Have London Broncos Broken IMG?

I am sorry but I am about to drop the C bomb. Christmas. I know, I know, it's only October but it's coming! The time of year that products are rushed out for consumers. Some of you may find a game under your Christmas tree this year. Let's take a moment to think how it got there.

Before any game hits the shelves and is played by a consumer, it is extensively 'play-tested'. This means that developers play these games repeatedly, trying all sorts of different techniques, with the intention of 'breaking' the game; finding an error that renders it flawed.

When they do, it is back to the drawing board, the flaw is ironed out and you play test again. A lot of work goes in to games to ensure, to the best extent possible, they are unbreakable.

This is a Rugby League blog. So what does this have to do with anything? Well, the sport is set to introduce a new licensing system from 2025 and I wondered whether IMG and the RFL have done the equivalent of play-testing the new system before it is introduced.

I would suggest that the indicative grading process, the results of which are reported to be published next week, is the 'play test'. London Broncos' unexpected promotion to Super League for 2024 may mean that we are about to see a play test in real time. It represents the first major test of the IMG model. I'll explain why.

Three Years

As a reminder, the gradings (and therefore places in Super League from 2025) will be based on performance during the last three seasons. The criteria used to assess all clubs means that those who have played the most in Super League are at an advantage.

Your TV viewing figures, your attendances, your league placing, your turnover to name but four. Better 'scores' in all of these aspects are easier to achieve by playing in Super League. If you are a Championship club or have played in that league for two of the last three seasons, it is hard to overhaul an established Super League club.

By the end of 2024, there will be 10 teams in Super League who have been there for the last three seasons. There are then four teams who have spent part of the last three years in Super League and part in the Championship. Leigh and Wakefield will have spent two seasons in Super League, Toulouse and London will have spent one season in Super League.

Leigh's excellent on-field performance last season, including a Challenge Cup win, means they are almost certain to retain Super League status. By having two years of the last three in Super League, Wakefield also hold an advantage over Toulouse and London, who have had just one.

12 Teams

There appears to be little appetite amongst Super League clubs to expand the league to 14 clubs, say, to accommodate the likes of Wakefield, Toulouse and London.

And understandably so. The value of the Super League TV deal has reduced substantially in recent years and therefore central funding has fell. Clubs are therefore reticent to spread their ever-reducing central funding even thinner.

1 Sleeping Giant

IMG's Vice President for Sports Management, Matt Dwyer, described London as a "sleeping giant" for Rugby League in December 2022. This is as close to an explicit remark or endorsement as you will see. It suggests that IMG see London as of particular strategic importance to the sport.

I would recommend reading Mr Dwyer's comments in the link above. They suggest that IMG believed that London would build gradually towards a Super League presence. No serious consideration was given to the fact that London may earn on field promotion in 2023.

London finished 11th in the Championship in 2022. They lost four of their first five matches this season. You would have been mocked had you suggested, at that stage, that London would have earned promotion on the field.

If IMG's criteria are strictly applied over the last three years to determine the make up of Super League in 2025, it is very difficult to see how London will finish any higher than 14th. 

To reiterate, they finished 11th in the Championship in 2022. They average crowds of less than 1,000. They do not have primacy of tenure at their stadium. They have a low turnover. Their TV viewing figures will be lower than other Super League clubs. 

The great irony is that the new licensing system was meant to provide the opportunity for clubs to build without the threat of automatic relegation. But for London, the opposite may be true.

With a straight promotion and relegation system, London would have to finish 11th in Super League in 2024 to retain a place in the top flight for the next season. 

Under the IMG system, it is possible that London could even finish mid-table in Super League in 2024 and, if the criteria are applied, still be relegated to the Championship for 2025.

1 Almighty Bind

This leaves IMG with a seemingly unsquarable circle. Their leaders have praised the virtues of London and tried to design a system that allows the sport to expand and grow in a sustainable manner.

Yet, due to a combination of London's wildly contrasting on-field performances in 2022 and 2023, their unexpected promotion and off field limitations highlighted above, if these criteria are applied as expected, they will almost certainly see London relegated back to the Championship in 2025 and there is almost nothing the club can do between now and then to stop that.

If London were immediately sent back to the Championship in 2025, it would make a mockery of the proposition that this new system is one that allows teams to build.

IMG do have another choice. They could decide London is of such strategic importance that they should be kept in Super League, even if 12, 13 or more clubs get better grades than London.

If that was to happen, the sport would inevitably face legal action from clubs who were 'locked out' of Super League despite having a higher grade than London. 

It would also expose the IMG system as not the data-driven system that it is made out but a mere facade to allow men in suits to hand-pick the teams they want to play in Super League.

IMG and the RFL now find themselves with two options in dealing with London Broncos. Stick with the criteria rigidly, kick them out of Super League in 2025 and undermine the entire premise of your new system of purported stability at the first opportunity.

Or, deviate from your criteria which you have spent years telling everyone was the saviour of the sport, throw years of work in the bin and destroy the credibility of your criteria-based system.

Both choices are bad.

Process v Chaos

The IMG system is data-driven and has been sold on the basis that it is not subjective, but an objective measure of clubs against measurable and quantifiable criteria. There shall be no favourtism and no derrogation.

The problem we have is that on-field sport is the total opposite. Sport thrives on chaos and unpredictability. That's when it is as it's best. Logically, Leigh should not have won the Challenge Cup. London should not have earned promotion to Super League. Both achievements defy logic but it is these underdog tales what make sport so appealing to so many.

The transition from a system which is prioritises on field competition and its unpredictable nature to one which is based on empirical data will lead to friction.

You may select and implement whatever criteria you like but you cannot legislate for every possibility, particularly in something as chaotic as sport.

London's on-field promotion is arguably the biggest test the new system could face. An expansion club who, realistically, had no expectation of being promoted now sits at the top table. And it does so far sooner than anyone would have thought. Arguably, it does so before it is truly ready.

IMG now face an invidious choice in how to deal with London, which they would not have faced had London performed as expected and not made it to Super League in 2024.

It is not immediately obvious how this riddle can be resolved with the licensing system keeping its reputation intact. 

London's on-field excellence has exposed a gaping flaw in our new structure. And it has done so before the structure has even being introduced.

The cynic in me suggests this may be why the indicative gradings, promised this week, have now been delayed.