[urlhttps://www.stuff.co.nz/sport/league/117807867/new-york-rugby-league-circle-marquee-players-in-the-wake-of-sonny-bill-williams-move?fbclid=IwAR1VJCHojjwm83RWTBHByJniwkBUBSOWJWcDxgyGPQzb05PiMjzGI3OwRHw[/url


Program Printer....= working with expansion club?



Got to love the off season.....all the nutters come out. There's 2 BBC threads over on total fascist RL.COM claiming that a clive James obituary and a mike Portillo train journey show are proof that auntie hates us, even though she shows live club RL

This is great news! Their team is going to be stacked! SL by 2024 will easily be obtainable

I suppose that if TWP can make it all the way to Superleague with the apparent approval of the game here, and sign players nobody else could, it sets out the exact path the next North American club would logically need to follow to get to Supeleague. This press release was also with the added detail that "in time" New York would produce their own Rugby League players from a junior system. You need to note in your diary for next year that Ottawa will be putting out that same press release, only the names of the marquee players will change, but Ottawa born RL stars will be promised for 2050.

That TWP "did it", came with a £5Million deficit, before they started their major spend on this year and beyond, so they will rack the debts up into tens of millions in time. Is Ricky Wilby really that rich to be able to follow that or does he have the usual "mystery investors"? I don't suppose investigative journalism has any place in the Rugby League press, I can only surmise that those who (and I am very very thankful they do - thank you Gentlemen) scratch a living putting out Rugby League Newspapers and Magazines prefer to report all this "growth and glamour" rather than undertake any investigative journalism on the realities and difficulties. You don't appear to be enamoured with Total.RL.COM, what on earth did they do to you?

Which English Superleague club do you hope will get relegated to the second tier for New York Steph? What if it turns out to be your club?

Rugby League has been played in and around New York for 20 years now and they have had junior programmes running at times in places like Rhode Island and Delaware.
They have had a handful of players with NRL experience over the years, and even SOO rep Daniel Wagon for a few years.
Several American born players have also played or trained with qld cup and strong country sides in Australia like Helensburg in the Illawarra comp. One winger, Smith was his name if I remember correctly, trained with Parramatta for a pre season after he scored a good try playing for USA against Australia.
There are at least a thousand guys in New York or surrounding areas who have played more league at a higher level than most people on this forum.
When you whiners are talking down Canada, you can make some fair points about them only playing League for 3 years or so, but guys from the New England area in America toured Australia as far back as the early 2000's and played games against teams like Saint George reserves in Sydney, Wyong Roos in Wyong and played 7s against teams like South Sydney, Lebanon and Fiji at Russell Crowe's comp in Coffs harbour (I was at all those games).
In short, League is alive and well in New York.

Whoever finishes lasts. That will be who deserves to get relegated.

I really cant see it being St Helens though. By 2024 we will have the likes of Lewis Dodd, Jack Welsby and Josh Simm who will all be England Internationals by then, tearing up SL.

Don't get me wrong mate, I'll only whine if New York don't bother with any USA players and just sign up players en masse from the English club who get's relegated next year and then sign up Aussie marquee type players past their sell by dates. I am very well aware of the USARL and of their International sides. As far as I know their poor performance in the World cup was due to them deliberately fielding USA born players. Toronto Wolfpack could not get rid of their North American players fast enough.

What the article and other statements they make say to me, is that New York will buy the best players then can from anywhere they can. I am only concerned that they will totally ignore American players - do you really think they will want to be playing in the Championship for the next ten years nurturing these lads?? Again apologies if I have got this wrong or upset you.

So your OK then Steph! I don't know where this is all going but I can't see (allegedly) rich north american clubs going on recruiting from relegated English SL sides. Won't TWP, Ottawa and New York want to sign players like Percival, Grace, Roby, Makinson Thompson and Walmesley with their marquee allowances? How would you feel if their scouts were watching the debuts of Dodd, Welsby and Simm?? Surely they will be after your players Steph, not Wakefields.....Does this not worry you??

Why should it worry me? You are making it sound like New York targeting players is a new thing and never happened before. Teams are always sniffing around our players.

