Fire up the DeLorean, get out the sports almanac and pretend your name is Biff. Rugby League is going Back To The Future after the Super League clubs secured the votes they needed at today’s EGM to push through their proposals for a new 12-team Super League structure.
If that sounds familiar it’s because well…it is. There are currently 12 teams in Super League and there will be 12 next year as there have been on many occasions throughout the competition’s 22-year history. Sky Sports showed a much talked about graphic on their Golden Point show last night which demonstrated that the exact same structure had been kept for more than one season on only four occasions throughout those 22 years. Yet a lot of those structures and formats contained 12 teams. The difference was usually in the number of teams in the playoffs or the number of teams promoted into or relegated out of Super League in those seasons. Needless tinkering, deckchair moving aboard the Titanic, if you like.
The key difference between the new arrangements and what we have currently is that the much maligned Super 8s phase of the competition is about to disappear, replaced by loop fixtures. Put simply, loop fixtures are extra games against opponents that a team has already played at home and away during the season. Super League club owners have been queuing up to tell us that a straightforward home and away programme against 11 other sides, which would produce 23 fixtures if we include Magic, is not enough for them to be financially viable. Far be it from anyone to respond by inviting them to market their games better to increase their average attendances. In any case a schedule featuring as little as 23 games would be unlikely to result in a reduction in your season ticket price, making the loyal fan the loser in the end. So if it is not to be the Super 8s format then it is pay more for less games or else endure loop fixtures it seems. Rocks, hard places, all that.
None of which makes much sense. The main criticism of the Super 8s was that it produced games against opposition already seen too often earlier in the season, especially with a possible Magic meeting thrown in and the possibility of a Challenge Cup pairing also. Then there is the playoffs. If Saints meet Castleford in the playoffs they will have played the Tigers a preposterous five times in 35 games in all competitions. A seventh of all Saints fixtures in 2018 will have been against Castleford including what could be two of the final three. Loop fixtures offers more of the same but they do at least prepare you for it a bit more thoroughly. Another minus for the Super 8s was that you would not find out the exact dates and opponents for the fixtures until the end of the regular season when all the league placings were finalised. With the weekend in between the end of the regular season and the start of the Super 8s given over to the Challenge Cup semi-finals that gives fans a fortnight to digest their Super 8s schedule and make arrangements to attend matches. Even then match-goers do so at the mercy of the broadcaster who only this week rearranged several of its planned televised fixtures including Saints visit to Warrington and Wigan’s trip to Huddersfield. Loop fixtures won’t stop Sky tinkering to suit themselves but it will at least mean that a full season’s fixtures will be published before the start of 2019 rather than in the two blocks required by the Super 8s system.
Which brings me on to another key issue around today’s decision. How in Satan’s sausage can you change a structure and a competition format six weeks before the end of the previous season? All of this should have been done and dusted before a ball was kicked in 2018 back in early February. Instead we now have the undignified sight of the bested Championship and League One clubs hastily meeting (another bloody meeting!) to decide how to respond in terms of their own structure. Super League’s proposal was, in a fashion that is so classically Super League as to almost be a parody of itself, only for Super League. Twelve teams with one up and one down and after that they did not got give a proverbial flying one about how the Championship and lower leagues set about organising themselves. So there is now a debate going on as I write about whether to expand the Championship from 12 teams to 14, a scenario which would be laughable if it were not deadly serious. They would effectively have to alter the rules around promotion and relegation to make that change happen, and to do so at this stage of the season is something from the realm of the truly berserk. They would reject it as a plotline on the next ill-advised instalment of the Goal movie franchise. But this is rugby league so it could happen.
