I think enough time has now passed since the IMG ratings were released for me to put my head above the parapet and have my say after keeping schtum about my thoughts of the new structure recently. The reason for this was to keep some kind of objectivity in my reporting of the ins-and-outs of the ratings thus far, and more to the point, saving my more detailed thoughts for a full article later down the line, which with any luck, you are now reading.

I might not have been 100% successful with keeping absolute objectivity when it came to IMG. My frustrations with this new system and rugby league’s direction in general was probably palpable in my writing on this site over the last few months, but truth be told, I don’t think the idea is completely without merit, at least I think some of the ideas within IMG’s structure are worthwhile.

Having a grading system in place that rewards clubs for financial and structural good practises is a good idea, for instance, we know all too well the dangers of mismanagement, in the past few seasons its reared its ugly head multiple times, so putting a structure in place to help teams better manage their one and off-field prosperity is a good thing, where this system fails, however, is making this grading system the backbone of promotion and relegation; creating a world in which a team is promoted or relegated via spreadsheet algorithms, rather than on-field results.

This approach not only alienates fans who struggle to get to grips with these changes (myself included, I’d be lying to you if I told you I understand what most of the points system means) but it completely robs the game of a sense of optimism below a certain level. We will likely never, for instance, see another promotion like London Broncos from the Championship in 2023, where they won the Grand Final from a fifth-placed league position. In fact, it could be argued that the Championship play-off system itself becomes entirely pointless if winning the whole thing doesn’t result in your team reaching the Super League, and this, in turn, will turn dozens – if not hundreds – of fans away from the sport.

Imagine the scene, last month, Wakefield, having gone through the whole season only suffering one loss as well as picking up the 1895 Cup and League Leaders’ Shield, win the Grand Final (as indeed they did) only to discover three day’s later that all that effort was for naught because some other team had a slightly bigger press pen, or a bigger screen. Do you think this would encourage Wakey fans to return in 2025? Or any Championship fans, for that matter?

By making the issue of promotion and relegation anything other than on merit you take away a key factor in sports’ appeal. It strips away the integrity of the sport if a team in the Championship could, for instance, win that league for three seasons on the trot, and yet still be denied entry into Super League because of some trivial details like I used in the previous paragraph, both of which are allegedly part of IMG’s tallyting system.

I know promotion and relegation is traditionally more of a British phenomenon in sports, but there’s a good reason for that, it’s what we, as fans, want. We want the possibility of an underdog story, where an unfancied team makes it all the way to the big leagues, we want that sense of jeopardy in our sports (although not if it includes our team, please and thank you). We have tried franchising in rugby league before and it failed then, so why do the powers that be think that this idea, which is essentially franchising but with extra bells and whistles, will be any different?

My philosophy for sport, and much of life in general, is that of KISS (keep it simple, stupid). Sport shouldn’t be difficult to understand. You shouldn’t need a degree in quantum physics to know if your team has a chance of going down or staying up, and you definitely shouldn’t have to wait for three weeks after the season has finished to find out where you’ll be playing next year. No, my idea is simple: a Super League of fourteen, with two up and two down, with the Championship having twelve teams, and League 1 with ten; with room to expand should any additional clubs wish to enter. Plain and simple. Here’s how that would look using the teams competing in 2025’s competitions (using teams in their 2024 divisions, plus the newcomers):

Super League:

1. Wigan
2. Hull KR
3. Warrington
4. Salford
5. Leigh
6. St Helens
7. Leeds
8. Catalans
9. Huddersfield
10. Castleford
11. Hull FC
12. London
13. Wakefield
14. Toulouse

Championship:

1. Bradford
2. York
3. Widnes
4. Featherstone
5. Sheffield
6. Doncaster
7. Halifax
8. Batley
9. Barrow
10. Swinton
11. Whitehaven
12. Dewsbury

League 1:

1. Oldham
2. Hunslet
3. Keighley
4. Midlands
5. Workington
6. North Wales
7. Cornwall
8. Newcastle
9. Goole
10. Anglican/Bedford

If you wanted another match to sell to Sky with some jeopardy, you could make it so only the bottom team in Super League goes down automatically, while the second-from bottom plays in a play-off with the Championship play-off winner, but that is just thinking from a marketing perspective, and I think it muddies the water a bit, so I would prefer that the Super League bottom two go straight down, the outright winner of the Championship goes up automatically, and second to sixth play in a play-offs to determine who gets the second promotion spot, that way you still have jeopardy, and could even bring back the Million Pound Game branding for the final? Just a thought.

On top of this new structure change would of course be the Challenge Cup, which is undergoing a much needed change next season so the Super League teams enter sooner and must play lower-ranked teams away from home, that’s fine, I approve of that change, as well as the 1895 Cup, which is also reverting to a straight-elimination format next season, which also seems to have been met with general approval. After a few years, it could be worth thinking about the viability of another cup competition to give clubs another accolade to play for, maybe a return of the Lancashire and Yorkshire Cups, for instance? For now though, I think the balance of game-time would be just right with the league structure set out above and the two cups.

The biggest hurdle to a fourteen team Super League is of course financial. The money clubs receive from Sky has already diminished in the past year, having to stretch that pot to two more clubs is a big ask, and that’s why we need IMG to be helping the game get better broadcasting deals elsewhere. I’m unsure of the influence they had over the most recent Sky deal, but Sky getting more content for less money is an insulting and ridiculous move from the powers that be. There were other bidders, or so we’re led to believe, some with bigger offers maybe, so why have we tied ourselves to this new agreement that is so heaviuly weighted in Sky’s favour? To me, it shows a small-time mentality on behalf of the RFL and Super League. When they could have backed themselves on the open market, they went crawling back to a provider that has shown it doesn’t care about rugby league in the long run, especially once the football season has started.

The long-term strategy of the IMG partnership remains to be seen. Granted, we are too early in the proces to really know where they can takje the game, being only a few years into a twelve-year partnership, but the early signs don’t look good. They show the RFL getting into bed with an organisation that doesn’t understand the sport or its audience, at a critical time in the sport’s history. It was said a few year’s ago that the game needed to change and change fast to keep up with other sports, and this represented our best chance at staying relevant in an age of unprecedented choice. Can we afford this detour into uncharted waters if our game is in as bad a state as many think it is? I am unqualified to answer such questions, but it seems like a foolish risk to take when the future of the sport is apparently on the line.

Add into this uncertainty that IMG has just been bought out by TKO, the conglomoration of companies that includes the UFC and WWE, and the future seems even more uncertain. Will rugby league be priority for TKO? Does it even have a future with IMG? Who knows, but those uncharted waters are getting ever choppier.

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