14 Team SL and Merged Championship?

[Perth Red]

Lol

Population 300k, modern 15k stadium. only really missing a rich benefactor,

 

[Pippen94]

Population 300k, modern 15k stadium. only really missing a rich benefactor,

No money no fans

 

[Gobsmacked]

You’re making some mighty big assumptions.
Might be a bit lop sided between top and bottom for a season or two but if within 5 years that gap has closed and most teams are competitive then it’s a big plus for the comp and hopefully the next tv deal with more content and viewers. Sport success is cyclical.

A season or two is all it takes for another situation like Salford to occur maybe several.
You're just happy to feed them to the wolves as long as it's not you.

 

[Manurewa_Marlins]

As there are on,y 12 clubs and clubs get most revenue from game day activity in SL so clubs want more than 22 Fixtures. This means you play everyone home and away and then 5 teams a third time. This is what is known as loop fixtures.

Is the argument that some teams get a more attractive '3rd games' than others, thus impacting gates?

 

[Perth Red]

A season or two is all it takes for another situation like Salford to occur maybe several.
You're just happy to feed them to the wolves as long as it's not you.

Again pure speculation. Could it happen? Sure.
Will it happen? depends on a number of yet to be seen factors.
We haven’t had a Salford situation for decades and no reason at this point in time to not think it’s a one off.

 

[Perth Red]

Is the argument that some teams get a more attractive '3rd games' than others, thus impacting gates?

Yes. The Brits dont like an unfair draw. Aussies just put up with it but in uk it’s seen as a bad thing.

 

[Perth Red]

Hull FC have formally submitted an application to the independent panel for a place in the 2026 Super League season, despite the club remaining confident of reclaiming Grade A status in the upcoming IMG grading review.

The club currently sit as a Grade B outfit, having narrowly missed out on the automatic Grade A threshold that guarantees Super League membership. With the league set to expand from 12 to 14 teams in 2026, Hull FC’s move is seen as a precautionary measure to safeguard their place at the top table.

CEO Richie Myler explained that the decision was about stability and reassurance:

“It is important to communicate to our fans that we expect to compete in Super League for 2026 and beyond. This step is simply prudence and good housekeeping.”

Chair Andrew Thirkill echoed that sentiment, noting that the club will issue a fuller update at the end of the current season, adding that “considerable progress” has been made both on and off the pitch.

Why the Panel Application?

While Hull FC remain optimistic about regaining Grade A status in the autumn grading review, the application ensures the club has a safety net if other teams overtake them in the rankings. If they do regain Grade A and secure a place among the top 12 clubs, they plan to withdraw the application before the panel process concludes.

The Bigger Picture: Super League Expansion

Super League clubs voted in July to expand the competition to 14 teams from 2026. The new structure will be decided through two routes:

Top 12 clubs – automatically secure places through the IMG grading system.

Additional 2 clubs – selected by an independent panel chaired by Lord Jonathan Caine.

The timetable is already in motion:

26 August 2025 – deadline for clubs to declare their intent to apply to the panel.

12 September 2025 – full applications to be submitted.

16 October 2025 – the final Super League line-up for 2026 confirmed.

Hull FC are not alone in pursuing this fallback option, with Huddersfield Giants and Salford Red Devils also applying, alongside ambitious Championship clubs including York Knights, Bradford Bulls, and London Broncos to name a few.

What It Means for Hull FC

For supporters, the application signals both caution and ambition. The club are determined to protect their Super League status while continuing efforts to return to Grade A standing. With IMG gradings set for release in the autumn, the next few months will be decisive in shaping Hull FC’s position in the new-look 14-team competition.

Dave Musgrave
@top fans

 

[England87]

This topic and thread is a bit of a cluster fudge but 7 team Play Off System is ideal to me.

League leaders have a bye the first week of the play offs, every game is a knock out. Simples

 

[Gobsmacked]

Again pure speculation. Could it happen? Sure.
Will it happen? depends on a number of yet to be seen factors.
We haven’t had a Salford situation for decades and no reason at this point in time to not think it’s a one off.

Could it happen? If they buy the players needed to be competitive, it's almost a certainty.
It won't happen if they are willing to be flogged every week.
So you either have competitive teams going broke or financially sound clubs getting flogged.

coooool

 

[Taking The Two]

So instead of playing a team a 3rd time, they'll be playing championship level clubs that they'll flog.
Do you really think that it's better?

