I can understand why he'd be cautious about Toronto with reports of players not being paid and debts being chased. There is also the practicality of having Toronto in SL. Unlike the RFL, the SL wont allow Toronto to dictate whether they play their games in blocks etc.

I think all SL want is assurances that they wont go pop and that they can cover the funding required to get teams to and from Canada. This is why I don't think they'll give them the Sky money as they could just take the money then fold 6 months down the line.

You could apply that argument to any club that relies on the benevolence of an owner (that's more than half of the league at a conservative guess). Even Wigan's last accounts includes a warning from the auditor about their long-term financial viability.

The comments from Elstone smack of a protectionist shake-down to me.

If Toronto are providing one 12th of the entertainment to the Sky product, then I don't think its unreasonable for them to expect a share of one 12th of the TV deal. At the end of the day, the SL clubs should be working together to collectively add value to the TV deals, be those in the UK, France, North Amercia, Australia or anywhere else where SL may have TV appeal as and when each respective one materialises, with everyone reaping the respective rewards. We don't want to be in a position that Spanish football is in whereby each team negotiates their own TV deal, creating huge inbalances in financial power.

Personally, I would also make the argument that top-flight sports clubs should be capable of making and paying for their own travel arrangements. When you're dealing with part-time players, it's fine to fly them economy class and put them up in university dorms for what is, in many respects, an all-expenses paid jolly-up. But for professional, elite athletes? They do and should expect more and the clubs will (or should) have their own views on the best travel arrangements for them. Most clubs can usually find the money for a winter training week at Browns or La Santa - take it out of that budget if necessary.

To me this just smacks of club owners doing anything possible to reduce their cost base to hide their failure to grow. They tried putting the cost burden on the players by consistently voting for real terms pay cuts and now they're trying to shake down expansion teams for all they are worth. At some point we have to ask why, after 20 years of reducing player salaries and growing TV deals, are our clubs still skint?

I agree with most of what you are saying.
Mind you, if the current 11 SL clubs are to share circa 1.65 million between them, this will more than cover the cost of a trip over to Toronto.

However, if Toronto are ever going to get close to becoming a viable sports club, without massive help from their consortium of backers, surely they should be getting a slice of the SL revenue and you would think that they may, at some point, actually need it.

Where I dont agree with you is where you state " this just smacks of club owners doing anything possible to reduce their cost base to hide their failure to grow" (see above).

I know this has been done to death but, in a sport where none of the clubs in the top flight are in rude health, adding clubs form N.America, will do little to increase the revenue of the existing SL club, in fact, it would be an additional cost, albeit offset by splitting the new clubs' share of the TV contract.
Also, whilst accepting that it's up to each individual club to generate interest in their home fixtures and improve their own attendances etc, with the proposed cap of 3 overseas clubs, that would be 3 fixtures, plus London, where there are very few away fans attending games and regardless of who's responsibility it may be to get bums on seats, the absolute lack of fans certainly takes something away from the matchday experience.

On this subject, Elstone missed a trick.
Rather than capping the number of overseas clubs, perhaps there should have just been a guarantee of the number of "domestic" sides
Fundamentally, I dont believe our sport can sustain the increasing number of overseas sides in SL and maybe there should be a different way found for allowing the sport to grow in these "new" territories ?

We've gone over this ground many times before and I think it's safe to say that we don't necessarily see eye-to-eye on this one, but how many clubs actually make away fans a part of the experience that they sell? I cannot think of a single time when the deciding factor of whether or not I buy a ticket has been the 'lack of atmosphere because there aren't enough away fans'.

The clubs have the power to really define the matchday experience that they deliver and sell - most of the matchday experience is focused on home supporters (the live bands playing in the South Stand concourse at half/full-time aren't playing to any away fans). You can create something that the people of <insert heartland town/city> want to buy without needing away fans to be a part of this.

Yes I get that away fans can add something, but that doesn't mean that we pay undue attention to something that, in the grand scheme of things, is an issue that cannot be overcome with some gumption and creative thinking. Away fans should be seen as a bonus, they shouldn't be driving how and why we do things.

The band at Leeds & Cowbell at Huddersfield would be reasons not to attend games at Headingley or The John Smiths Stadium.
However, I fundamentally disagree with you regarding the atmosphere.

Most derby games have "a better atmosphere" than say London or Catalan coming to town.

It seems ridiculous to suggest that having attended say Wakefield v Cas and then Wakefield v London, that you would prefer to go to another Wakefield v London game in preference to the derby game.
Equally, the old Leeds v Bradford games were on a different level to Leeds v Huddersfield or Leeds v Salford.

Therefore, regardless of direct income from these games, I'm sure that the majority of fans would pick the derby fixture.
Conversely, Leeds v Catalan at Headingley will have more thrown at it in terms of marketing than certain other fixtures.
Many clubs already include offers for the games where there are expected to be very few visiting spectators.

Of course, Toronto in the Championship, due to their huge spend on players, have been something different and despite their lack of travelling fans, the locals have come along in great numbers to see if their side could topple their big spending rivals.
This would be somewhat less attractive when the home side is spending similar amounts and should their winning bubble burst, which you would expect when they play Wigan, Saints and Warrington etc, some of their "allure" will disappear and they will likely become, "just another side", with no supporters.

I'm not making that point and I'm not disputing that local games have a better atmosphere than a game between distant rivals. I genuinely can't fathom how you've interpreted my comments that way. You didn't talk about atmosphere - you spoke about match experience.

The atmosphere is something that's hard to cultivate. It's based on many factors - local rivalry, reactions to on-field events, what's at stake, etc. It's something that we should try to preserve but to say that it relies on away fans to do that isn't accurate. Some of the best atmosphere's I have been in, in many different sports, have been where there have been no away fans in the ground.

Matchday experience is something that a club can influence. It can be something such as pre-match or post-match entertainment (that's what the South Stand concourse live music was refering to, not the bloke with the trumpet). It can be influenced by things such as the choice of food and refreshment - is there a good choice or is it the usual crap of boiled burgers and toilet water Carlsberg and Carling are bottling these days, for example? It can be influenced by the quality of facilities and views, for example - all stuff that is in the control of the clubs irrespective of away fans.



Two things here.

Firstly, the decision to pick that game probably has little to do with how many away fans are there and more to do with the overall appeal of the fixture itself. Wigan v St Helens/Warrington, St Helens v Warrington and Leeds v Bradford/Castleford would usually (Leeds' recent form excepted) have something big riding on it - that is what draws in the punters.

Secondly, the recent fan fatigue around loop fixtures suggests that "more of that" is not the right approach. Fans aren't chosing to go to those derbies because, the chances are, there is another one along very soon.



That fall in crowds isn't inevitable if the clubs can make those games something that locals want to buy. Yes, derbies will always hold more appeal but that doesn't mean that clubs cannot sell any given fixture with the right approach. There is so much attention and focus placed on the notion of away fans which, whether you approach it from either a financial perspective or more intangible perspective, is too small a factor in my view to be allowed to dictate the direction of travel for this sport.

There are so many assumptions of what will or won't happen but these are largely based on how clubs are promoting themselves now - and the consensus for many years seems to be that those methods need to change. Why not start that change now?