I’d love to see the NRL one day introduce a promotion-relegation system. If all players knew that a couple of teams a year would be relegated to the second division – or to the New South Wales or Queensland cup – every match over every weekend would be tougher.
No players would slacken off, going into cruise control or having mid-season lulls. No one would be getting lazy or complacent.
They would want to stay in the big-money premier league, the or first division that is the NRL.
Higher TV ratings and higher crowds would mean that the players get more money. This would keep most of the players in rugby league, rather than being tempted by offers in other codes.
Teams would likely have more one-year deals for players rather than three, once again making contracts almost commission or performance based. This means that you’re only as good as your last game or last season.
It would eliminate the likelihood of players going into cruise control after signing big multi-year deals. Players would always have the knowledge of promotion or relegation at the back of their mind.
TV rights for the NSW and Queensland Cups would be higher as there would be more interest. It would also promote expansion and promise for these regions, which could include Ipswich, Central Coast, Rockhampton, Southeast Queensland, Perth, and Adelaide. Furthermore, it would generate interest and sponsorship dollars.
All those things build crowds, build sponsorship, and are good for TV.
It would also encourage more juniors to know if they have the talent. There is good money to be made from being a professional rugby league player.
It would make the competition more exciting. The system promises tension, with everyone knowing that a promotion or relegation is at stake. It would fire up all teams to play well week in, week out.
Moreover, it would grow the game at all levels as more money means you can fund junior development, help country and regional rugby league development. This would provide greater support to teams and more feeder development grounds.
A promotion-relegation system would be great for clubs like Newtown Jets. All NSW and Queensland Cup teams could get some rich owners wanting to buy in as a way to promote their other business interests. With fans knowing that there was a chance for promotion, it would attract more fans and locals to watch matches, as promises of a top-division NRL spot potentially awaited.
We could have a thing like the NSW Cup and Queensland Cup side playing off for one relegation spot in the top-flight NRL.
The two losers could go into two or three relegation spots. Then the two losers could play a week later for the second spot.
A sudden-death system like this would be great for TV. It would also boost radio ratings and create greater attendances.
Perth and Adelaide have populations of over a million, yet have no NRL teams. Western Australia has only one rugby union team.
This would be a good way to get these places teams involved in rugby league, as well as reward heartlands like Central Coast, Ipswich, Rockhampton and the Gold Coast. Tasmania and New Zealand teams may also get opportunities, as would a team from Papua New Guinea.
Systems like this work well in English Super League, English Premier League and French rugby. They have also seen success in New Zealand’s NPC rugby.
In English Premier League football, the second division, third division and fourth division all basically have a knockout semi-final system. They play it at Wembley.
Many in the north of England – even small clubs – gravitate and get sold-out games at Wembley. They also get great TV ratings and generate national interest in football, as the nationwide fight for promotion and relegation happens.
This system is also great for making money of the lower divisions, which are the feeder places for developing players. This is good for expansion.
When a team gets relegated their salary cap would also go down. But this wouldn’t leave them broke.
As seen in English football, when they get promoted again they can buy the better players who are coming out of contract and into the open market. Other teams, meanwhile, can pick up the star players of the relegated clubs.
This system also attracts rich private investors who want to own private clubs. Like Nathan Tinkler at Newcastle Knights and the Newcastle Jets football team, getting more of these private owners in rugby league can only be a good thing. Tony Sage, a mining man in Perth, wants a Perth team in the NRL.
It would be great for the expansion of the NRL and the development of rugby league at national and grassroots level in Australia. The NRL should definitely give it a shot.
Nathan Watson-Haigh
Guest
Being a British expat living in Australia I have seen P&R in action in the English Super League and Premier League. As already mentioned by Stanley Seathwaite, the English Super League abolished the P&R, and if I remember rightly, the reasons for doing so were much the same as those you are using in favour of P&R. A distinction should be made between sporting codes that are ubiquitous in a nation (e.g. Football/Soccer in England) where there is no way to expand geographically other than to include other countries in their league and those which are not ubiquitous and are wanting to expand geographically in their domestic market (e.g. Rugby League in England and Australia). In the former (i.e. Premier League) a P&R generally works well as there are enough teams that if a few go bust, it does not jeopardise the the entire league/sporting code. However, P&R does still have it's issues. P&R results in a wider gulf forming between the top flight and the rest (i.e elitism), whether this be the top teams in a league or between the top league and the leagues below. For example, teams that are relegated from the Premier League suffer because all the players want to leave and play in a Premier League club, the sponsors leave as they don't have the exposure they had in the Premier League, and the non die-hard fans stop going to games. If that teams gets promoted again, they struggle so much that chances are they get relegated within a few seasons. While this is good for the few, it is not good for the many and would not be good for a sporting code looking to expand its market. For example, if over 5-10yrs a couple of the big NRL teams got relegated I think the NRL would struggle to survive never mind be able to expand. In the Super League, when P&R was in place, there were about 4 teams that always came top, you knew your team would always be beaten by them and they would invariably be the top 4 teams at the end of the season. Now the Super League has done away with P&R and also operates a salary cap, the competition is much more even, with the traditional middle-tier teams (Huddersfield Giants and Warrington Wolves) now being very competitive for the top spot in the league. This allows those teams to grow their fan base, increase the exposure and income. I do believe that there needs to exist a mechanism by which teams can gain entry into the top flight league, but they need to have a fighting chance to be competitive and stand on their own two feet among the existing top flight clubs. Again, I think the Super League probably has this right, by issuing licenses every 3yrs to clubs that will form the Super League (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Super_League#Licensing). At the same time, the Super League have increased the number of home-grown players each club must have while decreasing the number of overseas trained players a club can have. I think this is helping to ensure the fans a supporting a home-grown local team rather than a team that can simply be bought with enough money.