Of course they will get the best players they can - like every other side.
They do have a very strong American bias I have noticed in conversations with them over the years, so if they can find American players of a good enough standard, they certainly will, but they aren't crazy enough to throw a lot of money around to field an uncompetitive side.
My feeling is that they will be about half American born in the lower grades, but if they make the ESL they'll probably only be able to find 2 or 3 American players of that standard for the first year or two, but America isn't the strongest sporting nation on earth by accident. They will throw a lot of money and effort at developing their own players, as they do in every sport.
From my conversations with the players I talked to at the Orana 7s competition in Coffs Harbour, Americans are convinced they will dominate Rugby League if they get serious, for no other reason than they are Americans, and that's what they do, and supporting "funny talkers", as they call Australian and English players, is not the way they see things going.

Well said roopy we near teams like this to make people see what ruby league is all about and if they can get their players up to speed and ready for super league we can then move to 14 teams or more with more players

They will need to do some rapid work to have any of their own players SL ready in that timescale.
Despite the previous poster suggesting that there are 1000 RL players in the area, how good are any of these players ?
If they were up to Championship quality, some would already be over here. It's more likely that they are of conference standard, enjoying a game on a Saturday afternoon.
The reality is that the new N. American clubs will be taking the bulk of their players from the UK, topped out with "Aussie" players.

The reality is that for each club formed in N. America, there will be a casualty in the UK.
Best case scenario is a SL club playing part time in the Championship and worst case is the demise of a "heartland" club to facilitate a N. American side.
Some would say this is a price worth paying and IF the game were to take off over there then, in the grand scheme of things it may be but, lets not kid ourselves that there will be a championship or SL club in N. America with and "home grown players on their roster- this would take 10/15 years.

I suppose you would have to hope that eventually there will be stand alone North American league producing its own players otherwise Superleague will finish up as a part time game once more & scratching round for players to complete fixtures.
Hopefully, an American league would help to solve the marketing problems that superleague struggles to deal with & give the game a higher profile.

It will be interesting to see what happens over the next few years.
There are some seriously well of people involved in US sport, that make those in charge of clubs over here look like paupers and when they (US owners) start to cherry pick the UK talent and affect the big 4/5 clubs over here.
As for a stand alone comp over there, this wont be remotely possible for 25+ years

You could remove the references to New York/North America and replace them with SW France and it'd be more accurate. Elite 1 has a heavy smattering of ANZACS and PI's, but the main difference is that the American sides currently in existence resemble the Hammersmith Hills Hoists more than say Villeneuve. Pub sides (and make no mistake, that's what these are) are reliant on transient players. A perfect example would be that 3 of these sides were unable to field full teams in games this season, including 2 games of the 4 conference semi-finals. Hey. Don't get me wrong. Amateur RL as a pastime for 8 weeks in summer may be doing OK, but I'd say your 1,000 players of a high standard in NYC is a stretch at best and the thing being discussed here isn't about amateur players or even "slightly older" ANZACS, but a professional side, being touted by a Gym Teacher who used to print programs using an online portal, with names being pulled from nowhere. Not sure what American Immigration officials will make of Todd Carney for instance



[urlhttps://www.nrl.com/news/2019/11/24/new-york-city-to-follow-storm-model-as-they-follow-wolfpack-trail/[/url
To be clear here, Tony Feasey was the guy in charge of the NZ Police RL side and has taken that side on tours to North America. That's pretty much his qualification. As for him claiming that they will look to follow the Storm's model, it is estimated that the Storm were shedding $20,000,000 a year for the first 5 years and that they were still losing $8,000,000 a year after a decade. There's not one Victorian player in the Storms squad as named for the Storm for the coming season, but this amateur side tour manager and the PE instructor will pluck Americans out of thin air (whilst checking on French, English and Kolpak players, as well as NRL heritage players with Irish Grannies). They have repeatedly claimed a hotel chain and Airline, but named neither.
I'd love to see NYC, playing to packed houses in the Red Bull Stadium, but anyone who thinks that the London Leisure market is crowded should have a long hard look at what's on offer in NYC.

They banned him for being an obnoxious troublemaker. That is why he calls it "TotalFascistRL.com"

If he was banned on here, as he should be, then he would probably go to the Australian illiterates forum, Front Row Forum, and denounce this site as "RLFascistFans.com"

You do seem a little preoccupied with me of late buddy? I'd say I was flattered, but I would't know which one of you to thank

I am pleased to see that you didn't dispute my assertions.

