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14 Team SL and Merged Championship?

Gobsmacked

Bench
Messages
3,987
Less teams will make the comp boring as batsht. It’s bad enough with just 12.
Tv will pay less, clubs will have less home fixture revenue, french clubs means you’re selling an 8 team comp to uk media From audience perspective.

cuckoo, cuckoo.
Hahaha
Classic!
It really depends mate. If you're reducing the amount of teams to eliminate places like Leigh , Wakefield , Castleford ect and having more internationally relevant places.. with more talent stacked into fewer clubs..

Basically transforming a Super League that is representing backwater places nobody has heard of that play at a semi pro level..
Into..
A competition that has teams with more talent, playing higher quality football, representing larger, relevant cities..
With a more international presence..
That's worth more!

Your not selling international broadcast rights for anything significant when you're selling Leigh vs Wakefield..
Nobody knows or cares about those places besides those in the immediate geographical proximity.
Rugby League made NSW and QLD don't watch it... more talent, playing a better brand in a London vs Toulouse..
People may care, may follow, get ratings, get revenue..
Get it?
Probably not lol
 

Pippen94

First Grade
Messages
7,950
Hahaha
Classic!
It really depends mate. If you're reducing the amount of teams to eliminate places like Leigh , Wakefield , Castleford ect and having more internationally relevant places.. with more talent stacked into fewer clubs..

Basically transforming a Super League that is representing backwater places nobody has heard of that play at a semi pro level..
Into..
A competition that has teams with more talent, playing higher quality football, representing larger, relevant cities..
With a more international presence..
That's worth more!

Your not selling international broadcast rights for anything significant when you're selling Leigh vs Wakefield..
Nobody knows or cares about those places besides those in the immediate geographical proximity.
Rugby League made NSW and QLD don't watch it... more talent, playing a better brand in a London vs Toulouse..
People may care, may follow, get ratings, get revenue..
Get it?
Probably not lol

Less teams will make the comp boring as batsht. It’s bad enough with just 12.
Tv will pay less, clubs will have less home fixture revenue, french clubs means you’re selling an 8 team comp to uk media From audience perspective.

cuckoo, cuckoo.

Large % of tv viewers live in South of England. Tiny clubs bring tiny number of viewers. Dropping Batley going to have huge impact?!
 

Perth Red

Post Whore
Messages
73,614
Hahaha
Classic!
It really depends mate. If you're reducing the amount of teams to eliminate places like Leigh , Wakefield , Castleford ect and having more internationally relevant places.. with more talent stacked into fewer clubs..

Basically transforming a Super League that is representing backwater places nobody has heard of that play at a semi pro level..
Into..
A competition that has teams with more talent, playing higher quality football, representing larger, relevant cities..
With a more international presence..
That's worth more!

Your not selling international broadcast rights for anything significant when you're selling Leigh vs Wakefield..
Nobody knows or cares about those places besides those in the immediate geographical proximity.
Rugby League made NSW and QLD don't watch it... more talent, playing a better brand in a London vs Toulouse..
People may care, may follow, get ratings, get revenue..
Get it?
Probably not lol
So destroy the heartlands where the actual games fans are in the hope that some may care to watch London v Toulouse? Cuckoo cuckoo.
I know let’s ditch Cronulla, dragons and canberra for Shanghai, singapore and kuala lumpar as they are much bigger well known cities lol.
 

Pippen94

First Grade
Messages
7,950
So destroy the heartlands where the actual games fans are in the hope that some may care to watch London v Toulouse? .
I know let’s ditch Cronulla, dragons and canberra for Shanghai, singapore and kuala lumpar as they are much bigger well known cities lol.

Funny, with promotion relegation most of the smaller teams drop out of superleague after a short run. When Toronto and Toulouse were in superleague there were only ten english teams in top flight. Dropping a couple of teams who average around 4k fans a game will destroy the code..Cuckoo cuckoo
 

Taking The Two

Juniors
Messages
56
Well, that's depressing. Fourteen it is. Till it won't be again and that will probably be 2028. We don't have 12 fit for Super League as it is, so this will be a disaster. I was reall hopeful that the NRL would be the saviours but I'm struggling to see how this ends well and the two in unison.
 

