The Warriors, Wolves and Saints would though.

Why will we fall behind? Why is the mindset that everything the sport tries is doomed to failure?

And let's not beat about the bush here. The sport is in this position because there are certain clubs that aren't marketing themselves well enough, that aren't growing revenue, that aren't developing travel, that aren't raising standards and aren't reaching new audiences. These are the very same clubs that are voting for things like a £1m real-terms pay-cut to our talent since 1999, which makes it harder for those clubs that do develop, grow and market themselves to keep their talent and progress.

Can you blame them for wanting to look elsewhere?

Bit of questionable comparisons going on there. Comparing the population of a county in U.K. to just a city in the USA. What are the populations of Georgia, Massachusetts, Washington and Illinois instead of just making it sound like American teams only get their fans from the city and not the whole State it's located.

Green Bay might only have relative small population but what's the population of Wisconsin and how many other NFL teams do they have there?

I still think it's a relevant argument. If Wigan Warriors can position themselves as a team for "Greater Manchester", or Saints position themselves as a team "for Merseyside", then that is a market that is comparable to what the American's have. People are saying that this won't work because Wigan is a small town and the Yanks won't be interested in that. But if Wigan can position themselves as a club that speaks to a market that includes one of the UK's biggest financial, creative and legal hubs outside London, that arguably is a market that Americans are likely to be interested in.

We're not talking about getting 2m Liverpudlians clamouring for tickets to the Totally Wicked, but what we should be aiming for is generating a basis of interest in 'St Helens' (or 'Saints') across that region. TV is arguably more important here, and St Helens can market themselves in a way that raises TV interest across the Liverpool City Region, that makes us more attractive to TV not just in North America, but in the UK as well,

Is that realistic? I'd say so. St Helens is 20 minutes from Liverpool Lime Street - there's no reason why a club shouldn't be engaging with potential audiences a 20 minute train ride away.

It's not when you look at the population of Illinois (almost 13m) compared to Greater Manchester instead of just using the population of Chicago.

I get that the scales are different, but that's the nature of comparing the US and UK in many respects. London is the only world city that we offer, and that comes in at around 8m.

But if we're looking for reasons why this wouldn't work and coming up with an argument that an American media market wouldn't be interested in a small town called Wigan that to be honest, that's fine. Firstly, because there is no excuse for a club not to be marketing beyond their postcode anyway. Secondly, because I still think it's a sizable market to offer, even if it isn't quite large enough to attract NFL TV rights. And I'd also point out that this isn't just about raising interest in the US - we should be doing this because it appeals to TV audiences here.

Whilst I agree in principle. Wouldn't both clubs have to change there name?

People in Manchester /Liverpool wouldn't be interested at the moment, because they would view them as part of them towns. And nothing to do with there respective cities. And there in lies one of the problems.
Trying to stretch the audience is good, but in the end only people who already know about the sport, or are connected to a town with a club really care. And this is due to bad marketing/promoting by everybody.

Both those clubs you mention would stand a better chance of being known should RL take off over the pond. Due to there histories and respective success.

North American teams will never get involved in a serious way unless franchising is included. P&R is not going to get any serious investors, sponsors or TV companies from overseas interested in putting serious cash into the sport. Like it or not these people will only spend money to make money, which will require certainty for more than a year (probably 3-5 minimum).

It might all end up not happening, but to be held back on the basis of away fans or some nebulous concept of grass roots support (which the sport as a whole has failed at miserably developing over the last 40 years) is to effectively doom the sport to continue its current death-spiral IMO.

What we absolutely need is real commercial nous in moving forward. No Koukash-esque promises of future investment should be accepted before allowing even Toronto into SL, but credible, warrantied commitments, and people who understand that whilst the North American teams might bring huge value to the game, they'd have nothing without it.

