I think a salary cap alongside confirmation that P&R isn't coming back, and that the IMG ranking system is remaining, would help to create a more financially stable second tier. I wouldn't be surprised if a large chunk of the 3 million in debt Featherstone racked up was due to their push towards Super League when there was still P&R.
Could actually result in less foreign players being picked up by Championship clubs. Which wouldn't be a bad outcome in the long term to grow and develop homegrown players. It would also help bridge the gap between the top and the bottom of Championship, which is inevitably going to be vast due to the existing gap between Championship and League 1 prior to the merger. Sure, having a cap won't mean all teams will spend it, and there'll still be a discrepancy, but I think it will be better for the long term.
Though I agree with you, it's not the magic bullet that will solve all problems. In many ways adopting the IMG system and sticking to it should remove the propensity for clubs to buy their way into Super League through hiring players. It reminds me of an early Grant Wechsel interview where he criticised the previous owner of the Broncos. Basically saying that while he kept the club afloat, he didn't really invest in it as a business, instead being interested more in acquiring players to improve on the field.
I don’t think it will stop clubs attempting to buy their way to Super League. I don’t think IMG particularly does that either. If anything, I think teams are likely to really go for it if/when London get promoted.
The club led review has pointed towards them wanting a 16 team league. If we assume London are in, given the investment there and then their IMG score being pretty reasonable, then the 16th placed team is pretty open. The top rated Championship clubs from the last rankings were:
Salford - 12.65 - this will drop significantly, you’d think.
London - 11.65 - you’d expect this to rise based on attendances, social media engagement and then onfield performance this year.
Featherstone - 9.75 - this will go down, if they even get a score at all.
Barrow - 9.62 - who knows how this one will go?
Widnes - 9.36 - strong early attendance and they should be a top 5-6 side.
That’s the top 5 and everyone else are well behind London, so the race for 16th spot will be open. Given the onfield metrics under IMG equates to a quarter of your overall score and another quarter is made up by Fandom, that’s half your score and a big opportunity to jump up the ranks. The two go hand-in-hand, so I can see some clubs who will look to find loopholes in any rules around bringing in an income based salary cap to try and get that coveted spot. If the owner of, say, Whitehaven has a business and can put their business name on the front of the Whitehaven shirts for £2m per annum and the club is the open to use 60% of the turnover, immediately that’s £1.6m available to spend on players and if they can turn those players into a top Championship side, they’d win games and would, likely, see an increase in attendances as well and see a big IMG jump. That is unless we go down the route we ended up with where York and Toulouse got promoted, inviting applicants. It will need to be clearly defined what way the sport is going to go with sourcing the 16th club for Super League.
I think there will be fewer antipodeans but I don’t know if that is going to make a big difference at that level. Most clubs have a couple, but it’s not huge numbers, barring London of course. I think it’ll be a case of seeing gaps between clubs financially and it will reflect in the table, though I think this championship format will do that anyway.
