Rugby League needs to expand to survive as a sport. Jamie Peacock, Brian Noble and Jon Wilkin all agreed we need to take Rugby League to new places outside the M62 corridor. Catalan Dragons should be the blueprint for how to do that successfully.

Some flatcap supporters will not like this proposal, but it is vital for the future of the sport. Catalans were given admission straight into Super League and immunity from relegation. The same should have happened with The Toronto Wolfpack, who have wasted two years and a lot of David Argyle’s money easily beating semi professional clubs.

Wherever the next expansion venture is, if they have serious Super League ambitions and big financial backing, they should go straight into Super League and have no danger of relegation. The league needs to expand to 14 teams anyway to avoid loop fixtures, we should use this as an opportunity to add 2 new expansion clubs. Obviously 2018 is too soon, but we should plan for it now to make it happen in 2020.

All threads related to the pro,s and cons of expansion should go int this thread

This includes topics relating to the pros and cons of Toronto, the benefits of a second French team, who do you want to win the middle eights etc..

Topics about individual games can stay as separate but if they then turn into a general discussion about expansion etc then they will be merged.

Have to agree with OP, the game is dying away and needs big city franchises away from the heartlands. Expansion is needed for sure but it has to be done right.Catalans are a massive success story in this regard for us and hopefully Toronto can continue their early promise and make SL then consolidate there over the next few years. I still have hope at some point we can make London work.

People have been saying rugby league is dying since the 1970s. It never has.

1996 was the turning point between the two codes of rugby but all RL needs to do is allow clubs with money to spend that money and grow the game from the top down, not the bottom up. It’s as simple as that.

It doesn’t matter who that includes, even if that was as it is right now the game would be better, never mind including new clubs.

None of those English stats of the NRL would ever need to leave, other than to sample a different life. The sport would be better here if we could just keep hold of our lads.

If we can include new clubs to bring more money into the game then good (although I would dread a Catalans v Toronto Challenge Cup/Grand Final at Wembley/OT in front of 15000).

I’m gonna have to agree too. There are plenty of rugby areas in the UK that could be looked at. Yes, these are Union areas, however not everyone is suited to union. Union is very ‘body specific’ with what position you play in my opinion, whereas League anybody can have a go at. My guess is that there are plenty of young players in Union areas falling by the way side due to not being the correct shape for their position etc.. (maybe i haven’t worded it very well, but hopefully you get the gist of it). Areas such as Leicester are hot beds of Rugby talent and there is a lot of public interest in rugby in the area. I used to work in Leicester and the company I worked for was a Leicester Tigers sponsor and had a box there. Being a senior manager for the company at the time I was fortunate enough to be able to use the box whenever I wanted and I had many conversations at the games about League and the general comments were they enjoyed watching it on TV, but it didn’t have a presence in the area. I got the feeling that it would have been well supported there with a similar arrangement to how the 2 codes in Leeds are structured. I currently live in Derbyshire and just on the street I live on several people watch league on SKY and always shout me the day after a televised game to discuss it (they all watch Cas games on TV, but thats just so they can give me grief if we lose!). The interest is out there. With the correct work, structure and guidance there are several cities that could build well supported League clubs. The question is, do the powers that be in our sport have the brains and ability to make such projects work?? The bigger question is do they have the patience? The problem in our game of not giving things time to work could be the ultimate downfall of the long term future of the game - take the constant changing of league structures as an example. As always, only my opinion, some will slate me for it and others may agree, but only putting my point of view across.

Where's my Expansion 1 Flat Cappers 0 expansion post disappeared too??

Between 1998 and 2008 we had, I think, four clubs that proved capable of winning silverware. In the subsequent decade we've had eight by my reckoning (Saints, Wire, Cas, Hull, Hudds, Wigan, Catalans & Leeds). I'm not too fussed whether the competition is strengthened in the next decade by traditional or expansion clubs adding to the list of challengers but whichever can do that will be those that evolve. In contrast, those that offer their fans zero hope of success will be those that struggle - whether they be in Canada or Calderdale.

Areas of the country with no top Premier League side or top RU side:
Southport
Grimsby
Lincoln
Stoke
Chester
Sunderland
Plymouth
Shrewsbury
Blackpool
York
Peterborough
Southend-on-sea
Portsmouth
Derby
Preston
Lancaster
Middlesbrough
Bradford
Aldershot and Farnborough
Barnsley
Luton
Milton Keynes
Crawley
Mansfield
Swindon
Peterborough

London, Sheffield, Cardiff, Gateshead, Kent, Mansfield...all tried and failed in varying degrees. The expansionists can dress this up in which ever way they see fit, add some cliched business speak and call the traditionalists "flat cappers". The truth of the matter is, it been tried before and failed. Invest the misappropriated funding in the grass roots and build from there.