What I absolutely agree needs to happen as well is if through franchising we effectively freeze teams out of SL that there is either a genuine process to consider them in the future, or at the very least decent funding to enable a second tier competition to survive and thrive.

stone dead killed any approach from any "backer" currently in the mix........too many clubs think the SKY 1.8 million is the answer.......it's not!

I agree about the grass roots. All clubs should hang there heads about this. I never understood why barla clubs should not be connected to local professional clubs. The clubs should be promoting there games, build arrangements with regards season tickets (ie a choice of prices, pay more and get free entry to a Barla club of your choice, the extra going to the Barla club etc). Put there merchandise on sale as well at club shops. Just promote them (but then again I go to Barla games especially any Hull club, when I can. So I'm biased). A strong professional sport needs strong grassroots. Look at Football. And I would also make it compulsory that all SL sides and aspiring SL sides must have a reserve team.
The only thing I'd say about away crowds (which I do feel is necessary). Is would we be as attractive to TV companies if there's none, only rows of empty seats/terracing?

How do you make the championship survive during Franchising?
They've effectively got nothing to play for. And it's hard to promote/market the clubs if your effectively saying no matter what happens this season, we'll be in exactly the same spot next year, the year after.
Same with SL, if there's nothing to worry about, less games that have meaning. Marketing becomes harder. And we've seen how lazy clubs are when there futures are safe.

In my opinion p&R is essential.

P&R is only essential for a few clubs that are yo-yoing about. Most semi-pro cubs have no ambitions to get into SL, and if they did its not so much empty seats that would be the problem but tiny, ancient stadia and getting smashed on the field every week. Lets not pretend that promotion to SL is a realistic prospect for a number of CHampionship clubs. If your argument was right, how have the likes of Batley survived at all?

I'd have no problem with providing a credible pathway for clubs to enter SL in a franchising world. But whilst that would require a firm commitment from SL to allow Championship teams to get in, it also has to be based on proper criteria for entrance - financial stability, stadium quality etc.

Too often the options we look at are a zero-sum game - take money from SL and give to Championship etc. But the real aim should be to expand the pot for everyone. That means more money to spend on everything. If clubs are relying on away fans for survival, then they deserve to die.

Football and RU have P&R and they seem to get wealthy backers including Yanks.

Do wealthy owners of football clubs outside the Premier league make money? Do owners of Premier league teams even make money?

Why would there be rows of empty terracing? The expectation should be on the clubs to fill that space with locals, who provide much more financial value to the club.

Away fans have a value, but this idea that they should be the determining factor as to whether the sport expands or not is ridiculous.

Differing sports have different profiles. RL teams are relatively closely located and as such maybe there has been a reliance on any fans due to limited travel distance. If we expand the sport geographically then this is a shift in the DNA of the sport that maybe needs to be factored in. It's a consideration if not a determining factor.

If that means that the game branches out to new audience, I think it's a price worth paying. We already see a lot of opposition to the Magic Weekend which is based on little more than "I don't want to pay the train fare to Newcastle", or opposition to England games at Wembley based on "the hotels are a bit expensive".

And let's be honest here, away support is not as big a revenue stream as people make it out to be. Purely anecdotally, the away following of supporters from many clubs to Headingley in recent years is massively exaggerated. Hosting Leeds or Wigan might be a big pay day for Huddersfield or Salford, but it's a blip on the radar at the bigger clubs. Leeds probably generate more revenue selling lattes to students in a week than they do selling tickets to supporters of about half of the clubs in Super League.

Given the oft-stated opinion that the UK SL quality player pool isn't big enough to expand to a 14 club SL, how is it intended to populate the North American teams, in the 'short' term, (say 20 years) until they develop their own talent?

