That's an excellent post and so much resonates with me. I'm not a legacy Broncos (or Rugby League) fan and the truth is I will follow the(a) team whilst playing out of Plough Lane, but probably not if playing elsewhere. But I'm not convinced with IMG's strategy. I don't believe the sport will remain anything but niche if it is so M62 corridor limited. That's a fabulous core any sport would love to have, but the modern world needs expansion. Aussie Rules was a Victoria sport, but they realised the need to expand nationally. The majority of teams are still Victoria based, but now it's truly national.
I see know route for a London team or any new regions into the Super League. That is a mistake. From what I understand the northern teams have been picking off London trained talent for years at no cost. That is just ludicrious and IMG have just made it worse.
This is not about pushing out the traditional teams (although I think IMG are achieving that themselves to be honest). The most obvious way was a two league structure with no protection to any teams whilst driving up standards (the good part from IMG with the caveat clubs are trying to make grade increasing changes rather than the best changes per se). When I look at the clubs nationally, there is enough to warrant two divisions including expansion from major locations. Furthermore it would allow a team like Oldham to be promoted into the system.
Whilst I prefer promotion to be related to on field success, I would agree that a team would not be promoted if they hadn't reached a required "grading" standard. The standards would need to be challenging but achievable, so need to recognise that just being in the Super League is going to make higher gradings easier, and that increasing grading from the Championship will be harder.
The IMG model looks like it's going to create a massive rift in the pro game. Whilst they have some flexibility to increase the size of the SL in future years, I suspect the closed shop mentality will mean too little too late. Looks like Featherstone and London are already the first two to fall away. More to come if the expected inertia continues.
Going back to London Broncos. When I see some of what has been achieved both on and off the pitch this season (both areas exceeding what I thought would happen) ans seems ridiculous that with the grading system, that is seems pretty impossible for the London Broncos to ever reach the SL again.
I’m also not sure what impact it is going to have on the Championship and Broncos in particular. If you don’t get promoted you won’t invest in players (although Bradford (who not so long ago didn’t have a pot) and Oldham do appear to be doing so.) So you rely on home grown players and players dropping down a level so they can develop post playing careers (something that Broncos won’t benefit from but teams like York and Fev seem to in recent years). I really do wonder what our squad will look like (absent of the fact we appear to have made no effort to recruit/retain.) and whether we can expect another dog fight at the bottom of the league.