Oh dear I may have got things a bit confused here and reading the Salary cap regulations hasn't helped me!! I was worried that rich overseas clubs could take our very best here using the two "marquee signings allowances" and Saints have a few of the very best!! Mr. Wrencat knows his stuff and he indicates that our very best players can be taken by rich NA clubs?

Any simple explanation of how it works would be welcome!! just how far can the NA clubs take the best players developed here? In short can three or four rich NA clubs take the best six or eight English players?? It's bad enough producing great players here and them going to Rugby Union and the NRL, without them going to North America as well. I know they will stay in the same league if they sign for NA clubs, but this would surely still create tremendous resentment?

No. I didn't pay any heed to them because like your assertions, here there and everywhere under various guises , they are wide of the mark!

10 to 15 years can't even happen unless large enough numbers of North American youngsters take up Rugby league, along with NA coaches and other volunteers? When will that ever happen there? The USARL on wiki appears to be a handful of clubs playing a handful of games. I've seen it suggested most of them are actually Rugby Union players playing a bit of league off season . What is the truth of the matter?? How can there be 1,000 USA players when last year only eight clubs played between six and eight games?



I can't help thinking that London losing their status to TWP was a blow for the English game, so do Wakefield go for New York, do Huddersfield go for Ottawa, do Salford go for Boston and do HKR go for Montreal and do Castleford go for Vancouver?? Last week Aussie administrator Shane Richardson (who founded Gateshead) commented there were only enough quality players for a 10 club Superleague in the Northern Hemisphere. If I am to believe anyone I'd believe him. Do half the English SL club owners and their fans just stand aside whilst their clubs are excluded from superleague and their players shipped to America?? There must come a point where very serious conflict arises???

I said there are about 1000 guys who have played League over the 20 years they have been playing.
They are all guys who have a good, solid grounding in our game and could contribute in some way, if only explaining the game to fellow Americans.
The Toronto team came from absolutely no where with no ground work to build on.
New York is a much larger and richer city with a much larger ex-pat community, 20 solid years of ground work including efforts to develop highschool and junior comps, and they also have the blueprint of Toronto to follow.
Any rational person (not you lot) could see that they come from a much stronger position than Toronto started from.
If Toronto had followed your script and failed miserably at every turn, you might have an argument that a better prepared bid from New York is also doomed from the start, but guess what, Toronto have achieved all they set out to achieve till this point.

The important bit here is that Toronto were driven by Perez and funded by a RL fan with cash to burn. Perez walked when it became apparent that Argyle wasn't interested in development, but more so in success. This isn't a new thing in sports or RL. David Hughes is on record as saying he funds the London Broncos so he can watch his team with his mates. There's no harm in this, so long as it doesn't negatively impact the league they play in.....in my eyes, it doesn't, so let him carry on.
The problem with NYC is that this is being driven by a couple of amateur enthusiasts, who claim to have backers in place and grand plans for converting Union/NFL players, but with very little of substance thereafter.
It's not dissimilar to the early days of Toronto, but will NYC stick to their plan or will the money men either take the reigns like Argyle did, or walk once they realise that this is a £20,000,000 investment that will continue to lose shed loads of money until they have 4 or 5 other North American Clubs with something to sell to TV execs.

There's an interview on another site with the bloke at the helm of Toronto. He's asked if they are looking at buying the rights for their games from SKY...the answer is pretty non-committal. He does say that SBW signing will add 1,000 season tickets to their income and that they expect to sell 2,500 all told. CA$399 X 2,500....call it a Million Canadian Dollars or £600k. The Cost of running a SL club is a minimum of £4,000,000. Add into that SBW's £2.5 million a year and this is a money pit that cannot hope to make a cent in return in its current stadium or with no TV income.....this is the business model that the NYC and other "investors" are seeing.....it's not sustainable

What? A wealthy Bloke who lost patience with the "find a star' approach, so binned off the driving force who wanted local development and instead filled the team with mercenaries and the stadium with free tickts and who has so far flushed between £5 and 10 million down the pan excluding SBW? Yeah...that's a cracking business model and I've repeatedly shown what happened to the much wealthier London Monarchs.........

No they don't. We have no idea who the money is, who the airline sponsor is, the hotel sponsor is....we've just got a gym teacher and an admin bloke from NZ police blowing smoke up a load of 'arrises!

There are more than a 1,000 such blokes in London.....and I'd hazard a guess in Perth WA as well, but the NRL aren't interested in WA whilst you and your cult think North America is the answer