To be fair those Latte's are pretty good and the food in the cafe is lovely! One of the best things Leeds did was link up with Leeds Beckett. The students use the facilities during the week for lectures and staff use it for meetings etc. All of who pretty much buy something there. Good facility management is that! Unfortunately I graduated 2 years ago and I miss those Thursday's at the stadium

Sports fans love to follow their team home and away - they want their weekly fix of live sports action. Like it or not, the typical UK RL fan isn't a wealthy individual, and additional travel costs are an important factor when deciding whether to go to a game or not. International travel would make this far worse, although a lot of fans do build in a trip to France into their annual holiday plans.

Expansion to other parts of the UK hasn't been historically been successful at attracting local folk to attend games there. It's easy to say that it's down to inadequate marketing, but all businesses by necessity have a cap on their marketing budget and there's a limit to what can be done. Plus, if the locals aren't interested, then they're never going to become regular attendees. As the saying goes, you can lead a horse to water but not make it drink, and even if you could make it drink, you can't make it like it.

If we shift emphasis to TV too much, the danger is that crowd figures could start to tumble. If a good selection of games are on TV, then why would anyone without an existing allegiance to a team spend the time and money to go to a live game, other than maybe out of curiosity or just for a change very occasionally. Due to the likes of Sky, sports followers in the UK have become channel-hoppers. Fewer people (other than fans of one of the teams involved) sit down and watch an 80/90 minute game end-to-end. If it's a one-sided or boring affair, they'll flick to other channels and watch a bit of golf, RU, darts, snooker, etc. and they'll likely do the same when the adverts come on at half-time. They may, or may not, return to watch the 2nd half depending on what else they find to watch.

I'll agree that all clubs need to do to market themselves better, both within and potentially outside their postcode area, but I think you'll find that most clubs are trying to do this. With a limited budget, it's always going to be very difficult though. This is where the likes of Toronto, and probably New York if that happens, have the advantage of large slugs of money from their owners for marketing purposes.

TV deals are important, but could be counter-productive if overdone. Success in RL has generally been with the help of rich individual investors, and how we attract more of them to the game is perhaps the golden nugget that we need to find?

Spot on,well said Sparky. Mind you,you'll just get the usual (It has to be my way) Mr Bramleyapple marketing man, saying otherwise.

They're called opinions Cokey. People are as entitled to one as I am, and people are entitled to call mine out as I am theres. That's how discussion and debate works.

I've said it before that I'm more than happy for anyone who feels that the game can prosper into a commercially successful sport by focusing on the heartlands to explain how they would do that, and convince me why I'm wrong. I'm not stubborn enough to feel that I've got all of the right answers, and I'm willing to listen to and engage in any reasoned argument. Unfortunately, that's the point where [isome of[/i those people usually go scurrying off to their hidey hole and throw the insults around.

So come on Cokey; if my ideas to help the sport are grow, to attract, develop and retain talent, and to appeal to new audiences, TV broadcasters and sponsors are so wrong, what would you do differently to achieve all that?

Good post and it brings us back to the $64 million dollar question.
What do "we" actually want from the sport.

How many current fans want to see a "Super League" made up of 5 English clubs, 5 N .American clubs and 2 French clubs and what benefit will this "dream" league bring to the game of RL.
It's clear that professional RL in Canada and the US would be one hell of an achievement and should RL develop to a point where the game took hold in schools and colleges, that would be one hell of a success.
The follow on question would be, how could "we" make this happen ?

Right now, we are massaging Mr Perez ego, nothing more but there has to be a clear plan, not just a dream or wish list.

Getting back to the earlier question about some kind of international Super League.
IF N. America can be successful in creating 5 successful RL clubs, capable of competing in SL, their next move would be to have their own Super League and what happens then ?

The game in the UK would be decimated and nothing more than semi pro, with the exception of the 5 club lucky enough to make the cut but, what about the rest and where would the "big" clubs go IF the N. Americans want to do their own thing.

I think people have a slight misconception about what marketing is. It isn't, and never has been, about trying to make people like things that they don't like, or that they don't want to like. What it is about is developing a product, promoting that product, and making it easy for people to buy it.