England87

Juniors
Messages
153
The quality of footy has always been terrible, 14 teams freshens up the competition for me purely because Salford will drop out then are looking at bringing up York, Bradford & Toulouse.

York: Relatively new market for Top flight league club in a 150k small city that is culturally very different to the rest of Yorkshire.

Bradford: One of the most famous clubs/brands in the rugby league world.

Toulouse: Obvious
 

Taking The Two

Juniors
Messages
56
The quality of footy has always been terrible, 14 teams freshens up the competition for me purely because Salford will drop out then are looking at bringing up York, Bradford & Toulouse.

York: Relatively new market for Top flight league club in a 150k small city that is culturally very different to the rest of Yorkshire.

Bradford: One of the most famous clubs/brands in the rugby league world.

Toulouse: Obvious

Relative to what? The NRL? Obviously, it's lower. To take a low standard competition and water it down further by adding new sides, many who are some way behind the current lower standard sides in the comp, is like taking a beer, throwing a load of water into it and wondering why it takes longer to get hammered.

We could (and should, IMO) have retained 12, made some tough decisions about the current clubs, many of whom aren't up to scratch (Cas, Salford, Huddersfield especially), made some big calls on them and potentially brought in new markets, clubs who are close/at the standard with those lower standard existing clubs but offer the sport growth and gone in that direction by locking them in permanently. I'm not sure Cas vs York in deepest February in front of 3100 is "fresh" or offers anything more commercially than is the case now. I'm also not sure 11th place Huddersfield v 12th place Bradford come September of 2026 is anything short of a box ticking exercise as they'll have nothing to play for.
 

England87

Juniors
Messages
153
Super League should no longer be in the rugby league business, it needs to be in the 100% entertainment business. More markets, more eye balls, more product to sell, better tv rights etc.

The argument that the league should be smaller because its piss poor compared to the NRL is like saying the NBL should be a 4 team comp because its shit compared to the NBA.
 

Taking The Two

Juniors
Messages
56
Super League should no longer be in the rugby league business, it needs to be in the 100% entertainment business. More markets, more eye balls, more product to sell, better tv rights etc.

The argument that the league should be smaller because its piss poor compared to the NRL is like saying the NBL should be a 4 team comp because its shit compared to the NBA.

It is in the entertainment business. The problem is the quality of the entertainment is lower than what you can get elsewhere. Football, Rugby, Cricket, Darts, F1, it's a heavily saturated market and the sport here cannot compete financially. We have had a third of the competition's Head Coaches fined in the past week because of comments on referees, the game's aren't particularly entertaining and many of the clubs themselves are living in the past, aren't keeping up with modern technology, are averse to change, don't know how to create an entertainment venue or event and don't have the capabilities to monetise themselves or their players, who aren't just gladiatorial, they have stories, they have pasts, they have quirks and unique things about them.

The idea shouldn't simply be lets throw out loads of really poor entertainment (on and off the pitch) and just hope that people like it and turn up again and again. If Rugby League in the UK wanted to something, it should have done something different, not something we've already done, attempted to dress up as something new and exciting only to then change our minds again 24 months down the line, which a return to 14 teams is. It wasn't popular before, games were meaningless, crowds dropped off when games were dead from halfway onwards, we had teams in the bottom half of the table able to win the Grand Final and we had real poor players competing in the league (and team after team going to the wall). If we wanted to try and attract a new audience or to re-engage with an audience, I'd rather the administrators here do something different, something we haven't tried.

Nobody has made an argument that you're pushing there about the NRL. If we are brutally honest, which I don't think we are and I think people genuinely think we can beat Australia in the Ashes, we are lightyears behind them on and off the pitch and I don't think we need to be worrying about them or trying to get close(r) to them. Lets concentrate on our controllables. Let's get 12 clubs up to a standard - they have multiple sides across all formats of the sport, let's get them having pathways and community arms of their clubs, lets get clubs using social media properly, let's get clubs growing their crowds and their revenue streams. Lets not just go "lets just get rid of loop fixtures, all our problems will be solved" because they won't be.
 

England87

Juniors
Messages
153
No mate, need to grow the pot and encourage investment. The thousands of new York & Toulouse fans are not watching their team saying to themselves "This is shit compared to NRL/Darts/Boxing'' European sports fans dont think like that.
 

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