IMG grading criteria
https://www.rugby-league.com/uploads...ia%5B81%5D.pdf
https://www.rugby-league.com/uploads...ia%5B81%5D.pdf
I know we won’t need it but will we score full marks in catchment since we are the only club in Merseyside and there is a very large population
I doubt we will score full marks on catchment, as despite county lines IMG will just look at Wigan and Saints on top of one another. My guess
20/25 Fandom - third(?) highest average attendance last year, and pretty typical, with decent online engagement, and SaintsTV is one of the better ones. Room for growth like all clubs though, and should be targeting 15k averages in the coming years (which would be my threshold for higher scores in this category.)
24/25 Performance - What more can we do? I knocked a point off for not sweeping the treble one year, but there's not much more to say.
20/25 Finances - We took on some government debt during Covid I believe which is why this isn't higher, but the club are great at introducing more revenue streams (look at the solar panel planning application) and were the third largest yearly revenue behind Leeds and Catalans.
15/15 Stadium - I may be biased but think we have the best in the league. Its ours, hosts other events around our schedule like the concert, and doesn't look like a derelict hut on tv.
5/10 Catchment - Wigan mess this up, but not as badly as Leeds, Bradford, Cas, Wakefield, Featherstone all sat on top of each other.
Gives us a total of 84/100. Would assume a 70 or a 75 would be enough to get an A grade, but not sure how many other teams would score that highly...
All seems quite sensible.
St Helens Rugby League Football Club
It does doesn’t it, and very open with the criteria. I wonder how the RFL will mess this one upOriginally Posted by Dos Cervezas
75% Is an A yeah. They are breaking them up into points. For a 25% section you can score a maximum of 5 points, the 15% one is out of 3 points and the catchment maximum is 2 points. And its 15 or above for a category A, 7.5 or above for category B. Explains it in much more detail with the PDF they uploaded: https://www.rugby-league.com/uploads...ia[81].pdf
I quite like the look of it all. I'm glad they are including catchment criteria, but I'm equally glad that it's not a huge portion of the grading. Ditto with the Stadium
I really like that they're driving much more emphasis on digital engagement, views etc. Think this is the area we really need to target as a sport. Hopefully in the future we can start streaming some of the matches that aren't shown on Live TV, which I see they are testing this weekend with Hull v Salford. Really positive stuff. Though I haven't actually used the Our League app yet and I hear it's tosh so hopefully they'll get some professionals in to make it better.
All in all, I think I'm probably more optimistic about the future of this sport than I have been in about 10-15 years. With the way our club is going as well, it's just a really exciting time to be a fan atm
My only concern with the gradings is there seems to be no mention of pathway systems and community engagement from a devleopment persepctive through foundations etc. I hope this is addressed through one of the other categories as it's a crucial building block to be a successful club.
All well and good setting criteria but are they going to enforce it - like the RFL didn't/don't? Think how different SL would be if they did. No Wakey for a start, possibly no Cas, but Toulouse in? I'm all for it so long as its enforced.
The main difference for me is it seems to be much more quantifiable and is a far more transparent system with the way it is marked. The RFLs was a wishy washy 'aiming towards' and 'showing progress' nonsense, with this system it will be clearand obvious which clubs are underperforming.
Nice breakdowns. Very transparent. Good set of requirements.
I can't help myself. I am going need a spreadsheet!!!!!
I could agree with you but then we would both be wrong.
Do we know the clubs voting criteria? Is it a majority vote or does it need to 75% in favour or does it have to be unanimous?
For me the difference is that IMG are not saying that they need to have X size stadium or Y size crowd or earn Z income. They will just be reporting what the facts are for each club. It is largely down to the club to be as good as they can in all of the areas. If they cannot build a massive new stadium then they had better get good at Social media. The Grade will be granted every year - not once and then wait 3 years to review.
Initially I thought that too - but the catchment area for each club must be agreed - it may even already be in place for recruitment etc. They are not going to reward a club because it is the only one in a county as most other clubs will not be based on their county simply because it doesnt make sense look at Leeds and compare them to York - both in Yorkshire but are more likely to have the catchment area defined for them rather than the county boundary.
On this point Leeds will be hit harder than most super league clubs as there are 3 or 4 pro clubs within leeds
To some extent that is likely to be covered under the fandom aspect of the ratings. These are minimum standards I believe, so if you’re close to another club, things like the pathways, community could set you apart.
St Helens Rugby League Football Club
Could that not be under the 'Catchment' section? I agree, it's enormously important.
I had a conversation with someone who suggested it isn't specifically mentioned as it will be addressed across a number of the criterion which does make sense. I think the fact both your replies refer to this but relate to different criterion probably support that.
I've already seen representatives from Keighley and Batley complaining about it, so I don't think it is going to get anywhere near unanimous agreement - hopefully there is some weighting to the votes of actual Super League clubs.
Ironically, in my view this proposal gives the likes of Keighley and Batley a better chance of getting promoted than through on field results. If they can tick some of the boxes for engagement and supporter growth, they could quickly overtake Wakefield and Featherstone in a few areas that would take years of investment on the field.
the catchment area is going to be a tricky one; even though clubs may be close to each other physically, it makes no sense for Wigan to target people from St Helens and vice versa. I guess it will fall on the clubs to demonstrate how they are going to expand their catchment area into untapped areas e.g. Saints into Merseyside, Wigan into Lancashire/Bolton, Warrington into Cheshire etc...
Featherstone/Wakey/Cas have it hard. Realistically, they each have their own village/town to target and will be hard to expand out of their own current boundaries. 1 club in Super League in that area really does make sense, and could be a really strong proposition - either one of the current teams or a merged team...
There are small details in the document. It seems to refer to the city or the town. So it will be the census population of St Helens and the census population of Wigan.
The only grey area is do Wigan get punished for Leigh, Leeds for Hunslet etc. Hull FC/Hull KR is pretty clear but the rest need clarification.
I assume some teams will try pull a fast one and claim to be a regional team, but the requirements don't seem to factor in regions.
I could agree with you but then we would both be wrong.
Yes. They should class Leigh as having the population of Wigan as Wigan don't have their own ground. They should also get pinged for having no big screen of their own or any LED lights either.
Does the LED lights criteria mean we will get out disco ball back
Do we get a trophy for scoring full marks on the performance aspect? I hope not, we’ll have absolutely nowhere to keep it.
St Helens Rugby League Football Club
Looks good in principle
I read that only St Helens, Leeds and Warrington will get an ‘A’ grading
Everyone else will need to catch up
Don't forget that we have great scouting up in Cumbria - had a few good players from up there.
Also, don't we have some sort of link up with Wigan St. Pats ??
Reminds me of Covid when when different areas had different grades about going out,mixing etc, a load of hot air about nothing
The chairman has LED lights on his Range Rover does that count?
News is Derek Beaumont has taken the plasma TV out of the Leigh board room and is currently up the side of the floodlights installing it.
I could agree with you but then we would both be wrong.
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