There are calls to merge both Championship and Championship 1 leagues together
There are likely to be only 9 teams in championship 1, 14 in the championship.
Talks not happening for around a month.
Do clubs plan for 13 home games, 26 game season? What contracts do they offer?
Or do they plan on a 20 game season (home & away) with 20 home games.
Players are part time, I wouldn't expect them to commit to that.
Any thoughts?
Thinking back to NFP, 19 teams in the league and a 28 match season.
We played Leigh, Oldham, Swinton, Rochdale and Chorley Lynx twice: most other Yorkshire teams once.
I don't see how Widnes or anyone else in the Championship would vote to go down to less than the current 13 Home Matches.
I could see conferences of 11 and 12 but if that is done geographically I don't see it being that appealing this side of the Pennines.
Typical RFL approach, completely reactive as usual. Presumably there are no hair brained expansion ventures on the horizon to bulk out the League 1 numbers for a season or 2?
I can't see how a 23 team league works. 44 games would mean regular mid week games or practically playing year round when CC and play-offs were factored in. Playing some teams twice and others once is just unbalanced and makes a mockery of the whole competition.
Going forward 12 and 11 would work best but as this year has played out, you can't run that until 25 and have 3 down and 1 up next year.
With a 9 team L1 I'd take a lead from Scottish football and get them to play 4 times (32 games).
Long term you could have a 16 team Super League (30 games) and 17 team Championship (32 games) and just accept that Hurricanes and Cornwall will never work as professional clubs and put them in the amateur ranks like Skolars.
However, with TV deals decreasing rather than increasing, unless IMG generate extra investment from somewhere, SL sides are unlikely to go for expansion on that scale as it won't help the losses they're all making year on year.
The RFL never go for the common sense angle though so I fear what will likely happen is the 23 team league with some sort of awful fixture scenario like play everyone once and 6 or 8 teams twice.
Can you imagine Championship teams (2023) having to play Cornwall & West Midlands Hurricanes? Absolute meaningless.
Paulie xx
The radical thing would be to take one good club from the amateur league for League 1 if they want it. May need financial support from the RFL initially More likely they will demote another side from the Championship, like they did to us in SL to put Catalans in. Spelly would go nuts though. It would be fairer to play just 9 teams this next season but say 3 to be relegated next season from the Championship.
@sandgroper I do know that. They'll probably do the most illogical thing to do.
The radical thing would be to take one good club from the amateur league for League 1 if they want it. May need financial support from the RFL initially More likely they will demote another side from the Championship, like they did to us in SL to put Catalans in. Spelly would go nuts though. It would be fairer to play just 9 teams this next season but say 3 to be relegated next season from the Championship.
There's no real incentive for an amateur team to ditch a competitive NCL to fork out (in time and money) to go to Cornwall, Midlands, Newcastle etc.
If the two divsions merge, then there will have to be some sort of fixture formula - maybe play every team once and then "local" ones twice; although with all the Yorkshire sides, that means others will end up having to play Cornwall, Midlands etc twice.
You would have thought that the RFL could have anticipated and planned for the loss of a League 1 side, given the lack of financial support to those Clubs, but it is the RFL!
One answer would be to increase the number of SL Clubs to 15 in 2025, with no relegation from SL in 2024; the teams finishing 1st and 2nd in the Championship getting automatic promotion; and a play-off for the remaining place. The Championship and League 1 teams could merge in 2025 comprising 20 teams.
With the difference in central funding from £20,000 in League 1 to £1.3m (according to a comment from the owner of Hull) and probably Championship Clubs nearer to the bottom figure, this is unlikely to happen. SL clubs currently running up debts to pay big contracts, will not accept any further reduction in central funding and will block any move to spread it to another 3 clubs.
I guess the remaining Championship clubs will have similar concerns about loss of funding, as a result of any merger with L1 Clubs.
The fact is, the Championship and League 1 is an afterthought for these people. No-one really cares. It's not really a pathway to SL anymore, it's a procession that someone might accidentally stumble out of at some point. We are never getting back into SL, no chance. These clubs (like us) need to focus less on failed aspirations more so on self-preservation efforts, which would be a sustainable semi-pro league. Trufax.
Widnes Vikings have said season tickets will go on sale from 5pm today 2 Oct without any further information about prices or number of home games.If there's going to be a meeting about merging the two lower divisions then I don't see how they can sell just yet.
And the urgency, or lack of, given to the likely configuration next year helps not a jot. The delay could hurt a lot of Championship clubs though many must hardly sell any ST's if you look at their crowd base.
Widnes Vikings have said season tickets will go on sale from 5pm today 2 Oct without any further information about prices or number of home games.If there's going to be a meeting about merging the two lower divisions then I don't see how they can sell just yet.
and equally, like you I don't see how they can be put on sale without a price and number of games covered....
I'm guessing they're going on sale ASAP to generate cash and help the club plan ahead with finances.
As others have said though, how can you sell something without a price or letting the customer know what they're buying.