Are we ready for Super7 format?

Beginning this MY-NPL ’09 season, D1 teams will be playing in 7man format. It’s an ideal time for MY-NPL being on it’s 4th Cycle to move on from the 5man format to streamline with the NPPL format which is the 7man format of play. Most D1 teams have had a taste of the 7man format with 2 MY-NPL Super7 tournaments in 2006 & 2007(actual event was in January ’08) & the recent Malaysian Super 7 Tournament.

But are we actually ready for it?

I would like to share my thoughts on a few factors that I feel could make or break this format for this ’09 MY-NPL season.

a) Players

Every team will have to expand their player roster for their ’09 season. Almost every D1 team currently have a roster of 7-8 players in their line up but needs to add another 2-3 more to complete the team line up for Super7.Say there’s 8 competitive D1 team playing Super7 next year and with no D1 team disbanding to pick off their players then where are these 16-21 guys/gals gonna come from?

I can see 3 scenarios where bigger or better off teams will cheery pick players from smaller & weaker teams & in doing so spells the doom for the smaller teams. I also see most teams picking up Free Agents players from MPOC league to strengthen their line up. Most team will have hired guns to try to give the top teams a run for their money in the new format.

Most team are still doing their behind the scene recruiting, with good players being approach left,right,center & back for their signature but so far there haven’t been any news of player movement from any D1 team…………..or maybe there have been?

b) Cost

Can a team sustain the cost of playing 7man, not only for 1 leg but for all 5 legs? Teams that feel they just break even playing Super5 will need to have a full roster of 10 players to break even in the Super7 format. Playing with a roster of 7-8 players will certainly set back each player an extra RM200-RM300 min for each leg and here’s when we see teams dropping out from playing a certain leg to concentrate on others. In this years D1 Super5 format, a total of 12 teams played in at least 1 leg of MY-NPL and but only 6 teams played in all 5 legs. Makes you wonder how many team will play in all 5 leg of the Super7 ’09 season.

c) Prize Money

The good new is the cash price has gone up by RM1000 making it RM5000 + 10 boxes of pallet for the champ. Still the league with the highest prize money, thank you.

The bad news, hmmmmm how about that unless you have a roster of 10 players in your team then like I wrote before you will be having a cost increase of say about RM200-RM300/player.There will definitely be an increase in paint consumption, at least an extra 3-5 boxes min.

Let take an example of a 3rd placing team. They will play a min of 14 game and a max of 17 game till finish. They will use up say maybe around min 22 boxes of paint. Cost will be RM4400 for paint + RM900 registration. Total being RM5300. 3rd placing winner gets RM5k(paint included) so that’s a lost of RM300.Good new you won’t be paying next leg entry fees but I still believe that top3 finisher should always break even & not play at a lost.

Here’s when it get interesting, say there’s only 9 team playing for any certain leg then that’s a deduction of 30% from the total cash price money. Your 3rd placing RM3000 is now RM2100.From my calculation even the 2nd place finisher will be playing at a lost.

So, are we ready for Super7 format?

p/s : please post your comments & feedbacks so that any positive & negative inputs can be channel to the relevant people effectively.