Gavin
Guest
P&R would be good for australian sports ... in the long term. This needs to planned for so that clubs are encouraged to grow so that they could compete apon entering the top level of the game. For the NRL the weakness is the gap between the NSW Cup Sides and the local clubs is huge.. There is no gadual steps for clubs to grow. The first step for P&R to happen in Oz is for all levels of the sports administration to come to gether and work towards a common goal.. (and there is two chances of that happening)
LT80
Roar Pro
A second division is a great idea, for the NRL at least. There are at least half a dozen clubs / area vying to get into the NRL from all over the place. It's the perfect time to create a national second tier - put all these expansion hopefuls plus a few others into a league and there it is. The easiest way to get this up and going would be to just expand the Queensland Cup to include Central Coast, PNG and Perth. Maybe throw Newtown in for good measure. It would be great to have some kind of promotion / relegation system in place, but it would be while before you could have an automatic system like in European leagues. Perhaps promotion could be based on results as well other things (supporters / finances etc). Superleague have some kind of 3-yearly review to allow lower division teams to still aspire to move up.
sheek
Guest
Johnnoo, It's pretty obvious to me promotion & relegation can't work in Australia for many years to come. I've given some of my reasons in the other post on the same topic. If you're bored mid-season with rugby league, then perhaps you're the one with the problem! I'm just bored fullstop, I reckon the reason is because I'm watching too much crap from every sport. A wise old boss used to say - don't confuse lots of activity masquerading for productivity. We now have 24/7 sport, but a lot of it is rubbish. More is definitely not always better....
Chris
Guest
"As it does all over the world in all codes" - Which codes? Cricket - no, American football - no, basketball - no, ice hockey - no, baseball - no, Australian rules - no, Rugby union - varies. Where are all these codes that have a promotion/relegation system? The reality is that most sports shun the system and the only sport to champion it is football, because they're so popular they've never had to evolve their game, and have no intention of making it better. The world argument that you're putting forward is wrong. Most professional sports moved away from promotion/relegation 50 years ago.
Chris
Guest
What a load of rubbish. All sports in the world have moved away from the promotion/relegation system, mainly because it's absolute rubbish. The only sport to persist in this broken and uninteresting system is football(soccer). It's a silly idea and has no place in the 21st century.
MG Burbank
Roar Guru
You simply cannot compare the league system in place here with Premier League. We're talking about soccer clubs that, in some cases, have been around for more than a century, with a groundswell of supporters in place no matter what, and financial backing that will be there no matter what division they may play in. Clubs in the NRL struggle to make money- how would you expect them to stay afloat once relegated? They'd lose their sponsors, fans, players, everything. Looks at Wests Tigers- they can no longer even afford to have both Wests and Balmain in the NSW Cup. Relegation/promotion doesn't actually increase the diversity of winners in the Premier League- it's pretty much the same 3 or 4 teams up the top every year. Yes, things like the FA Cup are fun but rugby league doesn't have the depth of public support (in fact no aussie sport does) to have that kind of system. This idea is not new- it is brought up by some innocent soul every now and then and is beaten down. I hope you've learnt something.
oly09
Guest
Newtown are a feeder team to the Roosters and use a lot of their players and exist on a shoestring. If they promoted they would get smashed and draw poor crowds. Terrible idea. -- Comment left via The Roar's iPhone app. Download The Roar's iPhone App in the App Store here.
L.J Hooker
Guest
when you're talking about relegation and salary caps, don't compare it to the premier league or whatever else for that matter because rugby league players are on peanuts in comparison. just leave the game as it is.