These clubs might actually stand a chance if they had a year to prepare.
As it is, they'll have a decline in support in their first year as they get flogged every week, going broke by year 2.

It can't be the loop fixture, nobody's that dumb.
Or maybe they are...

Please help NRL !!!

The loop fixtures are determined by league standings the year previous.

Saints’ home loop games this year are Cas and Salford and Wakefield and Leigh away. Salford isn’t a bad one as their fans have travelled well in recent years but from a club perspective, they’re not the most lucrative fixtures as we’ve had 9,824 vs Cas, 12,218 and 10,192 vs Salford which is quite poor when you consider the average attendance is approximately 11k. You could get ‘lucky’ and get an extra home game against a Wigan or Warrington, which Saints have in previous years, and that sees decent numbers in terms of hospitality sales and ticket sales.

But yeah, clubs here are dumb.

 

[Taking The Two]

This topic and thread is a bit of a cluster fudge but 7 team Play Off System is ideal to me.

League leaders have a bye the first week of the play offs, every game is a knock out. Simples

Teams bang halfway in the table should have no doing being in with a shot at winning a Grand Final.

 

[Perth Red]

Could it happen? If they buy the players needed to be competitive, it's almost a certainty.
It won't happen if they are willing to be flogged every week.
So you either have competitive teams going broke or financially sound clubs getting flogged.

coooool

The reason we aren’t going with img gradings alone is to ensure any team coming up has the financially ability to be competitive and be sustainable. York owner has stated they have a business plan that will see them spending full cap regardless of grant.

 

[Manurewa_Marlins]

Yes. The Brits dont like an unfair draw. Aussies just put up with it but in uk it’s seen as a bad thing.

I guess in the NRL it's just a bit more unpredictable, in the sense that an 'easy draw' one month becomes 'a testing one' the next. I.e. teams drawn to play the Raiders twice would have seen that as straight forward in January, now look at it as a hard one in August.

 

[Taking The Two]

The fixture list hasn’t been a problem for many years. We started with an unbalanced fixture list as far back as 1997 and have had some form of unbalance in all but about 2 Super League seasons. In recent years it’s been seen as an issue since it was heavily brought in and clubs played 5-6 teams a third time and with cups and play-offs, it felt like you were seeing the same games every few weeks. I think what we probably did wrong was manufacture Magic so that it was the derby games for the first few years. I get why they did it but a Hull derby was occurring every 6-8 weeks and it devalued the games.

 

[Perth Red]

The twelve clubs involved in the process of Super League's expansion plans can be revealed - and it features a League 1 club.
The Rugby Football League confirmed this week that a dozen clubs had formally lodged an expression of interest in joining the process to be considered clubs 13 and 14 in 2026.
Four Super League clubs- Castleford Tigers, Huddersfield Giants, Hull FC and Salford Red Devils- have all signed up, though for the first three, it has been done so on a contingency basis as they are confident they will be in the top twelve of the IMG grading table when it is announced in October.
In the Championship, Bradford Bulls, Doncaster, London Broncos, Oldham, Toulouse Olympique, Widnes Vikings and York Knights have all put their hand up, with most of those clubs publicly announcing it themselves.

But the twelfth club comes from the third tier and in the shape of champions elect North Wales Crusaders. The Welsh outfit are keen to join the process after an excellent season which will see them secure the League 1 title if they defeat Keighley Cougars at the weekend.

Clubs who have expressed an interest in joining the process must now submit a full application, with the successful clubs announced on October 16th. Clubs will be judged on the IMG grading criteria first and foremost before a further set of criteria surrounding finance and sustainability.

League 1 club applies to be part of Super League's expansion process

Exclusive: A curveball in the race to join Super League.

www.alloutrugbyleague.co.uk

 

[Perth Red]

The fixture list hasn’t been a problem for many years. We started with an unbalanced fixture list as far back as 1997 and have had some form of unbalance in all but about 2 Super League seasons. In recent years it’s been seen as an issue since it was heavily brought in and clubs played 5-6 teams a third time and with cups and play-offs, it felt like you were seeing the same games every few weeks. I think what we probably did wrong was manufacture Magic so that it was the derby games for the first few years. I get why they did it but a Hull derby was occurring every 6-8 weeks and it devalued the games.

A 14 team comp with 26 fixtures (and clubs rotating a home game for magic weekend) is by far a better fixture structure imo.

 

[Taking The Two]

A 14 team comp with 26 fixtures (and clubs rotating a home game for magic weekend) is by far a better fixture structure imo.

