Are Leigh in danger of relegation in 2024?

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The accepted (and probably accurate) view in Rugby League circles is that London Broncos will participate in Super League for one season in 2024 and then be relegated to the Championship. 

Before I started writing this piece, the preconception that I had was that Leigh are the other current Super League team who were at the greatest risk of dropping out. I decided to dive into the data and criteria to see if my perception was correct.

Grading System and 2024 Indicative Scores

From 2025, a new 'grading' system comes into place and the top 12 teams will make up Super League. In October 2023, indicative gradings were published, showing what would have happened in the system had been 'live' from 2024.

Castleford came out in 13th spot and would have lost their Super League status. They appealed their grading on the basis that some financial data was incorrect. 

Whilst the appeal was rejected, the RFL accepted that, had the correct data being used, Castleford's score would have been 12.91, moving them about both Leigh and Wakefield (thus securing a Super League place). It is hard to fathom that Castleford will make this error again when the system is live.

Where do we start? Leigh outside of Super League!

Going into the 2024 season, Leigh realistically sit in 13th place and outside of a Super League spot. They are only just behind Wakefield. I wondered whether they can realistically make up the points and stay in Super League. The only way of assessing this is by taking a detailed look at the published Grading Handbook and Criteria.

Performance

Let's start by looking at the criteria for on-field performance.

My assessment here does include some assumptions. Those being:

1. Leigh do not retain the Challenge Cup (nor do they win the Super League) and therefore lose 0.25 points. 

2. Wakefield win both the 1895 Cup and Championship and therefore gain 0.35 points.

If this happened, Leigh's score would reduce to 12.2 points and Wakefield's would increase to 12.87 points.

So Leigh stand a realistic chance of having a starting point of being 0.67 points behind Wakefield, 0.71 points behind Castleford and 0.77 points behind Toulouse. How do they make up these points?

Attendances

One place Leigh could start is by a modest increase in attendances. Here are the relevant criteria and number of available points:

Leigh's average attendance in 2023 was 7,254. If they can increase this by just a few hundred, they will crack the 7,500 barrier and gain an extra 0.5 points.

By comparison, Wakefield and Toulouse are unlikely to average more than 7,500 (but will average more than 3,000). As for Castleford, their average attendance in 2023 was 6,976. It's not impossible that they increase to over 7,500, but Leigh are starting from a higher baseline.

Leigh have sold more season tickets than last year, which helps them. But, they only have one home fixture against Wigan this year (compared to two last year, including one which was a sell out). That makes things tougher.

Other Criteria

There are other criteria such as website views and social media engagement where there may be points up for grabs, but from a lay perspective, it is impossible to know how many.

Equally, Leigh may have the possibility of another 0.25 points that is brought about by the increased TV viewership that another year in Super League will bring (though having all games televised may drag down that average as the audience is split).

What I did find interesting were comments from Derek Beaumont in December. He said that Leigh would increase to being a Grade A club by 2025, on the basis of their financial position. Here are the relevant criteria:

Let's start with what we do know. There are up to 4.5 points available for financial performance. There are 0.5 points available for an increase in owner investment. That is entirely within Derek Beaumont's gift.

Though we must remember that all three other sides vying for those final Super League spots have also enjoyed new investment over the last 12 months.

It is likely that non-centralised turnover will have increased as a result of Leigh's Challenge Cup success. Only those inside Leigh will truly know how their financial performance is looking.

I am conscious that this post is long enough already so I won't go chapter and verse on this, but it seems to me that Leigh's score for their stadium will remain the same.

The next criteria is based on catchment. Arguably, the most controversial of all as there is nothing that any club can do that changes this score.

Points are also available based upon a club's foundation and its turnover. Again, the public are not privy to these details.

Conclusions

Our new grading system is one that is supposed to based on transparency. I have looked in quite significant depth at the grading criteria for this piece but there are so many unknowns, because so much of the relevant data is only available to those running the clubs.

What has also become apparent to me is how fine the margins can be. There has to be a cut off, I know, but a difference of 0.5 points between a club which averages crowds of 7,498 and one that averages 7,505 just does not seem right to me. 

If a club was on that 7,500 borderline, it may be worthwhile an owner flinging the doors open for the final game of the season to get over that line! A more tapered system would seem fairer.

There is an expectation that the BBC will broadcast some Super League matches in 2024. Because that is free-to-air, clubs selected more by the BBC are more likely to see an increase on their average viewing figures.

The system seeks to bring stability but from the indicative grades we can see how close several clubs are. And because so much of the data (i.e. finances and social media engagements) remain private, if you are a club who is on the Super League / Championship borderline, it is very difficult to be certain of which side of the line you will fall.

These grades are reviewed annually. We will only know the make up of the Super League and Championship after the seasons have finished. That is later than we know them under a traditional promotion and relegation system. That is the antithesis of stability.

And from the point of view of the purist, I'd rather the actions of Lachlan Lam and Matt Moylan be the focus of our attention and determinative of Leigh's Super League status, rather than whether Leigh can get an average of 247 more people through the gate in 2024 or have more people watch their TikTok videos.

If I have taken one lesson from this exercise it is not to believe any article that you will read over the course of this year which uses language of certainty to tell you who will be in Super League in 2025. It is impossible to know, even for the owners and executives of the effected clubs.

UPDATE: Since this was published, Derek Beaumont has responded via Twitter and provided some further detail concerning Leigh's financial performance / score for that aspect of the criteria.

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