Johnno
Guest
Sheek why can't it happen. Demanding yes. Becoz I am sick of seeing mid season lulls in sports comps in Australia. Where teams that know there season is up, just go into cruise control knowing that there finals chances are gone. It becomes boring, and crowds especially in Sydney stay away. And players that sign big deals also go into cruise control (think Jarryd hayne, Krsitian Inu), rather than having a contract alsmot based on a year to year one . Add as tv deals are bigger coz higher crowds, tv ratings, that mens bigger salaries for the 1st division and bigger salaries for the state cups, or nil 2nd division. Sheek i am getting so bored o mid season lulls in Aust sports competitions. And players going into cruise control on big contracts. i want to punish those areas, and yes i am demanding i want excitement every week . And we are in a global market competing for talent, and Aust pro sport needs as much money as it can get. French rugby has been a success with promo/relagation, and so has the soccer in england. they just don't have a slurry cap in english soccer which i think they need. Cricket Australia too seem to work on only 1 or 2 year deals and that is a good thing too. I want to get players in australia out of there comfort zone and create excitement and expansion, and more fan excitement, i am demanding sports fan i ma getting bored of mid season lulls sheek i simply don't apologise for that opinion mate.
sheek
Guest
Johnnoo, Your suggestion is as silly as the other one made today about the same thing. "Every match over every weekend would be tougher", because of the fear of promotion/relegation. Crikey, you lounge lizards don't ask for much, do you - "play harder chaps, & help give more meaning to my dull life"! You're kidding, right? Funny, I remember super league saying much the same thing back in 1995. Every match would be a cliff-hanger, plus the Chins of China, the Manfreds of Munich, the Raouls of Rio de Janiero, the Francois of France, etc would all be glued to rugby league. It never happened. You are unfortunately inhabiting the same dream world as occupied John Ribot all those years ago.....
Nathan of Perth
Guest
Wonder which code would be most likely to take the first punt on Pro/Rel. AFL has been increasingly taking management cues from researching the English FA and their coaches have been looking there for inspiration. Meanwhile the NRL has direct relatives in the ESL to draw inspiration from. RU in Australia is in desperate need of a national level comp which could interact with the top tier. HAL of course has it in their DNA the most but have the furthest to expand to make it feasible.
Nathan of Perth
Guest
Replace salary cap with MLB style luxury tax?
Matt F
Roar Guru
You've also got the issue of the salary cap as well. Given that the cap is designed to create a level playing field and ensure that most, if not all, teams can contend for a competition and also contend for a wooden spoon it seems a bit harsh to introduce relegation. Can you imagine if a side like Collignwood, or Brisbane in the NRL, got relegated, not because they couldn't afford the best talent, but because the salary cap forced them to shed their players. It would also hit any sort of draft system (both the current one in the AFL and proposed one in the NRL.) There's not much point giving the best young talent to a team in the second tier.
Stanley Seathwaite
Guest
As an English reader of this site. I agree with the comments above. It is worth pointing out that the Super League does NOT have P & R: there is a closed shop for the next 3 years. WIdnes were recently given a place in the SL, but that was a successful franchise bid. Having moved up into the SL, they're being battered most weeks. The point about Melbourne Storm is of course significant. The British equivalent is London Broncos, though their crowds are much lower. If relegation did exist, London Broncos would simply disappear. They are kept in the competition every year in the vain hope that RL will take off in London. There is no "expansion" in British football. All of the towns and cities have one or more football clubs. Many of them ( all but 20, in fact ) are desperate to get into the Premier League.
Nathan of Perth
Guest
Honestly feel that once the top tier hits 20 then there is not much furtherr that could be done. A second tier is required and the only way to make a second tier properly watchable and viable is to use existing state-level clubs and give them a chance at glory. The top league clubs should have rusted on support at this stage.
The Cattery
Roar Guru
Just to add to this, as I have said on many soccer threads, promotion and relegation at the top tier of Australian professional sport is problematic. Each code is attempting to open up new domestic markets, and that is completely at odds with P&R. For example, if the NRL were to introduce P&R, and the Storm finished bottom, and stayed out for a few years - that would be completely counter-productive to the objective of expanding the game - it just can't work in Australia.
Bayxxx
Guest
Will never happen, it is counter cultural to the Australian sporting psyche. No doubt it would deliver more excitement, engagement etc. As it does all over the world in all codes, but sporting bodies in OZ promote culture of protected species (at player, club and code level) -- Comment left via The Roar's iPhone app. Download The Roar's iPhone App in the App Store here.
mark melville
Guest
i hope this never happens!! thos systems never work its always the same 3-4 teams who get relegated, because they dont have the money to compete cause no one supports them cause no one supports loser teams. the same teams will dominate every yesr like happens in english soccer. nrl is one of the most competitive sporting leagues in the world. why change with it!!!