In theory it might be, in reality, it’s unlikely that it will be.

 

[BODISGOD]

It’s not your Leeds’, Saints’ or Wigan’s that are affected. It’s the dross that facilitate a race to bottom. Cutting revenue to crap teams keeps them crap and only serves to keep the new sides crap as well. The existing crap doesn’t improve, their attendances, income and revenue are hit and the new wave of crap live the same existence for about 2 seasons till we change again. More teams doesn’t make the league stronger. It doesn’t drive revenue growth. It’s a bizarre way of doing things.

Rather than worry what we get from Sky or what we get from the French, IMG or whoever, rugby league in the UK never begins by looking inwards at what we give out and I think that’s the issue here. We have to improve our quality and entertainment value and that’s down to the clubs to do, not Sky to finance and then we worry about it. It’s amazing Sky want to show anything at all when the clubs live in the dark ages, let alone that they show all of it. A senior figure at St Helens, from memory it was the Commercial Manager, bemoaned Social Media and Sky for “the lack of people at games”, which is utterly frightening from a senior figure of a major club. That’s where we are at with some of them. They view new and different as the enemy and not to be trusted or worked with.

You keep banging on about someone else taking on the Sky deal. Only you are saying this. I’m not. I recognise that we aren’t going to get much better and that I don’t see why any broadcaster would want any part of it, if I’m honest. The OurLeague app is crap, though. When it’s shown games, it’s been crap, there’s little to no short or long form content on there that you cannot find on any number of mainstream websites and no incentive to even bother looking at the app when you can get the same ‘news’ on any social media platform in seconds. That is where UK RL is at with content. The most novel content we’ve had in a while was a grown man passing comment on another grown man’s boxer shorts and “throw some shape, baby” as tactical advice. We are an absolute eternity behind not just other sports but amateur content creators, let alone other forms of entertainment.

Ultimately, 14 teams doesn’t solve rugby league’s issues. It’s probably not even in the top ten issues or the most pressing. If we are honest, it takes away one issue (loop fixtures) and replaces it with two - how do you keep fans and clubs engaged for the final half/third of a season when they have nothing to play for and seven or eight team play-offs rewarding sides either or both completely bang average or a team in the bottom half of the table and giving them a chance of playing and winning a Grand Final.

Rugby League in the UK needs to look at itself and what it wants to be, how it’s going to be that and how you actually achieve that rather than rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic in the form of structure changes. We’re, yet again, going after the cosmetic issues when the problems are far more than skin deep.

But they are looking inwards. They are looking at the offering they have and are tweaking that, taking a short term fairly minor revenue hit for what they believe will be a better product.

On Sky, what I am saying consistently is they are the No. 1 UK broadcaster of sport and that secondly, the driver of the rights value variations are often out of the hands of Super League. That is that the near halving of rights value in a decade is down to market forces, something the NRL have absolutely no role over.

My point on the NRL is that this a distraction. It's looking for a saviour when there isn't much substance behind it. They have no intention of making the internal revenue sacrifices that will really help the NH game. They couldn't even get a French game on the tour this year, that's the stuff that matters.

 

[BODISGOD]

It took nearly 30 years to move the needle meaningfuly with the Storm in Melbourne but they're flying now.
How do you think it would have happened if they were the Frankston Storm?

In the way things are done in the English game, you'll change the name, check in 3 months and say it didn't work..

Manchester United didn't get big in 3 months and neither will Manchester Reds but if you want a club ALL of Manchester can get behind and grow for the next 30 years..
Maybe start by calling them f**king Manchester..

But they aren't like with like. Manchester knows rugby league, the game grew up in that area.

The question I have is "where do you play the games?! The main issue you seem to have is the branding and that it isn't in the CBD (again the Salford stadium is within 9 miles of the CBD..). The facilities for it are already there and rugby league is being played there (along with Manchester United playing club games there...) in the Greater Manchester Area, same as it gets played all over Sydney. The only facility I can think of that is a bit closer is the Manchester City Academy and Women's stadium (7k capacity). I know rugby union has played some Under 20 games there - I am not sure Manchester City want consistent games played there that aren't theirs (and they certainly don't need the money...).

 

[BODISGOD]

Salford going belly up, not paying players and cancelling games. This guy still puffing chest. Should be embarrassed instead.

But the team could be called the Manchester Red Devils and you wouldn't even bat an eyelid.