Re: 10 TEAM SUPERLEAGUE? : Fri Feb 23, 2018 6:34 pm  

Call Me God wrote:

No I won't...commerce is commerce and if we aren't in then it's because we don't deserve to be in........sad as it is, sport is no longer about sport when it comes to the top level.

GOLD STAR POST!

Hughes has single-handedly saved and buggered RL in London in equal measure. What should have happened was the 10 heartland clubs in 1996 should have accepted their new found windfall with a 20% payback each to fund London and Paris......... letting someone pick up that tab doesn't work....the severe restraint on expenditure in Toronto this season points to this realisation setting in......Melbourne works because melbourne was funded by the people who bankrolled the NRL.......the NRL collectively assists troubled clubs......they work together. SL is a collective of 12 egos at present.....that's not going to end well.

And therein lays the million dollar question, what do we want from the game.
Instead of the "every minute matters" boll****, perhaps "we" could actually think long and hard on where we want to be and exactly the best way of getting there.

IF we go for the 2 x 10 SL1 & SL2, we will be doing it all again within another 3/4 years.

A 10 club top flight will not accommodate all the clubs that want and/or deserve to be in there
The main issue being that for any kind of expansion to work, those clubs need to be in SL and not plying their trade in the 2nd and 3rd tier of the game.

Although the inclusion of Toronto in The Championship may have added some "excitement", they will need to be in SL to have any long term chance of survival. Ditto New York (when they get going) and ditto Toulouse.

IF we include these clubs in a 10 club top tier, I genuinely fear for the sport in this country.

Re: 10 TEAM SUPERLEAGUE? : Fri Feb 23, 2018 6:37 pm  

A ten club Super League won't work if you want French and north American clubs in Super League.

London needs to be funded by Sky or News Ltd. and placed in Super League. That club should be part of the maximum of 10 English clubs in Super League. Some heartlands English clubs will go down to the Championship.

But then we need French and north American clubs in Super League in order to expand the game and get more money from TV contracts.

Catalans, Toulouse, Toronto and New York are just the starting points for a more lucrative Sky contract. That is why there has to be at least 14 clubs in Super League in time for the Sky contract in 2022. But we also need the option of expanding further in 2027 with Avignon, Paris, Boston and Montreal coming up from the Championship.

Re: 10 TEAM SUPERLEAGUE? : Fri Feb 23, 2018 6:46 pm  

Lebron James wrote:

I would like to see expansion towards the west coast of America also. Do you think this is feasible and achievable?

Regards

King James

Not while the north American teams are competing in the RFL's Super League. The travelling distances are too far from the west coast.

However both San Francisco and Vancouver are centres of rugby union participation. We could easily make inroads into those two great cities if the north American teams were ever in a position to start their own stand alone competition -- with Philadelphia, Jacksonville, Los Angeles, Chicago, and Houston the other necessary participants.

Re: 10 TEAM SUPERLEAGUE? : Fri Feb 23, 2018 6:56 pm  

JEAN CAPDOUZE wrote:

A ten club Super League won't work if you want French and north American clubs in Super League.

London needs to be funded by Sky or News Ltd. and placed in Super League. That club should be part of the maximum of 10 English clubs in Super League. Some heartlands English clubs will go down to the Championship.

But then we need French and north American clubs in Super League in order to expand the game and get more money from TV contracts.

Catalans, Toulouse, Toronto and New York are just the starting points for a more lucrative Sky contract. That is why there has to be at least 14 clubs in Super League in time for the Sky contract in 2022. But we also need the option of expanding further in 2027 with Avignon, Paris, Boston and Montreal coming up from the Championship.

Be placed in SL????. No, they get there on merit, i.e gaining promotion.

Need French and North American clubs, or is it just your vision.

Ihave no problem with any club being in SL, as long as it is earned. Wouldnt you agree

Re: 10 TEAM SUPERLEAGUE? : Fri Feb 23, 2018 7:31 pm  

JEAN CAPDOUZE wrote:

London needs to be funded by Sky or News Ltd. .

Nope.
1. London should have been funded by SKY/the other clubs back in 1996 but wasn't.
2. That horse has bolted, as have SKY, who are now about content rather than quality and London, Toronto or Tunbridge Wells are neither here nor there....Disney simply care about eyeballs and not about "location"
3. I believe another poster that sounded like "utter facts"was derided for saying as much 15 years ago on here.......

Re: 10 TEAM SUPERLEAGUE? : Sat Feb 24, 2018 10:58 am  

Which clubs are in favour of a 10 team Super League? Surely it can’t be more than 1 or 2 foolish chairmen.

