Rugby Union.

You also didn't specify high profile.

TBH a league table to decide champions is an Association Football thing.

Well first of all give us a list of all the high profile sports you can think of ,without a struggle

Alot of sports have divisons then playoffs. The NFL, NBA, MLB and NHL adopt this. Their divisions are usually based on geographical location.

Yep, these divisions are still tables though which you must finish high enough in to make the playoffs to give you the opportunity to become champions.

Imagine a division of

Warrington
Wigan
Saints
Leigh
Widnes
Swinton
Salford

I'm sure it'd get bigger crowds but how long before the novelty wears off?

In football you have playoffs as well, its only the top division that doesn't have a promotion place available via the playoffs. And in the top division you have the Champions League to play for and the UEFA Cup so most clubs that aren't fighting relegation have got a target of the UEFA Cup. There isn't an equivalent in rugby league. It would just be like the old County Championship in cricket where they had 17 teams and one champion, so unless you were in the top 3 or 4 fighting for the title you were more or less going through the motions.

I know people make all the noble statements about it 'rewarding excellence' just having the table toppers as league champions but for most clubs there would not be much interest other than for the die hards. Sky would never show games other than from the top teams...why would any viewer be interested in Wakefield v Bradford for instance, yeah they might come 6th in the table or 10th big deal.
As for all the hopes for 'expansion'....imagine if they spread the game to a new area and get a new franchise in, how would they get any interest at all given that the team would be miles away from competing at the top of the table for ages. Rugby league would just wither away and die, the game would lose sponsors, lose attendances and the TV deals would be much lower, so unless the die hard fans could make up the difference by paying football style prices for tickets then the game would just shrink and the quality players would go to earn more money and get a higher profile in union

I am not too familiar with rugby union structure; so that could be correct. However, I am sure that the playoffs are used as a promotion/ relegation decider in the sport (so it does serve a purpose)

High profile was implied. There may be a tiddliwinks team that has a similiar structure to super league.

I wouldn't mind if first and second went into a final to decide or something similiar. Ny point was that the playoffs are pointless as it appears the league and the playoffs are two seperate competitions. It isn't a decider; X teams all play over a month. It sounds more like a seperate comp (like champions league to the premier league)

Many people mention these american sports. It differs from super league in many ways (and I am sure everyone who has said it, is familiar with it) for example, the NFL has 32 teams in two seperate leagues devided by divisons,the playoffs serve a very big purpose. If we were to extend super league into two leagues and have seperate divisions (maybe lancs, yorks, cumbria, south, france and wales) and then have playoffs with divisional champions it would work.

I'm not banging a drum for one particular format or gonna suggest an alternative. It is just if we keep it like this (and judging by the response of others through attendance) there should be a seperate competition. My point was that the playoffs only serve the purpose of ing off, confusing and taking money from people it seems and as others have said it diminshes the value of the first 27 rounds.

Why not lose 13 games with stand ins and save a first team for the final 4 games? The playoffs seem, to me, an frivilous addition.

Also, I do like a playoff format and would love to see a divisional aspect or a top 4 seperate compe. Maybe even have a top 4 brits vs a top 4 pacific teams.

The St Louis Cardinals are two wins away from being World series champions thanks to an amazing hitting performance from Albert Pujols.The Cards were wild card entries into the national league play offs ,they beat the natioal league east champs the Philadelphia phillies ,and lots of the phillies fans cant bring themselves to watch an enthrall world series"we had the best record in MLB all season"they are saying "it should be us in the WS,but we threw it away,the Cards played better baseball than us in the play off"
The Cardinals are now playing very well ,wild card entry could win the WS .This year Leeds could have been aSL wild card.

Don't they have Canadians too?

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I think you are right though. Bluejays are a team right? do they play in the world series?

Blue Jays are a canadian franchise if they qualified for the WS they would compete yes .they play in the American league ,but offhand I cant say which division

As i said, I am not familiar with the structure of the world series. However, I think it is a decider between the two conferences (or whaterver they are called) This isn't true of the super league playoffs. I may be incorrect (and if so I will concede) but the final will be betweeen the winner of league one vs the winner of league 2 (1 and 2 representing the seperate leagues at the same level) So in that case it is vital in determining one winner (as opposed to having a, in the case of the NFL, 62 game season. While in the super league, there is a league fixture and, with little recognition of the acheivememnt of finishing top, focus turns to the final four games that are vital, played by over half the teams in the league; who have already faced each other twice. For example, Warrington and Leeds could be first and second in the table and, after winning 2/3/4 games against the lower 6 eligable, then be in the grand final and the result could be changed. My point is that the playoffs just look to me as a money spinner, that is to the detriment of the game. nothing is truley gained from the playoffs (except this year; where the big story is Wire not making it). I have always been puzzled by the nature of the playoffs (especially after the move to 8 teams) and I distinctly rememeber cheering when leeds beat sts to the sheild by one point.