At the moment, the sport just doesn't have a unique selling point any more. We used to claim that our USP was that we were a "family sport", when what we really meant by that was "we don't have a hooligan problem". But in 2018, how many sports have a hooligan problem? Even if you want to point to football, the sport has massively changed perceptions and cleaned up its act in that regard.

So what else do we mean by a "family sport"? That we're a "family day out?". If that's the case, do we honestly believe that places like Belle Vue, like The Jungle, like (until recently) Headingley offer what most families with leisure money to spend in 2018 consider to be a "family day out"? Does queuing in the car park at Salford scream "fun for all the family" when, literally across the road, you have a huge leisure complex full of restaurants, an aquarium, Lego Land and god knows how much else?

So what do we promote ourselves as? We can't claim to have the best talent, because we're losing much of it to other sports and leagues because we can't /won't pay them their worth. We don't have the quality of competition or that "edge of the seat thrill" to sell either - the average winning margin in Super League is higher than the Aviva Premiership, and the proportion of games won by one score or less is lower.

So there we have it. Step one of marketing - have a good product - and too many of the clubs have already failed. They're offering a product that is no better than what people can get elsewhere, they're voting for competition structures that they can't understand, and they're offering a fan / customer experience that is no better than any of the other million-and-one leisure pursuits that you can do with the family on a weekend.

I don't think it needs to be said that the clubs are crap at promotiong the product and telling people about it, and I've spoken before about clubs aren't making it easy for people to buy the product either.

As for TV, I don't think we should be seeing it as a threat. The sort of mentality you express there, whilst I understand where it comes from, makes me think of newspapers arguing that the internet will kill journalism. It doesn't, but it does require a new mindset.

Focusing on TV, or digital, or any other media is simply about getting people to engage in RL content. It doesn't really matter whether that is on the terraces on on the TV - the important point is that for that period of time, people are engaging with the sport through one medium or another. The more you can do that, the more interest you generate, and the more valuable our content becomes. You're right in that TV is more passive a medium, but it offers two big benefits - volume of audience, and it removes geographic barriers.

Look at how some US college football teams use social media to promote themselves - there's a lot that all sports (not just RL) can learn from that.

Don't mistake me.I know you have an opinion,that's fine,but it's become the same old monotonous post after post on marketing. I agreed with Sparky not you,and i have no intention of engaging with you as to why. That's all.

By denying p&r. Your denying them the opportunity to improve them selves. To give them a reason to improve.
Yes some clubs aren't ready/want SL. But to deny them the chance to improve or move forwards just seems wrong to me.

Toronto's stadium isn't all that (2 open stands along the side). And given the last 2 years you can't even play there the first 3 months of the season. But you aren't going to deny them. So why others on that bases.

Yes they should meet certain criterias. But I would focus more on the infrastructure rather than external. The financial rewards will come in SL.

Your right about trying to get a bigger pot.
But given what SL chairmen are trying to do with regards the Sky contract. And what Leneghan said about International RL. Aren't SL chairmen as guilty of not wanting to share the money? Or promote the game.
As Tommy Cruise said in that film, this franchise system will be all about the money. And what SL, the chairmen can get out of it. Nothing with promoting the sport, or moving it forwards in any way. And there's no proof that franchise's can do that. If they can great, but it seems to me that instead of incorporating it. We're relying on it.
And in my opinion this is what's damaging the game more.

Also,
If big clubs aren't relying on away support to a degree. Why have Leeds moved tonight's game and Cas to Elland Road. But not Widnes/Salford?

My posts may be monotonous to you, put at least there is some attempt at making a contribution to the discussion and to put forward ideas. Your contribution to any sort of debate seems to be to nothing more than clapping along to posts that say something that you like, and to insult those you don't. That, of course, is your prerogative, but it doesn't really make for a good discussion.

But if you don't want to engage with me that's fine. I'll keep taking to the grown-ups in here and I won't hold it against you.