Listening to JD and JK on the radio after the game yesterday, their view appeared to be that the weakness of franchising is now becoming apparent, in that teams who are at risk cannot recruit (or, rather, we cannotr recruit). Willie Poching appeared to be in agreement.

I know that we are bound to speak out against it, because we are most at risk. However, we could never be called safe with promotion and relegation. If we got a franchise and Newmarket, would we be against it then?

Barring financial meltdowns, I would imagine that the next set of licenses will determine the Super League forever and a day, because everyone will have new grounds, apart from Bradford.

So, upsides for franchising:
1. nailed-on licensed clubs can plan for the future.
2. the clubs will not have had a short winter of recruitment when coming up, and so no more yo-yo whipping boy clubs.
The downside:
1. at risk clubs can't plan ahead.
2. puts emphasis on things other than rugby
3. who gives a jot what happens once the play-off places are more or less sorted, and so crowds suffer

My own opinion is that I would like to see a return to promotion and relegation, but it should be unconditional. The big clubs will always avoid it, and so what if clubs like Keighley get to the Super League. If they have earned it, they deserve it. The reality is that most of the successful lower league clubs will have decent facilities anyway.

So is there a groundswell moving away from franchising, or was it just the complaints of a club at risk?

I can't help but feel that clubs outside the Super League are being let down and fans are not turning up to matches because they have nothing to play for. It appears that The RFL does not care about heartlands teams like Halifax. Rugby League is only going to decrease in popularity if things carry on as they are.

Absolutely fantastic post, i agree with everything that you say. I think the point about boaring games and suffering crowds is a huge one. If you look at Bradford quins and Catalans for example, they have had bad seasons and now have no chance of making the playoffs so there last few games have been irrelivent but if relagation was in existance then their games would have been exciting and had an edge and in my opinion added greatly to the competition.

had the franchise system worked the way it was supposed to ie. if over the three year period a consistently strong team in the championship were to appear and a consistently poor team in superleague, then it would be reasonable to switch the two.

however in reality what we have been left with is two competitions that are utterly pointless.

superleague may as well be reduced to 6 teams as no one outside that is going to win it.
as for the rest of SL they could be relegated regardless of where they finish.

and as for the championship, what is the point of even carrying on with it? again its a worthless competition.

once again a good idea poorly executed by the rfl.

rugby league is quickly becoming a circus instead of a sport

Franchising, but done properly, like the NRL & American sports where once you're in, you're in unless you go bust or relocate, then add more teams when appropriate.

always promotion/relegation for me...the main reason i stopped going two years ago was the franchising..

Fev 17 wins 2 losses 1 match to go, championship shield winners yet at the moment we can't apply for SL because we've not reached a grand final or won the northern rail cup, pure madness.

Batley can because they've won the northern rail cup yet are 7 wins 12 losses with 1 game to go, pure madness.

Toulouse have won squat and haven't even qualified for the play offs yet can go up if the RFL decide to let them in as a 'special case' because they are in a development area, pure madness.

Fans are staying away because there is no chance of us going up and when teams do get close to the requirements the goalposts are moved.

The top teams in SL are safe but there are about half a dozen who aren't and if any do go down to get back in you won't be competing against clubs like Fev or Halifax but Toulouse and any other development club who decide they want a piece of the action.

Promotion and relegation is vital if the sport is to grow because then new clubs can start at the bottom and work up the pyramid and have a business plan to reach SL by their on the field exploits and not at the whim of a bunch of people who clearly don't understand the basics of fair competition..
To me it's a no brainer and I would say 99% of Championship/1 fans would agree.

if we was bottom of the super league and it meant being relegated and being replaced by fev then fair dos let them take a crack at it

Totally agree with you, and I've said this all along. SL will take care of itself. The RFL have to make the Championship a competition that clubs want to play in for franchising to work. They have to raise its profile and pump some brass into it. Kill off the game at the roots, and it's only a matter of time before the SL flower withers and dies.

