14 Team SL and Merged Championship?

[BODISGOD]

It's reason behind 14 team comp

No the 14 team comp is because the tv distributions have become so low that they don't feel they have much to lose, and in fact think it helps in the next negotiation. Removing Loop fixtures will help their bottom lines, which is what they desperately need right now.

This call for 10 teams and more franchises with NRL oversight is humorous from certain NRL fans. The NRL does not have a track record of success on this themselves. Again the success of the NRL is largely due to strength in core markets with one expansion franchise that was funded by News Limited. The NRL did have more rationalisation and the pain involved with that for sure, but Super League also went bigger on expansion to new markets. The only difference really is the broadcast enviroment and the NRL have little to add here other than DAZN potential. The NRL need to get PNG and Perth right here before crowing on having some secret sauce here.

 

[BODISGOD]

Promotion and relegation lol

I'm asking the question. The composition of those 10 teams are important.

What would you like to see?

I can see the value of getting rid of relegation to focus on one single ladder but if we are into the realms of talking about that 10 teams having a Catalan, London, Toulouse and other "expansion" franchises then you're deluded.

 

[Pippen94]

I'm asking the question. The composition of those 10 teams are important.

What would you like to see?

I can see the value of getting rid of relegation to focus on one single ladder but if we are into the realms of talking about that 10 teams having a Catalan, London, Toulouse and other "expansion" franchises then you're deluded.

Batley and Oldham will be in ten with protected place

 

[Pippen94]

No the 14 team comp is because the tv distributions have become so low that they don't feel they have much to lose, and in fact think it helps in the next negotiation. Removing Loop fixtures will help their bottom lines, which is what they desperately need right now.

This call for 10 teams and more franchises with NRL oversight is humorous from certain NRL fans. The NRL does not have a track record of success on this themselves. Again the success of the NRL is largely due to strength in core markets with one expansion franchise that was funded by News Limited. The NRL did have more rationalisation and the pain involved with that for sure, but Super League also went bigger on expansion to new markets. The only difference really is the broadcast enviroment and the NRL have little to add here other than DAZN potential. The NRL need to get PNG and Perth right here before crowing on having some secret sauce here.

14 teams is to ploy to block NRL which is direct response from smaller clubs who see their days are numbered. NRL will start rebel league when it wants.

 

[Taking The Two]

A final series wouldn’t work with 3x10’s just for the logistical nightmare it creates at such short notice. Even if you had it set in stone, e.g the 2026 Finals Series takes place in England, 2027 it takes place in Australia and so on, teams would lose home advantage and others wouldn’t and I’m not sure it would prove popular with the clubs when it comes to losing matchday income from games being held on neutral venues.

I suppose it works as a World Club Cup in a similar way to how football did it. Let’s say 8 teams based on Grand Final winners, minor premierships and league average over a four year window. You’d have something like Penrith, Melbourne, Roosters, Cronulla, St Helens, Wigan, Catalans, Hull KR based on a very quick glance at 2021-2024. It’s pie in the sky though as neither comp is reducing fixtures for a year to accommodate an additional tournament.

I thought 10 with NRL control was the move to go to for Super League. Self interest and self control from the club chairmen has led the sport down a road where we are manufacturing a set of criteria to bring back a club that has gone bust four times and play in a ground that looks like it’s been bomb damaged.

 

[Pippen94]

A final series wouldn’t work with 3x10’s just for the logistical nightmare it creates at such short notice. Even if you had it set in stone, e.g the 2026 Finals Series takes place in England, 2027 it takes place in Australia and so on, teams would lose home advantage and others wouldn’t and I’m not sure it would prove popular with the clubs when it comes to losing matchday income from games being held on neutral venues.

I suppose it works as a World Club Cup in a similar way to how football did it. Let’s say 8 teams based on Grand Final winners, minor premierships and league average over a four year window. You’d have something like Penrith, Melbourne, Roosters, Cronulla, St Helens, Wigan, Catalans, Hull KR based on a very quick glance at 2021-2024. It’s pie in the sky though as neither comp is reducing fixtures for a year to accommodate an additional tournament.

I thought 10 with NRL control was the move to go to for Super League. Self interest and self control from the club chairmen has led the sport down a road where we are manufacturing a set of criteria to bring back a club that has gone bust four times and play in a ground that looks like it’s been bomb damaged.

10 would be conference only in sense NRL Europe is under same ownership. Seperate competition apart from annual world championship and maybe trial games

 

[Taking The Two]

10 would be conference only in sense NRL Europe is under same ownership. Seperate competition apart from annual world championship and maybe trial games

10 would cause a problem with fixtures in the UK. To satisfy the current TV deal of 162 regular season games being shown, you are making the ten teams play each other three times to meet that number and loop fixtures are much maligned in the UK, so it hits a stumbling block almost instantly.

