Re: SL to return to 14 in 2019 : Sat Dec 30, 2017 9:04 pm  

Btw, the requirements for a hackney carriage are to "be of sufficient seating capacity to carry a minimum of 5 and a maximum of 8 passengers".

Re: SL to return to 14 in 2019 : Sat Dec 30, 2017 10:10 pm  

wrencat1873 wrote:

Therefore, you want to water down the quality of the top flight (SL1) to "prop up" the second tier (SL2)
What you want could be easily achieved now, just by spreading the Sky monies between more clubs.

The key is to find a way of getting more cash out of the sports primary sponsor and therein lies the million dollar question ??

As I said previously SL 1 & SL 2 cannot work, unless they are conferences, with some kind of play off system towards the end of the season.
RL is just so far behind Union or NRL that diluting the resources further, would just increase the "brain drain" either to Aus or Union.

The bald fact is that RL in it's present form, RL is just not attractive enough to generate the cash that it thinks it needs.
Perhaps we could expand into N. America, that might get a few more quid

You would expect the French and American clubs to secure their own deal and tip into the pot to cover travel costs. Conferences cannot work.

Re: SL to return to 14 in 2019 : Sun Dec 31, 2017 1:46 am  

JEAN CAPDOUZE wrote:

Gutters, you are dealing with an intellectually challenged person. You must remember that he is from Leigh after all.

At least you know where I am from, unlike you who thinks he is from France when in actual fact is from the urban slums in Lancashire.


Intellectually challenged???? Please feel free to tell everyone here my education qualifications....

You will be surprised by my CV.

But in your language John from Chorley , have a set of balls and Inhofe from the revolting person a you have created..

Nobody likes you here, you haven't grasped that yet

Re: SL to return to 14 in 2019 : Sun Dec 31, 2017 10:15 am  

maurice wrote:

You would expect the French and American clubs to secure their own deal and tip into the pot to cover travel costs. Conferences cannot work.

If all we can expect is some help with travel costs, then there is little point in the inclusion of either French or N. American clubs.
However, if their inclusion allowed an increase in funding, either to be spread among the SL clubs or to the wider RL family, then , it becomes worthwhile.
Why would 2 x 10 club conferences, with the top 4 of each making up an end of season play off, not work ?
If it was an East / West split, it would certainly help with Thursday / Friday evening travel (apart from the French /N. American fixtures and it would breathe some new lif into some of the challenge cup fixtures, when say Wigan or Saints played Cas or Leeds etc, as the fixtures would have some "rarity" value.

Conferences would certainly be preferable to SL1 & SL2

Re: SL to return to 14 in 2019 : Sun Dec 31, 2017 10:46 am  

Conference set-ups, where you play your own Conference H&A, and the other Conference H OR Away, would possibly work.

As a fan of a Yorkshire team, I wouldn't want my team missing out on scheduled games against the likes of Wigan, Saints and Wire.

Widnes can love right off though.

Re: SL to return to 14 in 2019 : Sun Dec 31, 2017 10:57 am  

dboy wrote:

Conference set-ups, where you play your own Conference H&A, and the other Conference H OR Away, would possibly work.

As a fan of a Yorkshire team, I wouldn't want my team missing out on scheduled games against the likes of Wigan, Saints and Wire.

Widnes can love right off though.

The alternative of a possible top flight including 3/4 N. American clubs and 2 French clubs, will leave room for maybe 6 British clubs and you dont have to be a rocket scientist to work out who they will be.
The possible irony of Cas and Wakefield eventually playing in new grounds, whilst having been effectively demoted, is a very strong possibility and the same would apply to Widnes, KR, Salford, Huddersfield and as said previously, this would kill the game in the UK.

Re: SL to return to 14 in 2019 : Sun Dec 31, 2017 6:48 pm  

Country wide conferences is the way forward. 12 in the UDI Yorkshire conference then, which should suit the traditionalists:

KR Hull (the agreed merger of Hull and KR to form one club), Leeds, Bradford, Halifax, Wakefield, Huddersfield, Castleford, Featherstone, Batley, Hunslet, Doncaster and York.

And 12 in the in Tuther Area conference:

Wigan, Warrington, Widnes, St Helens, Salford, Leigh, Swinton, Oldham, Rochdale, Workington, Whitehaven and Barrow.

That should suit most. However as it’s conferences playing we can have more with the play offs afterwards. So the third conference is the Not on my Bus Pass Conference:

Toronto, Catalan, Toulouse, Newcastle, North Wales, South Wales, London Skolars, London Broncos, Bristol, Coventry, Hemel A (Dewsbury), Hemel B (Hemel).

The futures bright if rather aimless.

Re: SL to return to 14 in 2019 : Sun Dec 31, 2017 8:53 pm  

The current SL clubs would never agree to a conference setup, as the TV money would then be spread across 20 teams rather than the current 12.

I think we all agree that we need to get some more money into the game, and tbh it's not going to be via paying fans. Maybe to a degree for individual clubs, but not collectively across the board. We can't attract major sponsors, and we can't pretend that RL will suddenly become so popular a spectator sport that this will ever happen. So, that leaves TV deals.

Sky have the monopoly in the UK, albeit Premier have dabbled but I doubt they have mega money to contribute. The game has some history in France, but surely a domestic league (rather than just one or two teams playing in an English league) would attract more TV sponsorship? Ditto for USA and Canada (without the history). The major TV companies there aren't going to be interested in a couple of teams playing in a European competition.

The key for me is that we need to find a way of making the game attractive to watch, as well as having worthwhile competitive leagues. We can't make wholesale changes to the rules of the game (unless we want to divorce ourselves from world RL), but (imo) it would make sense to give more funding to teams at the bottom of SL (and any promoted teams) to help level out playing standards.

From a TV perspective, it makes no difference whether the teams playing are from major cities or a small town in Yorkshire. What matters is having competitive games where the outcome isn't pretty much known beforehand.

Will it happen? No chance. But what I still can't comprehend is what the "master plan" is for RL in the UK/Europe/Northern Hemisphere? The easy answer to that is "there isn't one", but whatever we think of the Red Hall team, they must have some thoughts for how this is all going to pan out. Or don't they???

Re: SL to return to 14 in 2019 : Sun Dec 31, 2017 9:27 pm  

Southern Reiver wrote:

Country wide conferences is the way forward. 12 in the UDI Yorkshire conference then, which should suit the traditionalists:

KR Hull (the agreed merger of Hull and KR to form one club), Leeds, Bradford, Halifax, Wakefield, Huddersfield, Castleford, Featherstone, Batley, Hunslet, Doncaster and York.

And 12 in the in Tuther Area conference:

Wigan, Warrington, Widnes, St Helens, Salford, Leigh, Swinton, Oldham, Rochdale, Workington, Whitehaven and Barrow.

That should suit most. However as it’s conferences playing we can have more with the play offs afterwards. So the third conference is the Not on my Bus Pass Conference:

Toronto, Catalan, Toulouse, Newcastle, North Wales, South Wales, London Skolars, London Broncos, Bristol, Coventry, Hemel A (Dewsbury), Hemel B (Hemel).

The futures bright if rather aimless.

i stopped reading your post after that!

Re: SL to return to 14 in 2019 : Sun Dec 31, 2017 9:45 pm  

number 6 wrote:

i stopped reading your post after that!

Well two fully professional clubs in a major city can’t afford an academy team each? It’s only a matter of time. FC have a history of mergers on the east coast...