Re. franchising itself. 2 years is nowhere near enough time to be able to pass judgement or reap the rewards, IMO. If the main aim is to improve the game by bringing in homegown talent, how on earth does anyone expect to see a massive improvement in 2 seasons? We won the Academy GF last season, but a lot of the lads who may be good enough in the future will certainly not figure at this stage, at least, not on a permanent basis.

I'm tempted to say bin it, because of what we're witnessing now, but I think it should be given another 3 years, with massive effort to support and market the championship clubs at the same time. If the result is still the same at the end of it, ditch it and go back to where we were. At least then, most of us might enjoy our sport again.

Promotion and relegation is what we need

franchising is the worstything that this sport could come up with

Featherstone Rovers have always been a forward thinking club 1st team to start playing on a Sunday, 1st team to have shirt advertising, 1st team to have a game advertised on TV and 1st to have there own TV channel theres more but you get the picture. AND THE ONLY CLUB WHO VOTED AGAINST THIS CRAZY SYSTEM, blame your chairman he voted for it. Sorry for the bitterness trust me youl get there

Groundhog Day anyone? I could have sworn we did this thread last week, and the week before come to that.

I agree, and I started the thread because of JK's comments on the radio.

JK said that he was initially in favour of franchising, but now he has seen it in action, he is not so sure. He referred the nailbite of a relegation scrap and the inability of at-risk clubs to recruit due to uncertainty. That will always be the case for a couple of clubs every franchise round, unless the RFL close the door for ever to all the rest.

You are entitled to try something and decide that it isn't working. There is no interest at all in the Super League from 10th place downwards. That's 5 clubs playing out dead rubbers. How many fans are not going to bother with the final couple of games when they don't mean anything?

My main gripe with promotion and relegation as it stood before was that whether you came up depended on who was due to come down, rather than whether you were the best team in the league below, with things like Huddersfield "mergers" to keep the Galpharm in the Super League. I have no problem with being relegated if it is because of on-field merit (or lack of it), and whoever shows on-field merit in the league below should come up. Our concern in 2006 was that even if we won the championship grand final every year, the RFL wouldn't let us back up again.

I accept that they will give it one more round, but has the reality of franchising created a better sport? Too early to tell maybe, and I suppose we don't have any whipping boys anymore, but it's pretty dull below 9th spot.

Thread cleaned up.

Does anyone know whether the crowds have gone down in the lower leagues? Or even in the Super League?

The way to assess it, I suppose, would be to see how crowds have been affected at the bottom, rather than the top. How do the average crowds for the final ten games for the bottom five clubs compare to the average crowds for the bottom five clubs for the pre-franchise years?

I was going to put a similar post to this...the fact is i maybe misguided but i feel and so do many other fans that if Newmarket is not in place whether in principle or actually groundwork is commencing the RFL/SL will have great pleasure in kicking this once great club out. That to me will be the death of this club, reality is now hitting home of how Championships side fans must feel. If we get kicked out i believe, new ground or not we will ever get back into SL as the system stands. The club will have about 1500 hardcore supporters with a team made up of journeymen aussies, local youngsters who if any good will be snapped up by a SL team an extremely average other players.

I know the RFL/SL have a point scoring system for the franchise system but are you telling me Leigh, Widnes, Halifax are in any better position than us ? I personally do not think so and i believe they would take a few seasons to be at SL level. What the RFL like is a nice shiny new ground irrelevant if it is three quaters empty.

We as a club do not help ourselves, it has been said on numerous other threads, the ground, marketing,promotion busines and other off field activities are a joke.

What the RFL/SL need to understand is yes BV is a joke, yes this year we have been terrible, but we have a SL team and with the right chairmen and backing off the field and the right coach on the field we could easily be top 6 year in year out.

The RFL/SL will not kick the likes of Salford out due to their shiny new ground, Crusaders (who i hope will continue to grow) because of their location and the fact they are backing them financially and Hull KR despite their ground being terrible and they are in massive financial debt.

