Toronto Head to Canada in Top Spot Toronto Wolfpack will head to Canada for their first home game after eleven rounds of Championship rugby with a ten win record, and a four-point lead at the top of the table, after their 23-14 win over Featherstone Rovers., But the game was a lot tighter than the scoreline suggest, and for a period, Rovers looked in spitting distance of a famous win. READ MORE ON THIS STORY...

Toronto Head to Canada in Top Spot Toronto Wolfpack will head to Canada for their first home game after eleven rounds of Championship rugby with a ten win record, and a four-point lead at the top of the table, after their 23-14 win over Featherstone Rovers., But the game was a lot tighter than the scoreline suggest, and for a period, Rovers looked in spitting distance of a famous win. READ MORE ON THIS STORY...

1. SKY have started to lose subscribers (https://www.stuff.co.nz/business/industries/96015124) here in a trend replicated all over the world. I had a party at mine last weekend where one room had the NRL on the other the All Blacks......both on internet streams with sites such as mobdro. 2. Toronto are great ad what a start.....but London averaged nearly 10k in year one......I hope that the Perez/Aussie Cash apex continues, but one swallow and all that...... 3. As a long term London fan I am fully aware of the timescales involved in developing players to a new sport.....and Canadians aren't as precious as we are when it comes to "needing" locals playing for them...ask the "J's" 4. The major difference is that Perez understands the need to market and to keep marketing. The Funding issue won't trouble them until they hit SL......then they'll really need to dig deep, but yeah, his enthusiasm is refreshing! 5. How long do you think it will be before larger sporting clubs broadcast their own games live to their own audiences? Remember, the 1st i-Phone is 10 years old this year.....and the stuff we can do now makes that look like it was steam powered. 6. RL is not at a cross roads.......it's broken down at the side of the road and it needs more like Toronto to come and give it a Jump-Start! 7. Part time at the 2nd tier is fine....but a strong, professional and PROFITABLE game at the front is a must!

1. SKY have started to lose subscribers (https://www.stuff.co.nz/business/industries/96015124) here in a trend replicated all over the world. I had a party at mine last weekend where one room had the NRL on the other the All Blacks......both on internet streams with sites such as mobdro. 2. Toronto are great ad what a start.....but London averaged nearly 10k in year one......I hope that the Perez/Aussie Cash apex continues, but one swallow and all that...... 3. As a long term London fan I am fully aware of the timescales involved in developing players to a new sport.....and Canadians aren't as precious as we are when it comes to "needing" locals playing for them...ask the "J's" 4. The major difference is that Perez understands the need to market and to keep marketing. The Funding issue won't trouble them until they hit SL......then they'll really need to dig deep, but yeah, his enthusiasm is refreshing! 5. How long do you think it will be before larger sporting clubs broadcast their own games live to their own audiences? Remember, the 1st i-Phone is 10 years old this year.....and the stuff we can do now makes that look like it was steam powered. 6. RL is not at a cross roads.......it's broken down at the side of the road and it needs more like Toronto to come and give it a Jump-Start! 7. Part time at the 2nd tier is fine....but a strong, professional and PROFITABLE game at the front is a must!

Quote ="Facsimile"1. SKY have started to lose subscribers (https://www.stuff.co.nz/business/industries/96015124) here in a trend replicated all over the world. I had a party at mine last weekend where one room had the NRL on the other the All Blacks......both on internet streams with sites such as mobdro. '" Was it a delayed broadcast? I ask, because the AB's haven't played since last November.

Quote ="Facsimile"1. SKY have started to lose subscribers (https://www.stuff.co.nz/business/industries/96015124) here in a trend replicated all over the world. I had a party at mine last weekend where one room had the NRL on the other the All Blacks......both on internet streams with sites such as mobdro. '" Was it a delayed broadcast? I ask, because the AB's haven't played since last November.

To be top of the table after 11 away games is a fantastic achievement.

Really cannot wait for Toronto away next season. Gonna be class.

They have to secure promotion first

Let’s be honest tho how many people can afford to go to Toronto even if it is cheaper through whatever means it’s still gonna be a fair bit of money that not everyone has

Not much change from £1000 (maybe more) for flights and hotel for 3 days, plus spend.
Just wait until New York and Ottowa join the SL party.

My mate went when we played them in the middle 8s he spent £1300 in total not saying you can’t get it cheaper but it’s not like going on a jolly to Catalans

The atmosphere at games will just vanish. Less people will probably attend Catalan away games with more long haul trips involved, same with London away.

It's less of an achievement when you consider that they're based in this country, with all of their players being based here long term.
Oh and they're also spending a considerable amount more on their squad than any other side in the division.
I really can't wait until they're promoted and out of the division, they can become Super League's problem from then on and the Championship can get some balance back.

