What would be the perfect NRL season stucture

[maple_69]

I'd love to see this in 30-40 years.

12 team first division. 10 team second.
Bring Perth, Brisbane 2, Adelaide, NZ 2 in with the next TV deal. Relegate 4 teams that year and start new teams in second division. Eventually bring Qld 5 and Pacific Islands. Relegate and promote two a year. Even throw a cup in there. This would rely on A. having a broadcasting arrangement to show second division and provide enough exposure for those club's to survive and B. support from the NRL to keep them competitive.

 

[Galeforce]

interesting discussion.
My two cents worth
1) keep competition to a max of 16 teams.
We have to make way for a Perth team in the future , i recommend move the Sharks to Perth.
2) each team MUST play all other teams twice in the season , a proper home and away competition.
All first round games must be by random selection and this could be done at a Gala event. The second round follows same draw as the first round. i.e. if Souths play Roosters game 1 , then they replay them game 16.
30 weeks play , start First week in February ( all February games are night games).
Lift the Minor premiership prize money to $2m and change the name to SEASON Premiers , make it a big deal as it should be.
3) Finals Premier , no change to finals format , however it really is a different competition.
The finals premier is really the best team in September , not necessarily the best team throughout the season.
4) NO Preseason games
5) Nines , if well funded , OK keep it , however consider moving it to end of the season , before the international games.
6) NO club games for rep week ( roos vs kiwis and city vs country)
7) Origin format unchanged , however all post origin club games moved to Sunday games + normal monday night game.This provides more time for origin players to recover.
8) each club gets $30k for each of their Origin players in each Origin game i.e. the club gets the same amount of money as their Origin player.This amount also gets added to their current year Salary cap.

 

[Babyface O'reilly]

Season starts first weekend in January. Grand final last weekend of December.

All rep fixtures played in off season.

Visionary

 

[Hello, I'm The Doctor]

20 teams...

14 rounds
5 week origin break
8 rounds

Finals:

4 conferences, 5 teams per...

top 3 from each conference make the division finals
2nd v 3rd
winner vs 1st

the 4 division winners play off for GF spots, ect...

I see the point of conferences as keeping the finals interesting even after the NRL gets 20+ teams and we start to see logjam earlier in the season. So teams can be terrible at the beginning of the year and still have hope...