Maybe I am being negative but I just feel this club is on its knees and gives the RFL/SL every opportunity to kill the once best and most famous club in Rugby League.

Fantastic post your 100% right.

You are all saying this now that it might be u for the chop i do feel for u,But at the end of the day your club said it would have a stadia ready and done nothing while us widnes have been shafted and shafted time and time again,Well if thats the way the rugby league want to play it i say share the shafting and it might just be ur turn but only because u have given the the go ahead to do so.Half every 1 on here is crying now for promotion and relegation but most wernt when u got in was u why now lol?.It also makes me chuckle the way u keep saying on other threads like we have hope for the stadia lets rewind 18months ago exactly the same story what are u gona promise to do it yet again and try and stay in over widnes rlfc vikings.Not this time fingers crossed our time is now i just hope they dont throw u out and maybe add 2 teams making 16 give all the clubs 2 years and those that still havent got it done throw them out for good.Ps i dont mean to sound bad on you cause i aint.But widnes in the championship have been working so hard under 21s and 18s/16s as good as any super league reserve in the country and steve occoner who has delivered on all his promises deserve reward and i for 1 think we just might get it

I hope you havent posted this on the Cas board as well, with them being geneticly deprived few if any will be able to understand what your saying

No point posting it on cas board they are safe im sorry to say i know its unfair buts seems to be the order of the day

What makes you think they're safe?

If we get our PP approved next month then they're in same boat as us. They don't have full PP yet, we will probably both be putting in our detailed PP at same time.

Stadium issues aside, how is Cas's bid stronger than ours?

Fair enough u got me thinking there i thought they where a bit more advanced in the stadia plans.But you have both promised and yet nothing i suppos its a toss up just like its a toss up who gets in either us widnes or toulouse.I say go to 16 Give another 2 years for stadia.Do u think its widnes ot toulouse thats coming up ?

I can tell you categorically that crowds have gone down. We have lost 800 fans from our average figures of last year. Why?? Because the games down in the championship are nothing to what they were previously. Most of the emotion has gone from games. Try a few matches were the away support bring nothing more than a handful see how much atmosphere can be generated.
This competition is a lame duck I'm afraid.
However Fax have played a blinder... they have announced a huge crowd for their final game by handing out tickets free at a county show and then counted these as attending whether the recipient turned up or not.
The figures have been skewed and Fax have now given the RFL ammunition to claim that the game is thriving in the lower leagues.

Without wanting to appear nasty here, because that is not my intention, do you not think that they are right to remove you. The basis of your SL berth last time around was on the proviso that you moved into a new ground. You have until April to prove that you will have a ground ready for action by February 2012.


It won't be the death of the club but it may become as you have mentioned it above. This is now what life outside SL is like.



Unfortunately for you, you will not find out if your licence application is any better than ours or Fax's because the two applications are no longer in direct competition against each other. The Championship club going up have different criteria aimed at proving the 'potential' of the club. They may not have the speccies now but given a solid base, a decent financial standing etc etc there is nothing to suggest that this won't come. It will take a couple of seasons to become competetive but it is no longer about what happens on the pitch. It is about what the club can offer to SL.


but by the same token all you need then is one or two bad performing years and you are back to where you started. That is why the RFL want clubs with good structures in place and are less interested in you reaching the playoffs etc.



It's a little fatalist to feel like that. The future of the club is still firmly in it's own hands. If your board have been truthful then you will not be removed. If you have been less than truthful about the real position at your club then one waiting in the wings deserves it's chance surely. Just for the record I am a P&R fan and I firmly believe that Barrow should now be in SL and Salford should be slumming it down here with us.

Without wanting to state the obvious it will all come down to both clubs proving in April 2011 that they have enough work happening and quickly enough so that the Wildcats and / or the Tigers are running out at their new grounds in 2012. I don't think it matters too much where you both are now.