That’s pushing it quite a bit.

Rubbish.
Prove it.


What makes it a waste of time? They're bankrolled by someone else's money. They're supported by their own fans from a completely new market that never existed until recently. They're paying full time wages and creating opportunities that were never previously there.
What a waste of time.


Who came to who? Did we seek them or did they seek us? I think you're massively confused about how this has come about. The RFL have made it pretty clear that they have no expansion strategy. If clubs can find their own money she bankroll themselves and outlay the cost of travel for the poor skint Northern clubs, then they can join. So far, a few have volunteered. It has ZERO funding. It costs the game nothing and it would be ridiculous to turn them down as, if it does fail, costs us nothing.

I really don't see the issue.

There’s a bigger market for RL in North America after 2 years than there is in Wakefield after nearly 150.

Tatooine?!?! With that shed of a stadium?

Maybe we should start dishing out free tickets.

Why should any club travel 8000 miles for a league fixture?

Yeah, rugby union haven't managed it in 2 separate leagues for many years, have they...

? how so ?

Potentially, there is a bigger market in every city in the world than there is in Wakefield, so what is your point ?
Fundamentally, "we" are "happy" to allow ANY side to join the comp as long as the owner of said club has deep pockets, regardless of whether they can play a full part in the competition, play a regular, home and away fixture program (with alternate home and away fixtures), compete in the one cup competition etc, etc.

I love how any fan of clubs outside the "big four" isn't allowed to hold an opinion because their club has fewer fans.

RL used to be a proper sport but, it's become a desperate excuse for a sport and the game no longer seems to matter.
We're at the point that we will sell our dignity for a fast buck and the chance of something new, regardless of any medium or long term impact on the game.

Not too long ago, people from your club wanted to cut SL down to 10 sides, due to lack of central funding and a shortage of players. But, now, lets have as many clubs as we can, spread accross the planet, all with the same / shrinking player pool.

In essence, we are saying that anyone with a few quid can set up a club, fill it with second rate imports and ignore the rest of the criteria that make a RL club, a recipe for chaos.

I forgot RL is a spprt, I thought it was just a massive ego trip for Red Hall and GH.

Until we get back to the GENUINE game, with no marquee mercenaries, decent referees, players with humility and respect for each other, then I fear I am hearing the death rattle from RFL.

Catalams has worked, Wales didn't, Toronto will only work whilst the deep pockets remain, New York, people are flipping deluded.

Pro14 - Clubs in Scotland, Ireland, Wales, Italy and South Africa. None of these clubs rely on away fans.

Super Rugby - Clubs in Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, Singapore, Japan and Argentina. None of these clubs rely on away fans.

Agree. People can have valid concerns about expansion, but to claim that the people supporting this sort of expansion are "fantasists" is missing the point entirely. It's those that believe that this sport can develop, reach new audiences, attract new players and re-establish itself in the national conscience by simply focusing on the same areas that are playing a role in it's decline that are the real fantasists.

North America may not be the answer, but it's currently a better answer than what is currently being proposed by some.

Every time this topic comes up we have people crying "focus on the heartlands" and "make the heartlands strong". When you ask those same people how you go about doing that in the modern sports market, they scurry off and hide or resort to childish mud-slinging.

Focusing on the heartlands is what has got this sport to where it is today. Continuing to do that is not going to make us more relevant any time soon.

and New York will make RFL more relevant?

We don't yet know that. But what we do know is that they've got as good a chance (if not better) than the current crop of clubs.

Look at [url=https://www.mirror.co.uk/sport/rugby-league/super-league-boss-robert-elstone-13108839the comments from Elstone himself[/url about his trip to Toronto.



And also take into account [url=https://www.telegraph.co.uk/rugby-league/2019/02/23/toronto-wolfpack-eyeing-world-domination-first-leigh-centurions/these claims[/url:



How many current SL clubs do you think those sorts of comments could apply to? Not many. How many Championship or L1 clubs do you think they could apply to? Probably none.

If the heartland clubs could show that they could do the things that Elstone talks about there - connect with new audiences, attract younger demographics, attract more diverse audiences, attract audiences that advertisers find it difficult to reach and to generate revenues that allow us to attract and keep the best talent - then expansion isn't on the agenda. The only reason why expansion is on the agenda is because the sport has fallen behind many of its competitors and it is the clubs that are the main factor behind that. There's no growth, and there's little sign of it any time soon.

