That's the gist of it, but to be fair to those involved, they've said that the aim is to get clubs more money from the start

I've probably missed this and am being too lazy to read the entire thread, but have I understood this correctly...after the split to 8s you all start with zero points again? Hope not, that's ridiculous.

Not in the top 8,

Do we know if the playoff games are included in the season tickets? Instead of getting 27 games we will now only get 23 games. A lot of difference really for the average paying fan.

A Widnes season ticket cost me 167 pound this year. Lets say next year we avoid the drop and the price is the same, potentially we could be forking out 167 pound plus:

3/4 extra home games at 20 pound a go.

(Cannot type the pound sign, using a foreign keyboard)

Also, just to clarify, what is the point of the bottom league of 8? If you win you dont win the championship league but nothing has been mentioned on relegation.

Ah, OK, thanks. That makes a bit more sense at least.

we'll see

As I understand it there will be the 23 regular rounds (22 home & away games plus the magic weekend). Then it will split into the 8's.
Taking the top 8 - Each team would play the other 7 in the 8. After that the top 4 enter the playoff semis, the bottom 4 are out. 1st v 4th, 2nd v 3rd and then the Grand Final. Gives a total of 32 games if a team makes it to the Grand Final.

Currently there's 27 regular season games plus a max of 4 play off games, obviously giving 31 games.

You're right it will be difficult for some people to find the money for a potential of 9 paid for games. But then it's up to clubs to come up with ways of helping people. I'm sure there can be some scheme where you can at the end of the regular season buy a "mini" season ticket for the 7 games and then just pay for the 2 play off games. Or include it on your main season ticket at the start of the season at reduced rates.

I think South American football does ok with divided seasons?



That's weak and you know it is. That's absolutely no different to what we have now, except 27 games are "discarded" if you don't make the top 8. And was someone (you?) seriously asking why you should bother trying to make the 8 when you can just come 12th... I mean really? Maybe something to do with trying to make the 8 being a worthwhile aim even if you don't manage it? After all, why try to come 2nd in the PL when you can just come 5th? or 17th?

There are actually decent arguments to be made against this system (and indeed ones for - money and lazy fans aside the incentive structure is way better than most leagues), there's really no need to be silly with slippery-slopes or being purely over-dramatic. It's hardly the end of the world is it?

and after forking out your £267+ including many games of lesser quality, you might get the honour of watching your club 'win' the 2nd league of 8! I can hardly contain my excitement

Thats cheap for a season ticket

Well a season ticket for 11 games will cost less than one for 13, it's that simple

And if you finish 3rd in the FA championship you get and advantage over the teams which finished 4th, 5th, and 6th. The same in the SL playoffs. In this system your performance in the first 22rounds is entirely disregarded

Put another way, you are bottom, 10 points off 8th with 10 games to go, only 12 games into the season. You aren't realistically going to overtake 4 teams in 10 games, so are you going to go hell for leather for 80 min, for 10 games trying to qualify for a top 8 competition you aren't going to win risk fatigue and injury, or give up, keep your powder dry, rest players, put out a 2nd string and simply focus on not losing a million pounds in funding in those last 7 games?

So less guaranteed income for clubs at the beginning of the year?

The problem isn't with the 2nd league of 8, that's about avoiding relegation for the SL clubs and getting promotion for the Championship clubs (plus its hardly exciting finishing 10th, say, at the moment).
The problem is with the 3rd league of 8, playing for not much to be honest.

Exactly. forking out another 100 pound so to speak only for the outcome being is your team plays in the league the following season it already has been playing in.

I really would hate to see Championshpi clubs throwing all their eggs into one basket knowing that the possibility of promotion is on the cards, to later find out they will not get promotion and could go bust. Widnes did the exact same thing in 2007 and it really wasn't pretty.

People will say clubs will just have to manage their spends better, its all good and well saying that but now Leigh, sheffield, Halifax, Fev etc know they now have the potential to get promoted, the tempation of over spending may be all too much.

You don't know that, you really dont.

This system for me is riddled with flaws.

actually the wider point I made on that was that a club could finish 9th and earn 20points, earn 6 in the 2nd part of the season and be relegated, another club could earn say 10points in the first part of the year, and only 8 in the second and stay up. So we would have a situation where a team earned 26 points in total and a much higher proportion in a much harder league being relegated in favour of a team who scored only 18 points in total with a higher proportion in a lesser league.

It would also incentivise a team with little chance of making the 8 to rest players for the 2nd part as their performance in the first part is irrelevant.

Not to mention the change in primary focus moving fro making the 8 to not being bottom 4 in the 2nd part of the league

Are you for real? If they think they can get away with reducing the number of games without changing the price that they wouldn't be trying to increase the price when there were more games.

These guys are trying to make money ffs

You could threaten them with public execution, it won’t make a blind bit of difference, somebody has to finish in the bottom four.



Yes I’m as giddy as a kipper, especially with such jeopardy of four SL sides & four Championship sides playing a mini league, I couldn’t possibly guess the outcome.

I'm confident that Groupon or Wowcher will come to the rescue of the modern day tightwad fan of discounted SL by offering cheapo deals.

Yes, but a lot more games for people to pay for.
Currently teams such as widnes get £167 for 13 games from their fans. On the new system lets say they get 11 games for £150 or there abouts, but now widnes are guaranteed another 3 home games, that's 3 x £20 or there abouts. Even if attendances half in these games, the average income from fans goes from £167 - £ 180 plus all extra revenue from food etc

for me, I wouldn't bother with a competition where the sole focus is not being the worst. I watch sport to see people competing to be the best.

If we wanted to watch a sport where the only aim is not being the worst, let's give the players LSD first. At least then it would be funny.

That assumes people will pay for those extra games, all available evidence from the challenge cup and playoffs say they won't. And the difference isn't small it's pretty big. It assumes people will pay for an SL season ticket plus the additional games when it may very well simply encourage people to pick and choose the games they do attend

Ok so the decision has been made but what i want to know is how the 2nd league of 12 will be made up.

Obviously it will include the bottom 2 from SL this year so that leaves 10 spots.

There were 14 teams in this years championship along with another 9 in championship 1. So how are the other 10 spots going to be filled? Is it the top 10 from this years championship or is there some sort of application process open to all 23 non SL clubs

Realistically Fax, Sheffield, Featherstone and Leigh will be 4 of them but just wondered what the official word was (if any!!)