A two conference NRL has the opportunity for up to 28 weekly rounds with teams playing everyone in their conference home and away (18 games) and then up to 10 games against the other conference, so 28 in total. We don’t have 12 teams of a sufficient standard, let alone 20 and promoting 8 sides would be a mess when 7 are part-time and would need heavy investment. Any worldwide element to conferences is just a logistical nightmare so that doesn’t really work. Even if you then had a League Stage to the Challenge Cup, in the same way you did with Football and the Champions League, I don’t know if Sky would be so keen on a 24 team league stage Challenge Cup.

 

[BODISGOD]

14 teams is to ploy to block NRL which is direct response from smaller clubs who see their days are numbered. NRL will start rebel league when it wants.

Block what though, articulate what you want in your 10?

 

[Pippen94]

10 would cause a problem with fixtures in the UK. To satisfy the current TV deal of 162 regular season games being shown, you are making the ten teams play each other three times to meet that number and loop fixtures are much maligned in the UK, so it hits a stumbling block almost instantly.

A two conference NRL has the opportunity for up to 28 weekly rounds with teams playing everyone in their conference home and away (18 games) and then up to 10 games against the other conference, so 28 in total. We don’t have 12 teams of a sufficient standard, let alone 20 and promoting 8 sides would be a mess when 7 are part-time and would need heavy investment. Any worldwide element to conferences is just a logistical nightmare so that doesn’t really work. Even if you then had a League Stage to the Challenge Cup, in the same way you did with Football and the Champions League, I don’t know if Sky would be so keen on a 24 team league stage Challenge Cup.

Everything is an issue with you guys. Moving to 14 teams is fraught but so is ten. Guess 12 is perfect number but game moving back in current format.

 

[Pippen94]

Block what though, articulate what you want in your 10?

Smaller clubs don't want NRL comp because they have no place. 14 allows for Huddersfield, Castleford and Oldham while possibly excluding Toulouse. Forces NRL to create breakaway. NRL wants 10 I'm guessing because they can give share of broadcast money to only clubs worth investing in. 10 is number NRL reportedly wants. What I want is irrelevant.

 

[Gobsmacked]

Nobody here is getting behind mergers. That’s why they failed to get off the ground in the 90’s. You’re not pulling in the small crowds of Swinton and Rochdale with Oldham and Salford’s, calling it Manchester and riding off into the sun. It’s too emotive and people are attached to their clubs and the family ties associated with supporting their side. It would never get off the ground, nor should it, in all honesty. The sporting fan in England doesn’t see clubs as franchises, nor will they either.

Nobody said merge. I'm saying these small English clubs should be a tier below and be feeder clubs to a bigger entity.
All the fans of those Brisbane comp clubs didn't stop following their local club, they became Broncos fans in addition to them.

 

[Gobsmacked]

Smaller clubs don't want NRL comp because they have no place. 14 allows for Huddersfield, Castleford and Oldham while possibly excluding Toulouse. Forces NRL to create breakaway. NRL wants 10 I'm guessing because they can give share of broadcast money to only clubs worth investing in. 10 is number NRL reportedly wants. What I want is irrelevant.

If the NRL are doing it, then 10 is a good number because they will be prioritising significant geographical areas.
Take London for example:
In a 14 team comp they get promoted, what talent is available? How much do they have to spend? You're looking at a barely professional team, hardly any recognisable players- an untalented team playing shit footy with no chance of winning anything..
Then the Perth Reds of the north go , see ! Look at thier crowds are shit, shit team and struggling financially.. we told you a London team doesn't work!!!!
NRL 10 team league
London has more to spend, time to assemble a roster, talent available, recognisable players, talented players playing good footy and has a chance of winning something and that is marketable to fans , becomes financially stable and able to build year over year.

The only reason they are pushing for a 14 team league at this point is because they've rigged it to fail.. they can say they're pro expansion but it just doesn't work...see..

 

[Perth Red]

Be better to see a much stronger partnership between nrl than a ‘takeover’
areas the two bodies could work much close together on:

International TV deal that encompasses NRL, SL, French RL and PNG Digicel cup (DAZN the obvious partner) (or work together to create a global RL streaming platform!)
Align the seasons so theres room for proper world club challenge format
Strong long term planning of Int series inc ladies and Jnr test matches
Club twinning between SL clubs and NRL clubs (already started wth a couple of clubs)
Sharing of corporate Ip between the organisations

 

[Perth Red]

10 is a sht number, How boring will a ten team comp be? Not to mention loss of tv viewers from 4 clubs. Genius!

