Was there anything specific people disliked about Superclub?
Though I don't think it is a direct comparison, as I think we played some meaningless Plate round whilst the national one took place - which would have had advantages in knowing the length of the season.
The general standard of play got worse as the top players spread around more clubs.
This is the key concern for me. Best players spread around more clubs, and clubs throwing money at players in an attempt to get to the 'national' stage of the competition. That in turn will just inflate player prices, so even average players who have no business being in the national league will have silly money thrown at them.
The end result could easily be worse standard of play but no reduction in costs (and possibly an increase for quite a few clubs).
talk through why you see that as being a bad thing
The quality won't be concentrated. If you have 100 top players in the country capable of playing in a national league, theoretically you should get a better standard of competition if you fit them in 8 teams rather than 15 or 20. And opening it up to that many clubs just means that more donkey ends up playing the national league and getting paid for it.
The flipside is that under the current arrangement the best players aren't evenly spread across the 8 teams, so it just ends up being a race between ACFC and TeeDubs, with ES coming in to join it over the last 2-3 years. But the overall standard of the national league has notably lifted over the last 4-5 years, and I can see it crashing down in no time under a superclub-type model.
what do you want out of the league?
Watching strong teams play? Fiscal sustainability? Development opportunities for players and coaches? Experienced players guiding players with potential? Locals playing?
currently there is eight teams of mediocre quality (HB on weekend), not geographically spread (any more), full of imports (covid has helped), big wages, poor crowds, big egos, minimal football community buy-in.
Feasibly you could get a higher standard in the National Payoffs than the current National League. The best in-form teams in the country - rather than those obliged to fill a slot in a league - something two teams couldn't even do this year.
ps Donkeys get paid to play already, and clubs chase winning third tier comps with $
100%. But we don't need to encourage it even more, do we