Screaming "focus on the heartlands" is simply demanding that we manage the decline. The heartland clubs have had their opportunity to take the sport forward and ensure that it can continue to compete in the modern sports market against the other sports that we like to compare ourselves to. There becomes a point where you have to say "this isn't working" and change it for the better.

Do you notice all the empty stadiums super rugby gets played in despite all the money that’s thrown at it

You do realise that Super Rugby is the second highest attended club rugby competition of either code on average, just outside of the NRL?

But yeah, I suppose you only look at the empty seats in the NRL as well.

Wakefield are paid the same TV income, as all other English Superleague clubs.

It hasn’t got much competition has it it’s not like football I watched the Queensland match last week and was surprised how empty it was for a premier competition

If you visit Toronto, you would pass the same kind of comments as Elstone.
It's a huge modern city and far more vibrant than your average northern town, you could say a little like London but, with far more space around it.
There is little doubt that Perez (and Toronto) have done a fabulous job of promoting the sport to new people and you're quite right that in this respect they have put the rest of RL to shame.
As for RL falling behind other sports (most notably Union), this isn't actually down to the state of the domestic game, it's more to do with its (Union's) international profile and quite frankly RL is in no position to try and compete.
Union has far more genuine nations playing the game and awards "central contracts" to it's top players and we just aren't in their league.
Ok, we were a professional sport before Union, or at least before they admitted to paying their players.
However, their game was played (genuinely) in all of the home nations and although late to the party, they have HUGE advantages over our sport and will continue to have these for the foreseeable future and it's just wishful thinking to think that we can compete and it's wrong to deride RL because it hasn't kept up. It never stood a bloody chance and you know it.

As for Canada, some people want to replace 4/5/6 English sides with newly formed N.American clubs, which would most likely see the death of those English clubs but, as I have posted so many times, they (the N. American sides) are just plastic clubs with very wealthy backers and the whole argument is should RL continue as a "genuine" sport or have we really sold our collective souls to the highest bidder and whilst Leeds as the only big city club in England will be ok, the rest become vulnerable.

We are already making it ever harder for fans to attend the weekly rounds and as more and more realise that the game is moving out of reach, they will turn to other things and this could likely accelerate the games demise.

Fill your boots though

I think it's an easy (and somewhat lazy) argument to say that RU has only gone ahead of RL because of the international profile of the sport. Don't get me wrong, it certainly helps, but I think there's a lot more to it than that.

RU has worked incredibly hard to modernise itself on and off the pitch. I think the 'kick and clap' idea that a lot of people have about RU is very out-dated and if you look at how much faster RU has become, how it presents itself off the field and the product it offers even at club level, it's miles away from where it used to be. If you look at the Aviva Premiership now, the proportion of games that end with a one-score or less defecit is much higher than it is in Super League - they've created an event that goes to the wire and that's what a modern sporting public wants and they're selling it. Newcastle are taking games to St James' Park, Saracens to Wembley and the London Stadium and Bath to Twickenham.

Yes, they still have their respective problems but to say that RL can't do anything without an international profile is looking for easy excuses. We've got a product to offer, fewer people are buying that product, and the clubs don't seem to be doing an awful lot about that. The last time I checked, there were females and young people living in every town in RL land, yet it takes a club from Canada to make anyone in RL land realise that you need to sell to them. That's nothing to do with not having an international profile.



So again, it sounds like we're back to a "focus on the heartlands" argument here, so what does that actually mean? How do we make this sport more relevant to audiences, sponsors and broadcasters whilst doing the very thing that's brought to sport to where it is today?

No we are not.

That's as maybe, but you should not confuse Sky match day income with with Sky subscriptions.

Just thinking about Toronto which I don't do too much of, I wonder if the people of Toronto those that went last season have forgotton they have a Rugby team ? we are a third of the way through the season and I'm not sure Toronto Wolfpack have gotten out of Yorkshire yet ?

So how many home games do they actually have in a season ? and what would be the cost (assuming anyone pays) for a season ticket ?

Dont know what the season ticket costs are but, "the future of RL" gives you a massive 7 home games in the regular season, plus play offs etc and some still believe this to be the way forward









With the alleged numbers of free tickets, I'm not sure why anyone would want to try and buy a season ticket anyway.

That'll do it then