Re: 10 TEAM SUPERLEAGUE? : Sat Feb 24, 2018 11:28 am  

Sir Kevin Sinfield wrote:

Which clubs are in favour of a 10 team Super League? Surely it can’t be more than 1 or 2 foolish chairmen.

Perhaps it's the same ones that voted for the last reduction ?
You didn't nee the benefit of hindsight to know that reducing the numbers in the top flight, whilst trying to expand the game (albeit in France at the time) was just plain wrong.
Yes it was all wrapped up to try and show that there would be the sweetener of additional funding and a way back into the top flight but, it looks stupidly short sighted now

Re: 10 TEAM SUPERLEAGUE? : Sat Feb 24, 2018 1:12 pm  

The idiotic thing is, every couple of years, there is panic at top that we haven't caught up with RU and something has to change and we go through an upheaval, when the thing that most annoys supporters is that the game/structure is never the same for more than a couple of years.

For my money we have, probably by complete accident, hit upon the perfect structure for generating publicity for the sport and excitement within it. The middle 8s, whether your in them or not, generates far more actual excitement that the top 8s ever could. The million pound game gets into virtually every national paper's sports pages (let's not forget this is a game between the worst of Super League and the best of the Championship) and is probably the most important game of the season in terms of what is riding on it. Football has tried play-offs for promotion/relegation and it is huge for them, do you see them giving up after three seasons because, regardless of the success or failure of the structure, it's time to try something else. Ridiculous.

Re: 10 TEAM SUPERLEAGUE? : Sat Feb 24, 2018 1:30 pm  

JEAN CAPDOUZE wrote:

A ten club Super League won't work if you want French and north American clubs in Super League.

London needs to be funded by Sky or News Ltd. and placed in Super League. That club should be part of the maximum of 10 English clubs in Super League. Some heartlands English clubs will go down to the Championship.

But then we need French and north American clubs in Super League in order to expand the game and get more money from TV contracts.

Catalans, Toulouse, Toronto and New York are just the starting points for a more lucrative Sky contract. That is why there has to be at least 14 clubs in Super League in time for the Sky contract in 2022. But we also need the option of expanding further in 2027 with Avignon, Paris, Boston and Montreal coming up from the Championship.

Taking your post seriously for a moment,

You essentially want fewer and fewer top tier ENGLISH clubs. Because that would do absolute wonders for the game in THIS country.

Have a word with yourself.

Re: 10 TEAM SUPERLEAGUE? : Sat Feb 24, 2018 2:25 pm  

Try as I might, I do not seem able to remove my flat cap, which remains firmly stuck to my head!

We have now had a French team in SL, for twelve seasons - fourteen if you include the ill-fated Paris club. At times Catalans have competed well, but lately seem to be losing their way a little. Toulouse are making a determined attempt to join them in 2019. I see no evidence of how French RL has improved, over those twelve years that Catalans have played at 'the top level'. The international side is still struggling, just as much as it did, 'back in the day'.

It would be fantastic, for RL to get a foothold, across the Atlantic - indeed it would be incredible, given the popularity of sports like American football, ice hockey, and basketball. However, just how will it benefit the British game? In the short term (say ten years?) 20 or so British players would 'defect' the UK, for each North American club. There is already a powerful lobby that says we haven't got enough talent in the UK game now. Surely, an exodus of British talent to North America, will simply further dilute our talent pool?

Whilst the arrival of North American sides, in the major cities, may well afford gains in sponsorship and tv fees, would it not be the North American clubs who would most likely benefit from those revenue streams?

A ten team league of say five UK clubs, plus a couple of French teams and three North American teams, may initially generate a lot of interest, but who would those UK clubs be? London would probably be a necessity, plus say Wigan, Leeds, Saints and Hull. The remaining current UK SL clubs would then drop down (yes, DOWN) to SL2, along with five other clubs, be they Championship clubs, or French/North American clubs. The rest of UK professional clubs would presumably just be left to wither and die.

So, moving forward say five years from the start of this pipedream, and the North American venture is successful - i.e. the Sport is taken to the hearts of North Americans and there are say a dozen thriving clubs - what happens to the UK clubs in the 'big league'? Would the Americans prefer to watch say New York v Boston, or New York v St Helens, once the novelty of seeing the Brits play, has worn off? And, if they form their own Conference, what becomes of British RL, with say five teams returning to form a league, with what is left of SL2?

Maybe it would be better for the North Americans to join the NRL? Your average American/Canadian sports fan is more likely to have heard of Sydney, Brisbane, Melbourne or Auckland, than Saints, Wigan etc. The North American clubs would definitely learn more from competing with the Australian clubs, and the Australian player pool would be weakened, thus raising the chances of England, in international competition!