On the second point, I was being ficisious regarding the world series. I was not familiar with the source of the name. I was just commenting on the irony (almost) of a contest being called the world series and not having anyone from places other than north america in it. I was familiar with the Japanese love of the sport and, if I rememebr correctly, the little league world series was, I don't know if it still is, dominated by Taiwan.

Thanks, you've just made my day! Structured arguments and sarcasm are lost on the younger generation, though to be fair you're not really in my demographic sunshine.

Some elements of your argument were farsical for example the talk of medals;

What does it matter what you want? you didn't win the league and the suggestion that they deserve a medal wasn't at all far fetched; no need for you to take the and suggest they get other, exagerated, things.

You can admit that you were trying to be witty and clever. I just feel it fell flat.

There were many examples, such as your complete, surely ironic, obliviousness to the difference between the challenge cup and the league. You must realize that they are seperate competitions and you essentially proved Gary's point. Why have a knock out competition at the end of the league to decide the best team, when we already have one in a seperate competition? Ultimately, Gary suggested that a league is a better decider of a team's quality than a knockout competition and you named a knockout competition...

What?

Nevermind. We could go round in circles ont his all night. I am sure you will want to have the last word; so go ahead and then we can discuss the topic.

RU Premiership has had playoffs to decide their Champion for about 8 years now.

Add in Aussie Rules and A-League Football (soccer).

These are just from the top of my head.

I am happy with the current system as every club, player, official and supporter knows how the cookie crumbles.

We have had a great year.

However one change, and a do-able one i believe would be to expand the WCC to SL & NRL league leaders and champions.

it would only add one more week to the calender:

week one

SL LL vs NRL LL
SL Champ vs NRL champ

week two

winner vs winner (from week one)

What if the LLS winner from either league also wins the Grand Final?

you could have the GF loser

What Yed said.

Think that's what they do in the charity sheild in soccerball

The problem there is it's unlikely the NRL teams would be interested in it. They have a hard season and want to make the most of the off season and let their players have operations and so on, why would they faff around flying over to the UK and try and play two more rounds jetlagged. It's hard enough to get them to take the WCC seriously.

You may as well have it being a European thing where the English SL champions and league leaders play their counterparts from the French Elite One championship. The English clubs and public might be disinterested in it as they would think that there was no extra challenge or anything of interest to play for to be worth extending the season, but that's how the Aussies would see playing the English teams.

bring back the charity sheid, i say!

Most RL supporters will admit that Warrington were the best team throughout the season and played some breath taking rugby. There should be greater recognition of your achievement and the shield does not fit the bill. However, I'm sure it is only a matter of time before the main prize resides in Warrington.

I'm going to go back to the article, and Gary's two posts at the beginning of this as there's lots of missing the point (as people have said).

The gist of it is whether winning the league should have a bigger song & dance about it than it does, either by having a trophy that the writer sees as more fitting (I'm assuming this means bigger), and if that should be accompanied by medals, cash & other nice stuff.

Simply put, it's an incredible achievement, but at the end of the day the only purpose to finishing top after the weekly rounds is that you get all the advantages given to you to progress easier in the knock-out stage. We knew that at the start, we knew what wed' get if we won. Snooker tennis etc, you qualify for the knock-outs in seeding competitions, ours is no different to other more popular sport ...there's no shocks here. Should the trophy be more fancy, probably but the ashes and others are examples of modesty being a quality. I'm comfy with the trophy we have got. If size matters to the writer, then that's a whole new article.

The players are recognised as the finest team this town has had for 40 years plus, possibly the greatest if we continue. They'll be quoted for generations. If that were me I'd be pretty chuffed with that, and consider it enough.

Now back to the article. reading it, I'd probably be right in thinking that the subject wasn't aware of what we were presented with at all, especially (as most have pointed out) he comes across as a total in that there was no problem with the shield when we weren't winning it was there ?? Like it or not, the league is a job half done and winning "A glorified knock-out competition" is what you have to do to be champions.

Is the challenge Cup a "Glorified Knock-out competition" ?

On Gary's points, these comments are not made by someone connected to the club or representative of the fans. If it's the case then that he's simply the figurehead for an organisation, then there's plenty of us on here that do that job in varying degrees. How is their opinions more valid than the lad in the southstand who hoses the wheelybins out (not meaning to demean anyone). As such I'd be reluctant to comment on an article when those comments are to be used by someone that doesn't represent me.

Leeds are deserving Champions. We had every advantage to be in their place. You can't blame a bad day at the office. If that bad day had come v Saints we'd have finished third and had a harder route to the GF. Titles in every sport are determined by who is better on the day. That's why we go !