Are the crowds significantly bigger than regular league fixtures and if they are, do they make up for potentially lower gates during the rest of the season?nathan_rugby wrote: ↑Wed Jul 10, 2019 8:48 amI think the problem with the play-offs is that it does generate a lot more hype than the regular season and I suspect the clubs make a lot of money from it and Sky get a lot of viewers.Wigan_forever1985 wrote: ↑Wed Jul 10, 2019 8:08 amThe Hull KR vs Leeds game meant more 3 weeks ago than it does now as leeds are looking like they have actually got their act togetherjosie andrews wrote: ↑Wed Jul 10, 2019 6:40 am
Castleford have been on the most I think this season think somebody quoted 11 times in the first 14 rounds or something like that!
I said it in another thread though this for me is the reason the playoffs dont work because coming into the last part of the season when it should be the crescendo of performances it just isnt the top 5 teams just need to keep ticking over and no one is actually interested in coming 1st in the league.
So the interest now is lying with the relegation battle, but you would double the interest if the battle at the top was for 1 single place not 5.
We have to get rid of the play offs IMO
This is the first season of the new system and we have played Salford three times already. Will people want to watch the same team three times going forward or will they start skipping fixtures particularly the away repeat fixtures?
I think that is worse than the top five system The team finishing top can still lose its first playoff game in the top 5 system and gets another chance to reach the final, playing at home . In your system their entire season is reduced to a one off game - the final. May as well say play 26 games and then play 1st v 2nd for all the difference it makes.It needs to be cut down though IMO. First should be rewarded by going straight to the final. The winner of 3rd vs 4th should play 2nd place for the last place in the final. One of the issues I had over the years, althoguh that may now have gone since we operate a top 5 rather than top 8 is that teams can qualify with negative points difference and lose more than they have won.
The top five ought to make the competition more intense as there is value finishing higher up the league but the problem with any playoff system is the more you bias it towards the top team giving them the advantage making it less likely a team from lower down wins it, the more it appears to be a waste of time. When you go the other way and widen the playoff competition, as you say you get teams qualifying who have lost more games than they have won and the main season is well and truly devalued.
There are two reasons to have playoffs. First to deal with the fact there is an irregular fixture list with not all teams playing each other an equal number of times. Secondly to keep interest for teams who would otherwise at various points of the season get to the position of not being able to win the league (though why that is a problem in itself I really don't know - do better next year and enjoy the remaining games for what they are).
Both issues are easily solved in my opinion by reverting to a home and away fixture list and reintroducing a cup competition like the old Regal Trophy for extra fixtures to generate revenue. A league cup for RL which is timed along with the challenge cup to make it possible for teams to be involved in pursuit of a trophy for most of the season. To make it a worthwhile competition add substantial prize money.
Despite having had the playoffs for a number of years now and even though RL had them in the past, I still think they are alien to the British sporting public and not universally liked.
When we went to a GF it was solving a problem that didn't exist. The CC was still packed out at Wembley so the sport had its big occasion, we had the regal trophy and the Premiership for teams who were not going to win the league. The way the RFL went about trashing the value of the league by not even offering a trophy and effectively setting up a rival to the CC thus trashing its own high visibility showpiece, all to promote the GF, was just commercial and sporting vandalism but typical of those running the game at the time.