Re: Today's big decision : Mon Jan 20, 2014 11:45 am  

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

Re: Today's big decision : Mon Jan 20, 2014 12:00 pm  

Starbug wrote:

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.

Re: Today's big decision : Mon Jan 20, 2014 12:04 pm  

dubairl wrote:

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?

Re: Today's big decision : Mon Jan 20, 2014 12:39 pm  

SmokeyTA wrote:

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.

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.

Re: Today's big decision : Mon Jan 20, 2014 1:18 pm  

Magic Superbeetle wrote:

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)

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.

Re: Today's big decision : Mon Jan 20, 2014 1:19 pm  

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????

Re: Today's big decision : Mon Jan 20, 2014 1:23 pm  

Fordy wrote:

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.

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.

Re: Today's big decision : Mon Jan 20, 2014 2:13 pm  

bramleyrhino wrote:

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.

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

Re: Today's big decision : Mon Jan 20, 2014 2:18 pm  

Wire Yed wrote:

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.

Re: Today's big decision : Mon Jan 20, 2014 2:53 pm  

Wire Yed wrote:

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

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.