I have no problem with that, Im very comfortable with us using the cap in this way, it is one of our levers to force clubs to improve.
You wouldn’t expect a promoted team to be beating the top SL clubs, but for this league to work the top championship clubs have to be competitive with the top SL clubs. If for simplicities sake we assume a direct correlation between spending and on field quality, then what we are looking for is a league where are clubs are spending roughly the same so that the league is pretty equal. Instead, with what has been proposed, we are looking at a league where the top championship clubs will be spending a max of £900k on £600k funding, the bottom SL clubs can spend up to £1.6m and possibly a little more on £1.2m funding, and the top SL clubs spending upwards of £2m and more (pretty much!) guaranteed income from their additional matches against each other. Those are pretty big gaps.

For the first 23 rounds to be competitive we need the lower SL clubs to be spending £1.5/£1.6m so that they aren’t going to be blown away by the top SL clubs, if they are spending £1.5/£1.6m then they are going to be spending almost double the championship clubs and that isn’t going to be competitive. If they are spending around £1.1/£1.2m then the top Championship clubs could be competitive with them, but those sides will get absolutely destroyed by the top SL clubs, we are talking about a difference there of the entire championship SC.

That’s not quite what Wigan did, which was to have players contracted at a lower wage that season, with a new contract at a higher wage seasons after. There was nothing particularly wrong with that an many clubs back and forward loaded contracts. What the RFL decided however was that the renegotiation of existing contracts to do this was against the spirit of the cap.

The current Salary cap is fine, top clubs with great academies can spent easily 2 million.
What we need to do is market the game much much better.
We need a lot more money from the next TV deal and that is very possible with much improved competition between TV companies.
We need an actual and decent sponsor.
Add these extra funds into clubs and we'll get no more clubs going bust and the championship clubs having a chance of building

Hull KR would have to field their under 16's just to legally play Leigh.

Except they wouldn’t because under championship quota rules, Lovegrove, Costigan, Larroyer, Panui and Maki would all be exempt, and Burns, Keating, Poore and Weyman would likely find themselves applying for a nice new british passport.

Which would make them eligble for Wales,Scotland or Ireland, therefore improving the options of the home nations, but would probably put an end to the ' residency ' loophole, which would be another good thing

Problem solved, not hard is it?

It would certainly add some ' jeapody ' ,wouldnt it?

it wouldnt make them eligible for the home nations. England yes, Wales, Scotland and Ireland no. You havent solved any problem, simply pretended it doesnt exist. Its moronic.

The championship clubs also have the home grown rule too, so hopefully there development will help even out the salary cap gaps. Though in reality it seems unlikely.

I think the thinking isn't necessarily that you can jump from one tier to the next quickly. Rather, it takes a couple of years consolidation in each group before moving on. Blowouts happen, but it will be up to clubs to respond to them and improve. If they don't, the top 8 will drift into a league of it's own, destroy the bottom 4 consistently before moving to the "real" competition. (This is my greatest concern with the system)

id say doubly unlikely in that it will also mean that the top clubs, or ambitious SL clubs hoover up all the talent. Im also not sure how clubs who dont have academies are going to get many home grown players.

its what is almost certain to happen.

What it might do ( because NOBODY knows for certain ) is force all clubs to start acting like sustainable RL clubs, to start acting like businesses, and to start looking how to get more paying customers and sponsors instead of relying soley on SKY money to fund them

Then again it might not, but those that do, will most likely be the ones to succeed

So there is no difference from the franchise system? Im sure london, huddersfield and salford would all love more supporters and everybody would love new sponsors.

And the tried and trusted method of getting them is?

Or to put it another way, blatant cheating of the salary cap.

As I said before anyone that believes that any players actually received less money as opposed to having less money reported on the books is extremely naive.

This is my worry as well.

For a club like Leeds or Wigan, this system works. For anyone else, it doesn't, no matter how much it appears to.

If you are relatively confident that you'll always be in the top eight, fantastic. The gap between you and the lower portion of the league increases every season. Whilst the top clubs have the intensity of playing each other, whilst they cream the chunk of the prize money, the commercial revenue and whilst they can retain and recruit the best players, the rest will get dragged further and further to the bottom by playing the lowest common denominator.

The Championship clubs wanted this because they want an opportunity at Super League. In five years time, we'll see the same clubs arguing that they can't break into the top eight because the likes of Wigan, Leeds, Warrington, St Helens, Huddersfield, Hull, Catalans and Salford are too far away from them and that "SL1" is effectively a closed shop.

I'm sure this thread was nothing to do with cheating the salary cap, when I last posted.

Me thinks it has become derailed slightly????

Well not really, because if it was blatantly cheating the cap there would have been a specific rule against it rather than the 'catch-all' rule the RFL needed to use.

Wigan did nothing lots of clubs didnt do, how and why and when they did it was.

Yet the majority of the top clubs voted against it, go figure.

I suspect that is because it doesn't address the core issue within the game - a cronic lack of revenue.

I'm not a fan of this system by any means, but I think it does tip the scales even further towards the elite clubs.

Maybe they wanted that split.

You are running a lesser SL club, you have very little money to play with, you can’t make that jump to challenging at the top, you consistently spend £3-400k less than the big boys. You don’t have money to invest in your infrastructure, you are getting a little left behind. Look at the alternatives, franchising means huge demands are made for you to improve and some ambitious clubs knocking on the door and a possible cut in league size means you could very soon be in the lower leagues with no real plan for getting back in. A return to P+R would mean you started every season at risk of relegation and the hugely damaging drop in revenue and visibility that causes. You don’t have a safety net and there is a good chance that should the bounce of the ball go the wrong way all your plans will be torn up you will probably struggle to get back up, and possibly go bust.

For those clubs this structure gives them a softer landing if they do get relegated and makes no demands of them ala franchising. It means lower SL club A can cut the amount it spends on players by a couple of hundred thousand and all you have to do is beat 4 lower league sides a year and you are golden. Eventually when the gap between you and the top SL clubs becomes so big you get hammered every time you play them you can blame the big bad boys and when the inevitable ring-fenced 10-12 club SL comes in you can blame the RFL.

In other words, its creating SL1.5 so that teams who need to step down from SL don’t have to admit to their fans they aren’t big enough for SL.

Most of the big clubs, who aren't distracted with survival, are reaching the pinnacle of what is achievable as a club, and recognise it takes things outside of their control (ie other clubs) for them to grow further. If no club was guaranteed a playoff place year on year, the regular season would mean a lot more, people would be more excited and therefore more likely to go - result higher crowds (so long as the quality remained/ better)

As has been said, this system will just lead to the super 8 and some also rans meaning eventually the 23 games will become the season now, aka a preseason = lower crowds.

All speculation, nobody knows

Just like we all guessed that licencing would breed boredom , and that clubs would still overspend, maybe this time you'll be right

Football has the Champions league with extra games against bigger clubs with bigger crowds. Yet it still is not a closed shop. There is always another team pressing on that door.

If you want more customers then speak to more people........

Dont be stupid, its spend more money on players, everybody knows that,