Fantastic achievement = Foregone conclusion

Any side spending possibly double that of their nearest rivals, should be top of the pile.
The side from a small pit village, near Cas, gave them a bit of a scare yesterday though

Not really. Thats why you boys are 3rd whilst Leeds and Wigan are bottom

1) No it's not, they are the only team with 2 'Marquee signings' and virtually a SL squad.
2) Toronto Barbarians haven't got promoted yet, and hopefully Toulouse will thrash them again...in the BIG ONE !

Come on, they've spent big, 2 years on the bounce, trying to buy their way into SL.
In Kevin Keegan style, I would love it if Toulouse or, even York could gain promotion in their place.

Proper rugby league clubs, and reasonably easy for the average SL fan to go and watch their side play, not that this seems to matter anymore

They will be cone in less than 5 years

gone

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I never understand this “they’re just buying their way into SL” or similar arguments were levied at Warrington trying to “buy their way to a trophy”.

Every club is trying to buy success. It’s simply a case of where each club thinks it’s money is worth more in achieving that end goal.

The difference between Warrington, spending the cap and having 2 marque players and Toronto is that Warrington are competing with the top sides in SL and probably not spending massively more than the other top spending sides in SL.
Toronto, on the other hand, are spending so much more than any of the other sides in the Championship, it takes away any meaningful competition, notwithstanding the fact that they have lost once and had a couple of scares along the way.
The disparity in spend within the Championship is already a bloody joke, with the top 4 getting 4/5/6 times more in funding than the rest but, Toronto are probably spending 2 or 3 times as much as any other club.
Sorry "Him" but, this isn't sport but, in RL, we no longer care about that stuff.

What is taking place is slightly surreal, a Canadian club, competing in what was a European competition, spending X times more than anyone else, playing a mere 7 games at their home ground etc, etc.

It just feels like RL has sold it's soul.

Of course there is interest when they play in England and so there should be but, is this really the way forward for RL.

It's a bit like Dubai as a tourist attraction, millions of tonnes of concrete poured onto the sand, al shiny and flashy but, not quite real.

More of a case of what each club can afford. Make no mistake EVERY club would be splashing cash like Warrington have and Leeds are beginning to do if they could. So basically any complaints about teams spending money is saying our more financially better clubs should be kept at the spending level of the weakest links in a division. Can you imagine Man City, Liverpool and Msn Utd being told they should only spend the same as Brighton, Burnley or Huddersfield?

Sports succeed when money is spent and for too long RL hasn’t. Interesting this week that Leeds apparently made an offer of £500k for Jake Connor and it was mostly shouted down as way too much money to spend on one player. 22 years ago Leeds spent £330k on a player, that over 2 decades later a club attempting to spend £500k is deemed silly money says a lot about our sport right now.

You do remember why the game switched from being a winter sport into being a summer sport dont you ?
RL was brought to it's knees by free spending clubs at the top of the old first division, when high transfer fees were the norm, especially when enticing players from Union and free spending Widnes and particularly Wigan brought the professional side of RL to within a whisker of going bust and Uncle Mo brokered a deal with sky which only became known halfway the season in 1994 ??
Wigan consequently moved in with their footballing namesakes and we all started to get used to summer rugby.
As part of the rules of the summer sport, a salary cap was introduced to prevent those very same clubs overspending and to bring some stability to a sport which was financially out of control.

So, why shouldn't clubs be able to spend whatever they want, why indeed.

If our sport was awash with the crazy money that exists in football, things could be different.
However, apart from 5/6 premier league sides, most of the cash in football is from TV revenue.

Although the salary cap hasn't worked 100% and there have still been casualties along the way and there should have been year on year increases, it has brought a level of stability to the game and it has also allowed for a more "even" competition, something which should be seen as a plus but, despite having a competition where almost any side can beat any other, "we" still cant sell the game as one of the most even, exciting and unpredictable professional sports on the planet.

That’s because the Salary Cap has been used to drag down the best clubs to lower clubs level.

If the likes of Man City and Liverpool were only allowed to spend as much as the likes of Burnley or Brighton do you think they’d be as huge an interest in the Premiership? Look at La Liga and the gap between Barca, the Madrid teams and others? In tennis, in the women’s game for years apart from Serena who couldn’t really call who would reach the last 4 of a Grand Slam. In the men’s game it was always usually Federer, Nadal, Murray and Djokovic. The next 100m final at the Olympics will probably be much tougher to call than the last 3 but I bet it doesn’t get the same hype and eyes watching it as when everybody tuned in to see Bolt win as expected.

Don’t confused a more even playing field with being better.

We’ve spent too long holding back the bigger clubs so the smaller ones could try and play catch-up and that’s hurt our sport as your best teams/players are what drive your sport forward. Did Tiger Woods dominating golf hurt it?

Really the salary cap in SL should have hit the £3m mark by now but we’re still stuck around £2m because some clubs can’t even manage that.