I’m not sure whether you’ve heard, as it’s been kept rather quiet, but rugby league (and Super League especially) is about to undergo some changes. IMG (a “sports and culture” company, according to their website) was brought on board a few years ago to reimagine the game for a new audience, with an eye on expanding the game’s reach beyond it’s usual horizons.

For what it’s worth, it seems like the RFL have made a good choice of who to get into bed with, as IMG has worked with: AFL (AUstralian Football League), Australian Open, The German Bundesliga, The FA Cup, and even the NFL (National Football League). So you couldn’t say they aren’t experienced in marketing sports to the biggest possible audiences.

The company’s website (which is so full of corporate jargon and buzzwords it’ll make your head spin) boasts that: “Since our story began, IMG has been a pioneer and innovator.” So what pioneering and innovative suggestion does IMG have for Rugby League? Well, it’s complicated, but let’s say for simplifications sake that it’s a return to a licensing system, which as we know was such a roaring success the last time the sport tried it that it was promptly discontinued after about five years.

IMG’s new system for certifying clubs is a lot more complicated than just saying it’s a return to licensed franchises, as it seems like you’d need a maths degree to properly understand the formula that’s used to generate a club’s score, and it took me five attempts to scrape a C grade in GCSE, so let’s just say it goes over my head a bit.

For what it’s worth, while I’m not exactly comfortable with doing away with merit-based promotion and relegation, I can see the merits of a franchising approach. After all, if you’re a guaranteed top-flight enterprise, it makes you a more stable financial investment, and a more appealing destination for the best players. The NRL is franchised for example, it doesn’t have promotion and relegation of any kind, but that seems to work.

Ultimately though, I think it’s a cultural difference that separates our system and the NRL (as well as a fairly sizable quality jump). Australian sport, much like American sport, is almost entirely monopolised with one top league. The AFL is franchised, Australia’s top football league, The A-League, is also franchised (although this is supposed to be changing soon). Meanwhile, promotion and relegation is ingrained into British sport and always has been, and that makes an alternative system harder to swallow for many British fans.

In response to this, IMG will no doubt point to the fact that their system does technically still have promotion and relegation, and that on-field performance is a big factor in their equation, and they would be right to state this, there is however an asterisk to this. On-field performance only counts for up to 5 out of a possible 20 points under the IMG system, along with other criteria such as “Fandom” (5 points), “Stadium” (3 points), and “Finance” (4.5 points). Quite how these seemingly arbitrary numbers were decided upon is anybody’s guess, but it essentially means that your on-field performance only counts towards a quarter of your score.

A score of fifteen gets you an A grade license and a spot in Super League, so with that, a team could finish bottom of the Super League (which I’m imagining would get them between 0.5-1.0 points, but I’m not entirely sure) and as long as they score highly in every other area, they’re peachy keen as far as IMG are concerned. Similarly, you could win the Super League and score a maximum five points, but if your other areas aren’t up to scratch, you could find yourself out of the league you just won. The system is head-scratching, divisive to the max, and I am in no way qualified to suggest a way to fixing this problem that didn’t need to exist. However, I can make some suggestions as a humble fan (whom IMG reportedly want to focus their ideas towards, if their website is to be believed), and anybody reading this can feel free to add their own.

Suggestion 1: Either scrap entirely, or amend, the usage of Golden Point

Golden Point in a regular league game is a terrible idea. It seems entirely aimed at creating extra tension in games to make a more thrilling television product, and that’s fine, but it is also counterproductive from a fairness and sporting standpoint.

After eighty minutes of regular play, if the score is level, then in my opinion, both teams deserve a point for their efforts. By all means, if you still want to have Golden Point to create that exciting television product, then make it worth an extra point on top of the one you get for a draw. That was, each team gets their deserved rewards for their efforts.

Suggestion 2: Change how the video referees work.

I have a few different points under this one suggestion, but I won’t give them too much time as it’s already been discussed on this very website in the past on the pros and cons of the video ref.

Firstly, and most obviously for most fans, do away with the on-field decision. If you’re going to the video ref, it should be because you’re not sure if it’s a try or not, so why would you have a guess at it if you’re asking for a second opinion? This also makes the referees overly-reliant on the video ref. On two ocassions this past weekend, I’ve been watching a game on TV where a try has been scored as clear as day right in front of the referee, and he’s still needed to consult the video ref. This has to stop.

Relatedly, let’s put limits on the video ref too. A time limit on how long they can spend re-watching the incident would be a good start, then a games momentum wouldn’t grind to a halt every time the video ref wants to take five minutes consulting every single frame of the try. Give them ninety seconds to make a decision, two minutes, max. We give the players shot clocks, why should the refs be any different?

We could even take things one step further and make it so that referees can only consult the video ref a set number of times during the match, meaning they have to make their own decisions more often, therefore hopefully increasing accountability and quality of officiating. At least you would hope so.

Suggestion 3: Invest in better production quality.

This one is related tangentially to the video refs as well, as quite often the reason the man in the bunker takes so long to make up his mind is because the picture quality is not fit for what is needed. They can’t make up their minds because everything becomes a blur at certain speeds.

We know better camera quality exists, we know better technology exists, because we see it in other sports, so why are we denied them? Well, we know why, it’s because we’re not seen as being as important, but this partnership with IMG is supposed to increase our standing and reputation isn’t it? If your quality of presentation is so notably lesser than, then your reputation follows it. Just watching a Sky Sports presentation of a Premier League match after watching a Super League game, and the difference is night and day. Would it be totally out of the question to at least give us some 4K cameras?

Suggestion 4: Cross-promotion.

When was the last time you saw a rugby league player appear on TV outside of an RL-focused program? Well, this past weekend, Hull KR’s Mikey Lewis and Jez Litten appeared on a Sky Sports presentation of a golf tournament where they gave an interview on the team’s progress. It leads me to think, why aren’t clubs pushed to do this more often? People watching other sports could be an untapped market, so why isn’t it being exploited?

This is something that isn’t necessarily something that’s just on IMG & the RFL, but they should be encouraging it at the very least. Why shouldn’t we be seeing rugby league players appearing before a football game, giving their opinions on the positives and drawbacks of a gegenpress system? Or appearing in a piece before NFL coverage, comparing the two sports, and maybe trying it out? Seeing who knows their running backs from their tight ends? These are ways of marketing the players and the game to new audiences, and it’s something you don’t see very often, which given the sport’s partnership with Sky, and their massive portfolio of sports, is quite a surprise.

Conclusion:

To summarise, I am not an expert in rugby league. I’m just a gobshite with a WordPress site and a lack of self-esteem. I am however, a passionate fan of the sport. I’ve played it (badly) as a youngster, I’ve refereed it (again, badly) as a slightly-older youngster, and I’ve been watching for about twenty years. These are just my suggestions as to what I think would improve the game. You may completely disagree, and that’s fair, many people have been watching for longer than me and I’d love to hear anybody else’s suggestions, so I hope you’ve enjoyed reading this, and do feel free to add any of your own suggestions on Facebook or Twitter!

Written by Nathan Major-Kershaw (Site editor & Hull KR fan)

Sources: https://www.img.com/sports,