 

[Taking The Two]

Nobody said merge. I'm saying these small English clubs should be a tier below and be feeder clubs to a bigger entity.
All the fans of those Brisbane comp clubs didn't stop following their local club, they became Broncos fans in addition to them.

These people who already support a team aren’t going to support some zombie Manchester team that restricts their existence. They’ve got their team, they’re mostly happy with that and will continue to support their team. You won’t get some sort of mass support from Manchester just because there is a club called Manchester, people aren’t refusing to watch rugby league because there isn’t a team called Manchester.

It’s an idea that’s been mooted every so often with Cumbria, that the three Cumbrian sides of Barrow, Whitehaven and Workington have a senior club above them that they feed into but for the reasons above and because Barrow isn’t that close to the other two, it’s a non-starter of an idea.

 

[Gobsmacked]

10 is a sht number, How boring will a ten team comp be? Not to mention loss of tv viewers from 4 clubs. Genius!

10 good clubs vs 14 shit one's I guess is the argument.
If you had 10 clubs as strong as Saint Helens or slightly stronger given the condensed talent.. boring?

Castleford vs Salford is boring.

 

[Gobsmacked]

These people who already support a team aren’t going to support some zombie Manchester team that restricts their existence. They’ve got their team, they’re mostly happy with that and will continue to support their team. You won’t get some sort of mass support from Manchester just because there is a club called Manchester, people aren’t refusing to watch rugby league because there isn’t a team called Manchester.

It’s an idea that’s been mooted every so often with Cumbria, that the three Cumbrian sides of Barrow, Whitehaven and Workington have a senior club above them that they feed into but for the reasons above and because Barrow isn’t that close to the other two, it’s a non-starter of an idea.

ERL:
Manchester
Leeds
Liverpool
Birmingham
York
Sheffield
London
Newcastle
Toulouse
Catalans

They have twice the money to spend a buy all the best players, some even from Union..

AN NRL LEVEL COMP..

Nobody's going to watch?
I strongly disagree.

 

[Taking The Two]

10 either meant a significant drop in Super League games, down from 162 to 90 if you go off of a straight home and away schedule or you keep loop fixtures and only lose 27 games but that way you keep loop fixtures, which this country has decided is the devil despite having an unbalanced fixture list for over 100 years.

Dropping to 18 weekly rounds would have meant a loss of 4 home games for sides, so you’d have a pretty big loss of income from clubs, so they almost certainly would never vote for cutting their income so significantly. You’d then have to start looking at how you keep those other 4 home games and that would mean creation of new tournaments or fiddling with the Challenge Cup schedule to include more fixtures probably in the form of group games. We have scrapped many tournaments over the years and I’m not sure we have the sponsorship relationships or finances to put up financial rewards for those to be resurrected or new ones to be created.

Or we could have just kept loop fixtures but they’re not particularly popular and people moan incessantly. We could have had all 10 playing each other 3 times (27 games) or a split in the table after R18 where the top 5 play each other home and away and the same with the bottom 5 (26 game) but we’ve done similar in the past and the mass saturation of certain games took away the suspense, novelty and, in all honesty, watered down rivalries and it proved unpopular.

I would have been interested to see how the NRL saw a 10 team league going and what they wanted to do for a fixture list but I don’t think we’ll ever find out now thanks to the return of Nigel Wood.

I do think 12 is the best number we can use but requires a change in the Challenge Cup, which is on its arse as a competition too. All 12 playing each other home and away (22 games) and then a group stage of the Challenge Cup to make up the 2 additional fixtures.

 

[Taking The Two]

ERL:
Manchester
Leeds
Liverpool
Birmingham
York
Sheffield
London
Newcastle
Toulouse
Catalans

They have twice the money to spend a buy all the best players, some even from Union..

AN NRL LEVEL COMP..

Nobody's going to watch?
I strongly disagree.

No, nobody is going to watch it, both in person and on TV. You’ve alienated your strongholds by liquidating them and these people have little to no feeling towards a big city. You’re not going to get Wigan v Saints turned into Manchester v Liverpool, you’ve punted a whole city into the abyss in Hull and you’re dumping teams in random cities with existing small rugby league teams playing in front of fewer than 1,500 people in Sheffield, Newcastle, London and Birmingham.

All you’d do is lose fans and push them to create their own competition, most likely, lead by some of England’s biggest clubs in the two Hull’s, Wigan, Warrington and St Helens.

 

[BODISGOD]

Smaller clubs don't want NRL comp because they have no place. 14 allows for Huddersfield, Castleford and Oldham while possibly excluding Toulouse. Forces NRL to create breakaway. NRL wants 10 I'm guessing because they can give share of broadcast money to only clubs worth investing in. 10 is number NRL reportedly wants. What I want is irrelevant.

What's the 10 the NRL wants though and what's the structure?