The Reality of the IMG Grading System

I'm open minded on IMG (don't think they're the saviours of the sport, but can see why they've been brought in and willing to give them time) 

For me all the issues we had with licensing the first time are still apparent. In theory it drives up standards etc, but the reality is clubs/ owners know they're safe, so reduce spend (as evident on sky's salary table) why would an owner spend £300k on players when they can lose every game and stay in the divison.

June/July/August will be interesting when there's a number of dead rubbers.

Fans don't suddenly stop going because they hate IMG But  they might miss a game or two because it's a dead rubber and do something else that natch day. Then the following year it's not worth getting a season ticket.  So miss even more games. 

1 hour ago, glossop saint said:

Has any feedback been given as to how IMG and the RFL felt like the trial went? As far as I know, no adjustments have been made.

I'd seen a few interviews that suggested that it would be reviewed in the RFL Council meeting in December. And there seemed to be some confidence that the Catchment area metric would be removed. But there hasn't been anything said since, so assume it will be an unchanged system.

50 minutes ago, sentoffagain2 said:

     I wish The Championship and League 1 clubs had the b-lls to make a clean break away.For what little money they now get from SL if they can't stand on their own two feet without it the games not worth supporting.

Yeah, they should break away and form their own league. They could call it The Championship. That would have no automatic promotion to the Super League but instead sit apart from it, with clubs focused on developing the long-term health of their organisations whilst competing to win The Championship, which could be an important achievement in its own right.

Oh, er, hang on… isn’t that precisely where the IMG is taking us?  

4 minutes ago, Bull Mania said:

...

June/July/August will be interesting when there's a number of dead rubbers.

Fans don't suddenly stop going because they hate IMG But  they might miss a game or two because it's a dead rubber and do something else that natch day. Then the following year it's not worth getting a season ticket.  So miss even more games. 

No need to wait until June.

London are offering me free tickets for the forthcoming Salford game. Now, if a win there would catapult them into a 3-way relegation battle, I just might be interested in getting a posse together. As things stand - absolutely zero riding on the game, probably played in front of hundreds - I'll stay at home and do some gardening.

36 minutes ago, overtheborder said:

I think this is possibly my favourite suggested iteration of this grading system - I do think it'd be strange though if a newcomer to the sport looked at the SL table at the end of the season and noticed the 9th placed B grade club had been relegated instead of the three A grade clubs below them. I'm admittedly being pedantic, but it's not beyond the realms of possibility.

I suppose the only other glaring issue here too is there's an assumption there'll be at least one B grade team in SL at any point. If the grading system drives standards as intended, there could be 12 A grade clubs in SL by the end of a season (unless there's a set number of A grades available, in which case we're essentially back to the points system for who gets an A grade!).

There can be any number of Grade A clubs and if that exceeds 12 then SL will expand.

Also a Grade A is not for life. You can lose it

8 minutes ago, LeeF said:

There can be any number of Grade A clubs and if that exceeds 12 then SL will expand.

Also a Grade A is not for life. You can lose it

Do we know if the potential for more than 12 Grade A clubs has been factored into the TV deal? We currently have a deal based on Sky providing production of 6 games a week. What happens if we move up to 13 or 14 clubs, are Sky signed up to that?

1 hour ago, LeeF said:

Can you detail either the 96% or even the  4% if that’s easier, mentioned in point 1 as I’m struggling to get to either number?
 

Also what do you mean by “manipulated” and where do you get the 50% figure from? 

Hi LeeF , just on the first point made , I think that what OP was getting at is that there are , in theory, 25% (5 points) available for on field performance , however , in reality , only the team winning GF (and possibly CC) where bonuses of 0.75pts and 0.25 pts are awarded respectively ,  are likely to get over 4pts , or 20% of total points available overall. 

In 2023 Indicative gradings only Wigan will have scored over 4 points on performance . Leigh won CC and so they received an extra 0.25 points but their average 3 year league performance wasn't enough to give them over 4 points in performance area

In conclusion , 34 out of 35 teams failed to get 4 performance points , which equates to 97% of teams

Under the current grading system only 2 teams can achieve over 4 performance points in any given season , in reality it is more likely to be the GF winners only as the bonus points are awarded for one season only.

13 minutes ago, phiggins said:

Do we know if the potential for more than 12 Grade A clubs has been factored into the TV deal? We currently have a deal based on Sky providing production of 6 games a week. What happens if we move up to 13 or 14 clubs, are Sky signed up to that?

Personally feel like we will be at 12 Grade A clubs within 2 or 3 years but thankfully for the Super League teams who will vote against an expansion to a 14 team league, there is realistically very little hope of a Championship been able to gain a Grade A because of the way the criteria is set up. 

42 minutes ago, Taffy Tiger said:

Hi LeeF , just on the first point made , I think that what OP was getting at is that there are , in theory, 25% (5 points) available for on field performance , however , in reality , only the team winning GF (and possibly CC) where bonuses of 0.75pts and 0.25 pts are awarded respectively ,  are likely to get over 4pts , or 20% of total points available overall. 

