So my thoughts on Promotion and relegation – Change it completely!

12th placed Premiership team plays the 1st placed Championship team – neutral venue to maximise ticket revenue.  This would a be play-off final for the Championship team so may well draw a bigger than normal crowd. Match televised as part of the BT Sport premiership rugby broadcast deal. Winner takes all i.e. promotion or relegation
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11th placed premiership team plays 2nd place in the championship also at a neutral venue. This would a be play-off final for the Championship team so may well draw a bigger than normal crowd. Match televised as part of the BT Sport premiership rugby broadcast deal.

Although you would expect the 11th placed premiership team to win it does give the opportunity for the Championship team to get promoted and so increases the opportunity in the Championship league, which would lead to high investment as there is more chance of reaching the promise land.  As we all know the team going down is highly likely to come straight back up in the next season due to squad strength, yes there are exceptions, but 90% of the time this is the case. This gives the other clubs a chance and hope without having to throw massive sums gambling on promotion and so should improve the long term viability of the clubs in the championship.

Some will say what if the 1st or 2nd place Championship team does win and achieve promotion but doesn’t have a stadium that meet Premiership Standards, easy, relax the standard its not enforced on the existing Premiership clubs anyway! If the playing surface is safe and they can erect temporary safe structures for the TV coverage then why not let them in with smaller grounds, who does it hurt but the clubs themselves through less ticket revenue.

You could even make the Premiership final a double/triple header for one or both of the promotion matches.

Granted im not in any position to change Premiership Rugby policy but would be interested to know what other think and if its a really stupid idea or not and why?

I fully agree it wont happen, but i think it would help make the Championship more stable and help to produce an effective 2nd tier league that could slowly grow and contribute to the future of domestic rugby,

I think that one problem that Championship teams have is that they can't recruit if they don't know if they are going to be promoted or not. I think that there possibly needs to be a "big game" type event after 1/2 of the Championship season where the team that is 1st at the half way point plays the promotion game. If they win promotion, then they can spend the rest of the season bolstering their squad.

Is it not possible to run the Championship a month or so earlier? Surely that would address the recruitment issue? Might also pick up more viewership if it started earlier than the Prem - I know I'd watch it, given how desperate I am for some club rugby right about now.

I do think temporary ringfencing is inevitable though - and probably necessary.

That sounds very sensible.

I can fully see the argument for ring-fencing, and am not unsupportive of it, but a reasonable compromise would be an end-of season relegation play-off just involving the bottom Premiership and top Championship sides, at a neutral location, winner-takes-all.

I think that one problem that Championship teams have is that they can't recruit if they don't know if they are going to be promoted or not. I think that there possibly needs to be a "big game" type event after 1/2 of the Championship season where the team that is 1st at the half way point plays the promotion game. If they win promotion, then they can spend the rest of the season bolstering their squad.

This may sound flippant but what would be the point of the rest of the season? It still gives the issues of dead rubbers at the bottom of the Prem and now also at the top of the Championship - and now from January.