Dr Zaius wrote: ↑Wed Oct 25, 2023 12:15 pm
You need to read the criteria!
Leeds have very strong financials, have tens of thousands more social media followers than other clubs, get the biggest TV ratings, have a fully compliant ground where they have primacy of tenure and LEDs, with high stadium utilisation. "The away end" is irrelevant. Only relatively poor on-field performance is reeling them back closer to the other upper A grade clubs.
That poor performance will only have cost them just over 1.5 points.
The stadium utilization is a joke as it is related to ground capacity. It would only make sense if the capacity of all the clubs grounds were identical.
I think it's a metric primarily to assess how good or bad a stadium looks on TV - acres of empty seats are not good for the viewer experience.
Stadium utilisation was one of the criteria in the old licencing system as well.
I know why they have done it but it is flawed because it penalises clubs with large grounds even if they get the largest average crowds and rewards clubs with smaller average crowds just because they have a smaller ground.
EDIT: related to this is the points available for average attendance. You can get 2.5 points if your average is 7500 or more. Seven clubs averaged more than 7500 in 2023 and the lowest doing so was HKR on 8770 but despite averaging 4724 more per game Wigan still only got the same 2.5points as HKR. Daft.
That poor performance will only have cost them just over 1.5 points.
The stadium utilization is a joke as it is related to ground capacity. It would only make sense if the capacity of all the clubs grounds were identical.
I think it's a metric primarily to assess how good or bad a stadium looks on TV - acres of empty seats are not good for the viewer experience.
Stadium utilisation was one of the criteria in the old licencing system as well.
I know why they have done it but it is flawed because it penalises clubs with large grounds even if they get the largest average crowds and rewards clubs with smaller average crowds just because they have a smaller ground.
EDIT: related to this is the points available for average attendance. You can get 2.5 points if your average is 7500 or more. Seven clubs averaged more than 7500 in 2023 and the lowest doing so was HKR on 8770 but despite averaging 4724 more per game Wigan still only got the same 2.5points as HKR. Daft.
Here's a suggestion to improve our utilisation score: take 5,000 seats out. Latics don't need them for the foreseeable future, and we'd benefit more on the ratings than we'd gain in takings from once a season at best when we get over 19,000.
On a more serious note, I've thought from the beginning that youth development should be a major part of the criteria. RL only survives because 6 or 7 clubs produce players.
I appreciate that IMG are focussed on marketing and TV contracts, but it's chicken and egg - without players there's no game, and without income there are no players. At least give us, Saints and Leeds credit for doing the work for others, with Hull, Hull KR, Wire (Huddersfield) doing just about enough by my finger-in-the-air guess.
The only one we be sure of is we got 4.75 points for performance.
We will have received 4.75 points due to winning the GF (4) and the league (0.75) out of our 16.87.
Which means all else remaining the same if we ever finished 12th we would be grade B. For finishing 12th a club gets 2.7778 points and so we would have 14.8978 points (16.87 - 4.75 + 2.7778).
Leeds with 17.49 (they finished 8th so received 3.2222 points for performance) can basically never be relegated as even if they finished 12th they would still have 17.0456 (17.49 - 3.2222 + 2.7778) points and would remain a grade A club despite finishing last.
Taking performance away we scored 12.12 points out of 15.25 so lost 3.13 points somewhere.
Is it a yearly thing, I thought on field performance was averaged over 3 years?
Have I understood this correctly in that there is little point in London spending a load of cash on new players (who probably are not available anyway) so that they don't finish bottom next season? It seems that they could win the league and would still be relegated. Great incentive IMG.
Never understood why the sport is so in thrall with IMG the grading system doesn't seem to make much sense as Dave rightly points out it penalises clubs with big grounds,let's be honest here Wigan don't have a good Friday game next year so that mark will go down surely maybe we need to close a stand off and reduce capacity?
So far in this golden era IMG have overseen a TV deal that's gone down in worth and basically dumped London out of super League before a ball is locked to bring back the likes of Bradford and their crap hole of a ground you can't make it up
josie andrews wrote: ↑Wed Oct 25, 2023 11:56 am
How can Leeds be top?
They haven’t won anything since 2020 & the away stand is on a par with Castleford & Wakefield
You need to read the criteria!
Leeds have very strong financials, have tens of thousands more social media followers than other clubs, get the biggest TV ratings, have a fully compliant ground where they have primacy of tenure and LEDs, with high stadium utilisation. "The away end" is irrelevant. Only relatively poor on-field performance is reeling them back closer to the other upper A grade clubs.
WTF has social media followers got to do with Rugby League FFS that is bloody ridiculous! & besides that Leeds is a massive city with more inhabitants than the majority of other clubs!
A fully compliant ground?? So are you saying other grounds, not all, aren’t compliant?
So they don’t give a flying feck about away supporters? Away fans are an irrelevance then??
And all this from an American company who have nothing to do with RL except that the effing RFL can’t run the sport they’ve been over for donkeys years & haven’t been able to run the sport since big fat Nigel Wood run it into the ground!
Anyone can support a team when it is winning, that takes no courage.
But to stand behind a team, to defend a team when it is down and really needs you,
that takes a lot of courage. #18thMan
Dr Zaius wrote: ↑Wed Oct 25, 2023 12:15 pm
You need to read the criteria!
Leeds have very strong financials, have tens of thousands more social media followers than other clubs, get the biggest TV ratings, have a fully compliant ground where they have primacy of tenure and LEDs, with high stadium utilisation. "The away end" is irrelevant. Only relatively poor on-field performance is reeling them back closer to the other upper A grade clubs.
WTF has social media followers got to do with Rugby League FFS that is bloody ridiculous! & besides that Leeds is a massive city with more inhabitants than the majority of other clubs!
A fully compliant ground?? So are you saying other grounds, not all, aren’t compliant?
So they don’t give a flying feck about away supporters? Away fans are an irrelevance then??
And all this from an American company who have nothing to do with RL except that the effing RFL can’t run the sport they’ve been over for donkeys years & haven’t been able to run the sport since big fat Nigel Wood run it into the ground!
Good grief. . .
Like I said, it would help if you weren't speaking from such a position of complete ignorance - this has been a big story for quite a while and really isn't difficult to get your head around it. I don't agree with the process - but at least I've bothered to look at how its calculated. If you did the same you wouldn't be making ridiculous points about how other club's scores are calculated.
FWIW I don't think anyone in the game is surprised that Leeds are top by a comfortable margin.
When Danson fully integrates the the rugby and football into one business when he takes over we will then also own our own ground and should pick up some extra points.
We cant be that far behind Leeds in terms of followers on social media and that would massively improve if we signed Farrell. Besides, social media followers can be manipulated.
Cas are already whinging. Such a a shame that Wakey, who are actually trying to update their ground, despite financial restraints, and are thus higher rated than Cas are getting relegated while Cas are staying up, despite recently stating any up-grades to their dump of a ground have again been put back two years due to planning issues.
doc wrote: ↑Wed Oct 25, 2023 8:35 pm
When Danson fully integrates the the rugby and football into one business when he takes over we will then also own our own ground and should pick up some extra points.
We cant be that far behind Leeds in terms of followers on social media and that would massively improve if we signed Farrell. Besides, social media followers can be manipulated.
Cas are already whinging. Such a a shame that Wakey, who are actually trying to update their ground, despite financial restraints, and are thus higher rated than Cas are getting relegated while Cas are staying up, despite recently stating any up-grades to their dump of a ground have again been put back two years due to planning issues.