 

In 2023 Indicative gradings only Wigan will have scored over 4 points on performance . Leigh won CC and so they received an extra 0.25 points but their average 3 year league performance wasn't enough to give them over 4 points in performance area

In conclusion , 34 out of 35 teams failed to get 4 performance points , which equates to 97% of teams

Under the current grading system only 2 teams can achieve over 4 performance points in any given season , in reality it is more likely to be the GF winners only as the bonus points are awarded for one season only.

Thank you. It’s appreciated. 

I would also say that on field performance impacts all the other areas as a successful club will generate more income; get more investment etc and that poor on field performance has a corresponding negative effect.

You can’t look at each “area” in isolation as they are all interlinked with the key one being the success or otherwise on the pitch. The entire aim of the gradings is to drive upwards the standards on and off the field something which this sport has failed to do since it started. 

The market for the leisure market has never been so competitive and if some don’t think that the likes of Castleford or Wakefield (not picking on either of them) looking to finally improve as clubs all round like say Hull KR or to a lesser extent Leigh have then that’s fantastic and a massive positive. As a sport we need more clubs like Wigan, Saints, Leeds etc

54 minutes ago, phiggins said:

Do we know if the potential for more than 12 Grade A clubs has been factored into the TV deal? We currently have a deal based on Sky providing production of 6 games a week. What happens if we move up to 13 or 14 clubs, are Sky signed up to that?

Doesn’t the current deal only last for 3 years? If we have 14 Grade A clubs by the end of this or next season then that would be a fantastic issue to have to solve. I’m sure that Sky wouldn’t have any major issues

The NRL is experiencing record crowd levels. Their sport goes from strength to strength. They have never had promotion and relegation. 

9 minutes ago, LeeF said:

Thank you. It’s appreciated. 

I would also say that on field performance impacts all the other areas as a successful club will generate more income; get more investment etc and that poor on field performance has a corresponding negative effect.

You can’t look at each “area” in isolation as they are all interlinked with the key one being the success or otherwise on the pitch. The entire aim of the gradings is to drive upwards the standards on and off the field something which this sport has failed to do since it started. 

The market for the leisure market has never been so competitive and if some don’t think that the likes of Castleford or Wakefield (not picking on either of them) looking to finally improve as clubs all round like say Hull KR or to a lesser extent Leigh have then that’s fantastic and a massive positive. As a sport we need more clubs like Wigan, Saints, Leeds etc

Hi LeeF , completely agree that on field performance does have much more of an impact than just the 25% or 20% mentioned . It's the same with the catchment area . Not only should this be removed on the basis that teams have no control over it , the very fact that a team has a larger catchment area is already scoring them more points on attendance , fandom and other related areas . We should remove the catchment area (in my opinion) and allocate the 1.5 points to the on field perfomance score . I think a good idea would be to add the 1.5 points (taken from Catchment area) and award it for CC instead . As an example you could award 1.5 to winner , 1.25 to runner-up , 1 to losing sf , 0.75 losing qf , 0.5 losing r16 and 0.25 to teams reaching last 32 . This would also make the CC more attractive to clubs . 

9 minutes ago, Worzel said:

The NRL is experiencing record crowd levels. Their sport goes from strength to strength. They have never had promotion and relegation. 

You could say the same about the Premier League in this country, and they have always had promotion and relegation.

As it is, neither are really worth comparing with.

12 minutes ago, phiggins said:

You could say the same about the Premier League in this country, and they have always had promotion and relegation.

As it is, neither are really worth comparing with.

Perhaps you’re right. What I would say though is that there is plenty of evidence globally - and the NRL is just one small part of it, not even the best example - that “closed” leagues can be very successful. There’s nothing inherently bad about the absence of promotion and relegation, even factoring in some of the possible ‘dead rubber’ consequences for a small number of fixtures.

The transition will be complicated, and no doubt create some short-term contention, but if you never start something then you never get anywhere so at some point we had to say “let’s get on with it, and map the change out”. That’s what the next few years are about.

The alternative (which I bet IMG preferred) was to pick 12 sides and close the league immediately. This is just a compromise, a way of phasing it in whilst transparently signposting what things would make it more likely a club would make the cut, and giving some a time to try and do it. Nothing more. In 5 years time we won’t be worrying about IMG points, because hopefully we’ll have a 12- or 14-team fixed elite league, which can then grow when the demand grows, and through application and assessment case-by-case.   

17 minutes ago, Taffy Tiger said:

Hi LeeF , completely agree that on field performance does have much more of an impact than just the 25% or 20% mentioned . It's the same with the catchment area . Not only should this be removed on the basis that teams have no control over it , the very fact that a team has a larger catchment area is already scoring them more points on attendance , fandom and other related areas . We should remove the catchment area (in my opinion) and allocate the 1.5 points to the on field perfomance score . I think a good idea would be to add the 1.5 points (taken from Catchment area) and award it for CC instead . As an example you could award 1.5 to winner , 1.25 to runner-up , 1 to losing sf , 0.75 losing qf , 0.5 losing r16 and 0.25 to teams reaching last 32 . This would also make the CC more attractive to clubs . 

