Super League stands on the brink of a landmark agreement with the NRL \u2013 but fresh reports have suggested there is a new sticking point.<\/p>\n
Peter V\u2019Landys met with all clubs last week and outlined his vision for the competition, but it has now been suggested that any deal is contingent on London Broncos being brought into Super League.<\/p>\n
And that does not quite have as much support as the wider deal itself as it stands. Love Rugby League has spoken to people on both sides of the deal to gain an understanding of the situation.<\/p>\n
Crucially, one key omission from any reporting in Australia is when V\u2019Landys and the NRL would want London in by. It only mentions a desire to bring London into Super League, it does not suggest whether that would be for 2027 or not.<\/p>\n
And this is where things begin to get interesting.<\/p>\n
Super League support for NRL deal<\/p>\n
To be clear, that growing support for an NRL partnership is there \u2013 with almost every single club now on board and in favour. That includes long-held critics of the prospect of a deal, who were reportedly won over by V\u2019Landys\u2019 vision for the competition and what he would like to do: as well as the investment the NRL are prepared to put in.<\/p>\n
So in one sense, the last seven days have seen a significant step forwards.<\/p>\n
But that near-unanimous support for a partnership between the two competitions is not as strong when it comes to London Broncos. That is not necessarily because it is London: far from it, in fact. There are plenty of admirers of the Broncos at some of Super League\u2019s biggest clubs since their new ownership group came in.<\/p>\n
It is because it would open the possibility of a 15th team entering Super League. Some supporters of that idea believe it would aid player welfare; with the introduction of a bye round twice a year for clubs that would enable them to give their stars well-earned rests.<\/p>\n
That is true on one hand, but Love Rugby League has been told of concerns over the logistics of admitting a 15th team so late in proceedings \u2013 plans are well underway for the scheduling of 2027 already, for example.<\/p>\n
The problems over \u2018team 15\u2019<\/p>\n
Adding a 15th team \u2013 whether it is London or anyone else \u2013 creates some big questions that need answering:<\/p>\n
Would everyone still play every team twice as well as Magic?
\nIf so that makes 29 games: where are the two extra weeks in an already-congested domestic calendar coming from?
\nHow is funding shared across 15 teams compared to 14 teams?
\nWould Magic effectively become a \u2018home\u2019 game for seven teams to make a 28-game season: and if so, how are the revenues from the event subsequently distributed? Do the seven away teams miss out?
\nHow does 15 teams impact the formatting of next year\u2019s Challenge Cup?
\nIs there enough player quality for 15 elite teams now?<\/p>\n
These are not questions that are insurmountable. But as mentioned, plans for 2027 are now accelerating at pace and it may be this is all happening a little bit too late for Super League clubs.<\/p>\n
The alternative, of course, is London are part of the 14. Still a theoretically possible scenario via the IMG gradings next month, but perhaps not as likely as it was for a few reasons Love Rugby League will outline in a further article.<\/p>\n
It would appear to be increasingly likely that the game\u2019s powerbrokers would have to bypass the gradings to get London into a 14-team Super League as it stands: the big question there is two-fold \u2013 who goes, and how do you remove them?<\/p>\n
It may well be that London are given guarantees of assured entry into Super League in 2028 as a contingency of an NRL deal which would satisfy Super League teams in the short-term, and also the Broncos in the medium-term.<\/p>\n
That would give London another 12 months to be Super League ready, providing their ownership group of Grant Wechsel and Darren Lockyer are content with that. Supporters of London among the top-flight clubs believe that would be a satisfactory compromise agreement.<\/p>\n
Of course, that would then start a whole other debate about how you get them in. But for now, London \u2013 or any 15th team \u2013 in Super League as early as 2027 appears to be a sticking point that all parties may have to find a compromise on.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Super League stands on the brink of a landmark agreement with the NRL \u2013 but fresh reports have…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":895459,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[568],"tags":[64,63,761,762,158,85],"class_list":["post-895458","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nrl","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-national-rugby-league","tag-nationalrugbyleague","tag-nrl","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/895458","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=895458"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/895458\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/895459"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=895458"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=895458"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=895458"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}