Relegation is set to be scrapped for rugby league’s leading clubs - and Super League itself could become a thing of the past, too.
The sport’s new strategic partner IMG has unveiled its plans to finally help rugby league fulfil its potential. After months of analysis, recommendations were put forward yesterday to the 37 Super League, Championship and League 1 clubs on how the sport can move forward. RFL chairman Simon Johnson said the reaction of the clubs was “broadly positive” even though it could result in significant change with traditional promotion and relegation set to be disbanded after next year.
That’s because IMG have proposed a new club grading system to be based on a range of on and off field measures. It will be delivered with the aim of supporting financial sustainability and encouraging investment into clubs. ‘Category A’ clubs will be guaranteed participation in the top tier whilst ‘Category B’ clubs will be re-assessed annually with the highest-ranking clubs occupying the remaining slots in the top tier.
At yesterday’s presentation, IMG consistently talked about tiers - and refused to rule out that the competitions’ current titles of Super League, Championship and League 1 could eventually change under later rebranding. They did say that promotion and relegation will continue on the field of play between the second and third tiers with tier two increasingly filled with strong Category B clubs. Not all of the clubs involved in Super League now would necessarily be Category A and it could initially be made up with the highest-ranked Category B clubs.
IMG have yet to determine what the criteria will be. That will be announced before the start of next season and introduced on an illustrative basis in 2024 before being rolled out fully in 2025. However, the overall aim is to drive standards up on and off the field. To help do that, IMG has recommended the removal of Super League’s ‘loop’ fixtures - including Magic Weekend - with an emphasis on quality rather than quantity.
They also want to bring the Challenge Cup forward with its final in May and, crucially, increase the international calendar as a vehicle for growth. Super League, of course, tried the licencing system between 2009 and 2015 when they handed out three-year licences but IMG insist ‘grading’ is different in each club will be assessed on an annual basis. They do not intend on limiting the number of top tier clubs and the hope is the competition could grow in number from its current dozen clubs. Ideally, by 2026, they hope to see 14 teams there and 14 teams in the Championship while League One remains “flexible.”
IMG’s sports management vice president Matt Dwyer, who led the presentations, explained: "We’re setting the criteria not the number of teams in the league. There’s an incentive to develop your club if you want to go up the pyramid. And it won’t just be enough to say ‘here’s a business plan.’
"There’s opportunities here. It’s an open league. If clubs want to be a part of it, they can be. They just have to meet the criteria. We’ve looked under the bonnet and tinkered around. But having done that, our main message is we’re incredibly excited. Everything we’ve seen makes us even more excited about the future of this sport.
“The primary objective of the grading tiers is to deliver a vibrant, competitive and financially stable league for clubs and we believe that will be key for the future of the sport to grow and deliver. We want to incentivise investment into our clubs by creating an environment where we've got strong governance and a focus on growing that fanbase where they feel they can invest and know to some degree of certainty what their future will look like.
"The key points are that the criteria will be objective, easily measurable, reliable, valid and, most importantly, is transparent so it’s very clear and transparent how the grades are calculated and how they change if an owner wants to change the grading of their club.”
Dwyer added: “Historically, we’ve focused on the game and there seems to be a perception that there is an ultimate combination of teams, league structure, promotion and relegation - whatever it might be - that if we magically put the right combination together then that’s going to drive a huge increase our fanbase.
“Our position is we’re looking at the wrong part if that’s where we’re going to focus. The way we’re looking to take this 12-year strategic partnership forward is to ensure our focus is on growing the product and puting the best rugby league product out there that we possibly can.”
That led onto the reasons for some of their recommendations including cutting fixtures and ditching Magic Weekend. He added: "The proposal is loop fixtures are removed. We need to bring a degree of scarcity to our key match-ups. There’s a period through the season where quite consistently it’s considered there’s a bit of a lull in the interest in our sport.
“Some of that competitiveness drops and interest drops as well. We want to be increasing the quality of games, the scarcity of our big match-ups and we want to be reducing the fatigue of our players as well; there’s definitely a player welfare consideration in this in terms of insuring we’ve providing the best conditions for the sport where we can deliver the best performances as regularly as possible with the best 17 players participating each week.
“With Magic, there’s some evidence and perception that we are cannibalising ourselves with the number of events and fans choosing between some of the options. We’re looking to bring the Challenge Cup final forward to May primarily to keep the narrative alive. We consider the Challenge Cup to be a key part of the rugby league calendar and an area where we make sure it gets back to where it was previously.
“And we’re looking to create a new event. It’s ultimate aim is to allow us to do something a bit different and allow us to have our opportunity to showcase some different elements of our sport but with its objective to being to engage a new fansbase. It’s a ‘stay-tuned’ part, and something we’ll develop.”
IMG, who have no plans to merge clubs, will be promoting greater focus on fan engagement and matchday experiences while other areas they have focused on growing are France, London and the women's game. Participation of clubs outside of the UK - such as Catalans and Toulouse - will be capped initially at two and with additional standards to support domestic growth including a minimum number of domestic players in matchday 17. Clubs have been invited to a follow-up meeting on October 13.
