The whole Game is on its booty. How can we change it? : Sun May 02, 2021 10:29 am
Look at the game we love. The game is on its booty through bad management. Greedy corporations and the lack of progression and investment in the game. This rant and my restructure proposal was born a while ago. But due to the football superleague proposal that was made and died. Gary neville made a amazing rant and amazing argument. Which alot of the arguments can be easily made as well with not just football. But also the same arguments made about our game. The game we love.
Gary neville was right when he says it is about grass routes. But if you look at rugby league. grass routes is dying. And we need to put more back into it. We have a rich history of clubs. Amateur and professional. And I would say we have enough clubs. Even at amateur level to facilitate a league structure and breathe some life back into the game. Take 2019 as a good example. We had over 100 teams from pros to semi professional to the amateur levels that competed in the challenge cup.
We need a full restructure from top to bottom. Otherwise we are going to go backwards and the sport is going to die. There is More exposure for the darts than we do for the great game we need to have better negotiating tactics. Better tv deals. And more money going into the lower leagues to support the game as a whole.
I believe we can bring back the pyramid system and allow the game to prosper with new existing games and new teams entering each league.
My proposal would be. As follows.
4 or 5 tiers of 12. No loop fixtures. 22 games. 23 games of you want a magic weekend.
Simple 3 up. 3 down promotion and relegation. And the 4th or 5th tier. Build the smaller teams up and when they are in a position to enter. Let them in when they are sustainable. And when tier 4th or 5th tier has 16 teams in the league for example. Split the league off as a new tier with 8 or so teams build up the pyramid structure again.
Challenge cup. EVERY team enters the competition in round 1. 128 teams gives us 7 rounds of competition.
The pennines cup. Top 8 teams from Lancashire/cheshire and north. And the top 8 teams from Yorkshire/humberside and the south. Quarters. Semis and final. With the winners of each playing each other in the yorkshire vs Lancashire cup. (In effect the old regal trophy I believe) replicate that for a smaller teams as a 2nd tier as well.
That's not too bad. And it's what. 35 Games per season. It's about what they play now.
Maybe we can look at a world club challenge structure at the end of the season. Top 4 from the superleague and the top 4 from the nrl. (Make it compulsory) Quarters. Semis and final straight knock out format. (Have it before international sason and maybe have gap years when it comes to world cup years.)
Bring the salary cap up to help the league example. But also put the safeguard in there so the teams do not go bankrupt. What was the old salary cap rule we used to have back in the early days of superleague. 1.2 million or 50% of gate sales.
My proposal would be
Superleague. 2.5 million.
2nd tier 2 million
3rd tier. 1.5 million.
4th tier. 1 million.
5rh tier and lower £750,000
We need to compete with the NRL. Without the gimmicks of toronto. But similarly. Australia can get away with a closed franchise league of 16 teams because that works for them first off. And 2nd. There isnt much leeway in regards to lower tiers. Because the nrl clubs own the smaller teams and tiers as that is effectively there youth system
it's different for us. We have always been grass routed rugby. As we have been with football. So We need to build up the grass routes of the league again. And we need to work with the nrl to build upon the game again around the world.
Get rid of catalan and Toulouse from the british game. We need to help support and rebuild the french game again. Same with the canadians and Americans who seem to (well atleast pre lockdown) be interested in building up a few franchises of rugby league teams in and around the Americas.
This is not just a superleague thing. (Although we need to get our grass routes back and effectively go back to pre superleague in regards to the structure of our game) it's not just a nrl thing. (Maybe the leagues can be alot more competitive if the international rugby league federation brings the salary caps in line with superleague to equalise the game worldwide with adjustments made for inflation and international prices of money)
It's a world wide thing. Where we need to build up the sport in a way that we all prosper.
Look at the other side of rugby. Union maybe mostly amateur. But there is more teams and more people playing it around the world. We need as a rugby league game. Just go back to basics and rebuild the game from the ground up. Because the game is dying.
I maybe shooting a crap load of hot air. But something needs to be genuinely done because the british game is on its booty and now we are coming out of this lockdown and we can all start going to watch the game from next month with full stadiums in june. Maybe it's time we can do something about the whole game. Protect its history and to rebuild it into the game it deserves to be.
Thoughts.