All of which sounds very moany but there are things to like about the new structure for Super League. Firstly staying at 12 teams does avoid the kind of tortuous fudging and rule-changing that may have to go on at Championship and League One level now. It would have been white coat time for the league if it decided to expand to 14 teams at this stage, or even 16. Whither the Qualifiers in that scenario? One thing the Super 8s format does have going for it is that it is producing a thrilling race for places in the top three and the Million Pound Game to secure Super League status for next year, with all of Toronto, Toulouse and London still seemingly in the mix to make the step up to replace hapless Widnes. A move to 14 would have obliterated all of that, with most likely the two darlings of the expansionists in Toronto and Toulouse hand-picked and fast-tracked to join the existing 12. We have dodged that particular bullet for now, but do continue to watch this space, won’t you? Super League and rugby league in general have not been all that good at sticking to their structures, formats and plans as we have seen so expect another change in a few years time if the clubs which offer the game to new markets aren’t in Super League of their own volition by say…2021 when the new TV deal is negotiated. Fourteen teams for 2022 anyone? Save us. If there is one thing we must do now following this vote it is to stick with the agreed structure. Every time we make a change it hammers another little nail into the reputation of the sport and offers a glaring opportunity for its detractors to gleefully swing that hammer. It’s death by a thousand cuts and it must stop.
More positively the other plus point for the new format is the return of the top five playoff system. This might be a personal view only but there was something special and intrinsically fairer about that system as opposed to the straightforward top four semi-final structure we currently employ. It offers a second chance to the winners of the league which is only right and proper. Currently, as well as being laughed at for raising a hub cap above your heads the winning team has to settle for only the same advantage in the playoffs as the team finishing second. There is very little difference between a home semi-final against the team finishing third and one against the team finishing fourth. This way the league winners will have a week off and be only one game away from the Grand Final while the runners up will have to go through a qualifier to get their shot at the leaders for a place in the big one. Lose that and they will get a second chance also but then they may have to play away from home again in week 3 of the playoffs to get to Old Trafford. It’s slightly more complex but does at least offer greater reward to those who have deserved it over the season. A hugely more sensible idea than that old favourite of wiping the points at the start of the Super 8s to give everyone a chance. Scrapping the Super 8s has helped us dodge another bullet right there.
So if we are reasonably happy with the outcome of today’s meeting and vote what about how we got to this situation? The EGM was called after incoming Super League CEO Robert Elstone announced that the Super 8s would be scrapped a couple of months ago. Unfortunately, the new man on his first day had forgotten to check whether he had the authority to do that and it turned out that he had to consult the RFL and its member clubs first. He got his way in the end but at least we can say that the process was at least partly democratic now.
There have been some stories floating around about Super League clubs putting pressure on their dual registration partners in the Championship to vote with them. One might even use the word blackmail but one club chairman preferred the word bullying. Whether this went on or not it is not down to Elstone but to the Super League club chairmen who, like almost every other chairman at all levels of the professional game, acted in the best interests of their own clubs while disingenuously claiming to be working for the greater good of the game. There has been pettiness and childish squabbling on all sides which all made the game look very small time, something it is more than capable of doing all by itself even on slow news days.
The build-up to the meeting was saturated with statement after needless statement from clubs whose chairmen really should know better than to announce which way they were going to vote in what was supposed to be a secret ballot. Call it campaigning if you like, but most of these unnecessary pieces of media spin read like an attempt to influence the thinking of others. And yes, our very own Mr McManus was up to his neck in this sort of shenanigans. In fact he was one of the ringleaders along with World League fancying
There is some talk also that the new agreement has solidified how the broadcasting funding will be distributed after 2021 when the current deal expires. This can only be in percentage terms. Surely the clubs do not know how much they will be receiving at this stage and they would be wise to look beyond Sky for a partnership. The RFL and the clubs entered into the last deal too willingly, afraid that no other broadcaster would match the offer financially or be able to offer the kind of exposure the game enjoys on Sky. Yet it if it is exposure you want why not offer at least a highlights package to a free to air broadcaster next time around? It won’t make as much money up front but it might do something to promote the game which in turn might just boost attendances which if we are honest are flagging in many places and not just outside Super League. Salford Red Devils and Huddersfield Giants are so fortunate that they are currently members of Super League at this pivotal moment, otherwise they would be being lumped in with the Batleys and the Oldhams of this world, accused of having no inclination to raise attendances or build either themselves or the game in general.
And so the squabble is finally settled, for now at least. It will be fascinating to find out how the non-Super League sides respond to the situation. Will they grasp the nettle and work harder to improve their attendances, facilities and playing standards ready to make the jump into Super League? Or will they feel victimised and fall further and further into the abyss to the point where they become indistinguishable from the community clubs in the NCL and beyond? You’ll have to get back in the DeLorean and get out that almanac to find out.
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