Fair comment. There is a lot of clichéd business speak doing the rounds. Unfortunately "invest in the grass roots" sounds equally intangible. Care to expand a bit?

London- full of top football and has RU teams
Sheffield- a football city
Cardiff- Prem footy team and RU hotbed

York and Bradford already have structures in place. Would it really be that difficult to get them back (in Bradfords case) into the top flight in an expanded SL with no stupid loop fixtures? As the ‘easy option’, ie; clubs with a structure already in place, we have Toronto, Toulouse, London, York, Bradford that could all be worked on. I’m also gonna add Leigh to that, even though their owner has thrown his toys out of the pram. I know Bradford have been shocking off the field in recent years, but I still think SL is a better place with a strong Bradford than without.

And a club ready and waiting to get the run to SL if they could get the opportunity to, stadium_check, backers_check, potential fanbase_check...
Manchester Rangers!

Already getting 250 fans attending eighth/ninth division games in this stadium:

The one in the foreground, on that huge sporting campus, where the RFL are moving to...

Yesterday has debunked the following myths:

1. Expansion into France has failed

2. French players are squad players and not key players for Catalans

3. McNamara is a rubbish coach who won't win anything and doesn't know what he's doing.

4. No one watches Catalans away from home

5. The BBC secretly hate RL and promote union as much as they can.

6. Catalan cant win away from home.

7. The French bottle it in the big games

8. Richard Lewis was wrong to put Catalans into a British SL and protect them with licensing.

9. Attendances matter and is what should be focused on

I'd love to see Rangers admitted into L1.

)
Many of those places are football towns through and through. I was an advocate of Milton Keynes about 15 years ago but that opportunity has gone, with the MK Dons now established.

London may not have succeeded too well club wise but has produced quite a few SL players. It has expanded the player pool.

My concerns around expansion are that we're risking destroying clubs and their long standing fan base, community heritage and family tradition, and weakening UK RL overall, for expansion clubs which have mostly been proven to fail.

Once those clubs and that tradition is gone, it's gone. If a team goes to the wall, it's all lost forever. If we throw (for example) Widnes, Wakey, Salford and Hudds out for expansion sides, our already weakened UK RL community becomes weaker as fans and tradition drift away. That affects TV audiences, sponsorship revenues, amateur playing numbers, online engagement and revenue, and more.

The elephant in the room is that if we fill SL with expansion and international teams, RL in the UK will shrink, not grow, and that is a disaster.

So what exactly is the goal with 'expansion'? If we end up with Catalans, Toulouse, Toronto, New York, Barcelona and whoever else in SL...what is the goal? Because it seems to me you're replacing medium sized UK clubs for medium sized expansion clubs. You're simply displacing the fan base for a club that - as we've seen over and over - could vanish in a heartbeat.

Is the goal a disjointed and contrived 'international' Super League? Or is it to establish competitions in France, North America and wherever else and eventually those teams rejoin their national leagues? Because either way, RL in the UK will be smaller and weaker. And that's before even talking about what a decreasing audience and interest does to sponsorship, advertising and TV revenues.

Furthermore, half your home games with zero visiting fans and a quiet, dull atmosphere, and being unable to attend half your away games due to cost and distance is NOT driving the game forward from a fan's perspective - and we seem to be forgetting the game exists for the fans.

I'm all for expansion, but not at the cost of killing off existing clubs. A strong UK Super League with strong French and North American leagues should be the goal, with a Champions League-type competition to garner international interest.

Absolutely correct

Top post, absolutely correct

But by that logic then there should never be expansion because it is a great fear to take any risks?

You are forgetting that the great pioneers who started off this great game took a huge risk when they broke away from the establishment.

Any success is often built on a series of failure, but the success comes from the determination to keep trying!

Yes, there hace been many failed clubs, but look at the pattern. Those failed clubs were often rushed attempts.

who exactly has misappropriated funds? London, PSG and Crusaders received less than £30,000,000 collectively over 20 years......so who has been short changed? The likes of Wakefield are the real waste of cash.......£1.8 million a year spent avoiding relegation........major franchises and identifiable cities,,,,,not the likes of Salford or Widnes.....

The rugby league public care for clubs with history and tradition, not major 'super clubs' or 'major franchises'

The rugby league public voted leave and are ageing and becoming extinct faster than the T rex......if we don't evolve, we will die!


Richmond......London Scottish.....these were major union clubs up to the 90's.........the rfu stepped over their corpses on the way to being strong comp......we should do the same with the likes of Wakefield and not shed a tear in doing so.