ever work and will never be an option for the RFL.

The fact some fans think this idea might work shows that confidence is being lost in the current format. As you have stated money is being lost by 12 of the 14 clubs at quite an alarming rate. What can be done to address this? I deffinately do not have the answers to that, my previous post was just showing how it might work and in theory it could, but as with everything else in this sport, what works on paper usually doesnt work in practice!

I mentioned something similar ages ago but along the lines of a 20 team, two tier system; Super League Premier and Super League One.

Basically, it consists of 20 franchised teams, with a one up, one down annual promotional system between the two divisions.

I can't be bothered going into the full extent of my ideas - if you want to know, ask questions or find my old post.

RFL - they'd f*ck it up.

We could call one "Rugby League Raw", and the other "Rugby League Smackdown"

That was a cracking telly show, that. I do miss that annual swear-a-thon in the small hours of ITV.