@northstar it's ten per cent more than we can achieve how can you have a grading on location? Which cannot be changed or improved it's ridiculous so it's ten percent less we can achieve than say London or midland hurricane the obsession with expansion is bizarre you can't have a sport that no one is interested in and force it to succeed has London not taught us that
and rugby union clubs going bust after stopping the promotion relegation shows as well a closed shop doesn't work sometimes you need to drop to rebuild
surely building 20 clubs up to the standard should be the aim and sharing the money to have two competitions that are solvent and competitive
Not looked at the figures but surely our catchment area is the same as Sts Wire Wigan Leigh as we are in the same 25 mile radius, so we should get the same score as these teams. If it's town/city population then playing the Halton Borough card would give us approx 130,000. Leigh is in Wigan, so what is their catchment?
Paulie xx
I'd actually argue that we should score more than Leigh - they are completely surrounded by Warrington, St Helens and Wigan fan areas. We have N Wales and Cheshire to go after. Likewise Castleford - completely surrounded by other clubs.
While we're at it, Bradford Bulls - completely surrounded by Leeds, Hudds, Wakefield, Dewsbury, Batley, Fax and Keighley.
I am ,in principal, a fan of a licencing / franchise type structuring of the game , but there is zero point in going down this avenue if the organising body have decided which areas are to be expansion targets and set entry criteria, which they have no intention of sticking to.
We saw in the RFL's licencing experiment that empty promises from clubs mean more that their current facilities and structure.
All clubs must be judged on their current status.
@griffin1 I agree those false promises in the past have made the licensing system questionable and open to criticism. IMG haven’t graded anyone yet and I believe it’s said to be an open and transparent process explaining the grades given.
we can piss and moan about it but it’s happening now so the club need to play the game and get probably CAT B then aim for CAT A if possible. The only reason widnes stayed in the super league as long as they did is because of the licensing system
Last year Leigh were a 1 off by Championship standards. This season Tolouse have lost to Bradford and Featherstone to Halifax. They are the 2 best teams no doubt, but it's a much more open competition.
If we could sign 2 quality players to replace Johnson and Evans so fringe SL players or Aussie reserve graders and then loan 2 more SL players for the play offs I think we could be in with a shout. They we wouldn't need IMG unless they relegated us, we have just as much to offer as Wakey, Cas, Huddersfield, Leigh and Salford.
Another idea, call ourselves Mersey Valley Vikings, use the catchment area of Halton, Frodsham, Helsby etc. Then when we get the A license play 2 seasons under that name and then have a Leigh style re-brand to Widnes Heritage Vikings!
Forgive me if it's been mentioned elsewhere, it says a Top League of 12, but not a second of 14 as is the status quo.
Is it a conceivable situation that we go back to the pre 2009 structure of a 10 team Championship, rebranded as SL2 with the IMG proposals then kicking in with P/R (not that I wouldn't rather the GF winner went up automatically).
So basically Toulouse would replace Wakefield, then there would be 4 clubs dropping from the 2nd tier?
I wouldn't worry so much about London and Newcastle, in terms of attendance, I think more of a threat would come from Sheffield and York personally, Sheffield as they are a well coached team and York because they have facilities and a pretty good fanbase.
I just don't see how these proposals will practically work, as it is just going back to the 2009-14 system of licensing in a shiny new package.
That’s exactly it, they’re going back to the licensing system which certainly helped us when we went up. I don’t see it as a negative as long as it’s not a closed shop.
Several people have already hit the nail on the head, but I'll throw my tuppence worth in.....
The RFL hierarchy believe (rightly) that RL needs to attract more corporate sponsirship/TV fees, etc.
Most people outside the North of England don't know we exist or don't care. (I lived in Hampshire for 25 years so witnessed it first-hand) We're a minority sport, fact.
The RFL see expansion to become a national sport as the holy grail to achieve this aim. The sport is parochial - too many teams cheek and jowl with each other. And any marketing organisation would come up with the same conclusion.
So we've had over the years, suggestions of mergers, the franchise system and now this - "Son of Franchise".
To achieve the RFL aims, it's deliberately slanted to;
1. Super League clubs, especially those with a record of success
2. Clubs in cities (with a bigger potential fan base)
3. Clubs in expansion areas
I had a constant battle, on a different forum, when we were trying to get back into SL under the franchise system. Basically the narrative was we brought "nothing" to the table!
So, we're almost certainly up against it to meet this new criteria. What the RFL and certainly IMG have little conception of is the social importance of every RL club to its town. In my opinion, that's what has kept many clubs afloat despite them being financially insolvent.
Shame IMG couldn't put a small % in the calculation to acknowledge that. Or ditch the ridiculous "Super League" monika altogether and go back to Rugby League. How many Super Leagues are there in different sports now?
Just to contradict a couple of points made by others and a few points that may come up in the next year....
Salford is a city (yes, I know their attendances are woeful, but hey ho)
Wakefield is a city with a population of around 250,000. (yes, I know their stadium is a disgrace, but....) Cas and Fev are within the same city.
York is a city and is the only RL club in North Yorkshire, I think.
Bradford - is also a city. It doesn't matter how close they are to Hudds (the birthplace of RL, lucky buggers) or Leeds, or Wakefield. They're all big cities that IMG and the RFL believe can support attendances.
As for getting into bed with the RFU, I wouldn't trust them as far as I could throw 'em. Read "The Roots of Rugby League" by Trevor Delaney if you haven't yet.
I could go on but it's late, so I'll leave you with the thought, as a proud Widnesian and Lancastrian, that we should nail our flag to being "Cheshire" (even though Wire have tied the knot with Chester Uni).
If IMG and the RFL play fair, we're still in with a shout, but not just yet so keep the faith!
IMG already know what it will look like.
They have it all mapped out already and no doubt have a strategy to make profit.
Reading the outcomes, the first thought that came to my mind was ‘never ask a question that you don’t know the answer to’. It just seems like an exercise in PR to make it look like they are using some sort of metrics which, surprise, surprise will produce the results they want.
I don’t know what everyone is getting excited about really! As a club, this is really our first competitive season for perhaps 4/5 years where we may have a few cup games and perhaps a couple of playoff games. We are reasonably 3-5 years away from even contemplating a return to SL on a financially stable footing, by which time the SL leadership will undoubtedly have changed again and they’ll be onto the next crazy plan for expansion/world domination!