Catchment area should, imo, remain a KPI however it is a bit of a blunt instrument at the moment and maybe could be tweaked in the medium term.

Making the CC more attractive is an interesting idea and isn’t one that I have seen on here before albeit I can’t recall the previous 7 million (or thereabouts ) posts on the topic. Again one for the maybe subsequent tweaking of the system which fundamentally is relatively sound as no club was massively incorrectly placed on the initial grading ladder if you looked at it without any pre-conceived ideas.

4 hours ago, sam4731 said:

It's funny isn't it that some sports fans are against technology in sport because you lose that instant celebration moment after you've scored while it gets checked for maybe a couple of minutes. Whereas we could be in a situation that a fan might have to wait until a couple of months after the season to find out what division they'll be in for the next year.

 If as I suggest if it does go to a legal process on a miniscule number of points separating Champ/SL status, in which legals are not the quickest things to sort out, so if leaving the gradings and points awarded declaration till after the season ends maybe late October early November that may only leave say 12 or so weeks before the start of '25 season to collate information then present to and instruct a brief, finalise a date and come to a deliberation could be cutting it very close, and also when considering there will be at least 2 weeks off for Xmas, the announcement date of who will make up SL next season is going to be very important.

4 hours ago, Tommygilf said:

In fairness, that last point is the purpose of a trial run...

Is it really a trial run Tommy or is that the future blueprint, I may have missed some of the promised adjustments to the points system, have there been any?

1 hour ago, phiggins said:

Do we know if the potential for more than 12 Grade A clubs has been factored into the TV deal? We currently have a deal based on Sky providing production of 6 games a week. What happens if we move up to 13 or 14 clubs, are Sky signed up to that?

13 clubs would still be 6 games a week. If we can’t monetise more games we are doing something wrong. 

Just now, bobbruce said:

13 clubs would still be 6 games a week. If we can’t monetise more games we are doing something wrong. 

It would still be a restructure mid TV deal.

Just now, phiggins said:

It would still be a restructure mid TV deal.

I’m not sure it’s currently a massive issue  and if we start getting close to 12 + A grade clubs.  I'm sure we could have something in place for potentially adding more clubs and more games for Sky. 

2 hours ago, phiggins said:

Do we know if the potential for more than 12 Grade A clubs has been factored into the TV deal? We currently have a deal based on Sky providing production of 6 games a week. What happens if we move up to 13 or 14 clubs, are Sky signed up to that?

Where is the 13th and or 14th club going to come from?

Haven't the RFL said that from next season the 14 Championship and 10 L1 clubs will merge to form 2 X 12 team leagues with P&R between the divisions?

40 minutes ago, Worzel said:

In 5 years time we won’t be worrying about IMG points.........

.......... because they will be consigned to history, and we will have moved onto the next enthralling chapter.

4 hours ago, sentoffagain2 said:

     I wish The Championship and League 1 clubs had the b-lls to make a clean break away.For what little money they now get from SL if they can't stand on their own two feet without it the games not worth supporting.

The snag is that you might find that the game's not worth supporting.

No Sky funds, no Wembley trip, no Challenge Cup games against Superleague teams, even for the few - what's not to like?

Quite a bit.

2 hours ago, Worzel said:

Perhaps you’re right. What I would say though is that there is plenty of evidence globally - and the NRL is just one small part of it, not even the best example - that “closed” leagues can be very successful. There’s nothing inherently bad about the absence of promotion and relegation, even factoring in some of the possible ‘dead rubber’ consequences for a small number of fixtures.

The transition will be complicated, and no doubt create some short-term contention, but if you never start something then you never get anywhere so at some point we had to say “let’s get on with it, and map the change out”. That’s what the next few years are about.

The alternative (which I bet IMG preferred) was to pick 12 sides and close the league immediately. This is just a compromise, a way of phasing it in whilst transparently signposting what things would make it more likely a club would make the cut, and giving some a time to try and do it. Nothing more. In 5 years time we won’t be worrying about IMG points, because hopefully we’ll have a 12- or 14-team fixed elite league, which can then grow when the demand grows, and through application and assessment case-by-case.   

Sorry worzel got to disagree with the no promotional relegation argument, do you think when we was in the championship had we not got promoted into super league we would ever have got any where near meeting the criteria for a A licence? 

Not a chance we would have had neither the crowds or investment needed, we took our chance when promoted and built off the back of it.

Why should we prevent others from ever been able to achieve what we have at Rovers.

Having seen our fare share of relegation battles it does generate great crowd interest at the end of the season for the clubs involved and keeps clubs on there toes to the very last game.

5 hours ago, Archie Gordon said:

Or put a golden ticket in a chocolate bar. Degsy would have all his staff - including the dude on twitter - unwrapping bars 24 hours a day. 

Then he'd publicly shame them for opening the wrappers wrong!