Super Rugby is a league made up of clubs from Australia, New Zealand, Japan, South Africa and Argentina.

The Pro12 competition has clubs from Ireland, Scotland, Wales and Italy.

International leagues at club level can work and is what we need to be aiming for to grow the game.

Are these Union clubs also not franchises so they have an element of protection? It would raise the whole argument again of franchise v promotion and relegation.

He mentions Perpignan, which is a secret Wigan code word for Catalans.

....and no doubt he also believes that a smallish town in Greater Manchester will be part of this global Super League?

True.

But as I've said before. International RU has a great programme. Which all those countries are apart of. Add to this a 7's tournament that travels the world. Plus clubs already taken games abroad (English clubs have been to the USA for the last 3 years). All of this raise awareness of the sport. Increase opportunities, raising intrest and opening opportunities in various markets.

RL has none of this, and from what Lenaghan says, aren't interested in International RL.

And whilst Wigan & Hull should be applaud for taking a game away from these shores.
I personally find it disappointing that they taking it to a place where RL already has a stronghold. Instead of say Hong Kong, Tonga, PNG etc.

Still,
can't wait for the arguments when the 5th bottom team is relegated. Because the 4 below them aren't English so exempt.
Or when Franchising returns. Why crowds are down, or how to make more games mean something. Why Marketing/Advertising aren't put lots of money in to a sport that's a closed shop, so not that interesting. Wonder how much Sky will pay for a product that in my opinion isn't as good.

Quote ="JEAN CAPDOUZE"Wigan supremo Ian Lenagan, the smartest and most personally accomplished of the Super League owners, has predicted that Catalans, Toulouse, Toronto and New York will all be in Super League within the next five years. He has also suggested that Perth might join Super League if the NRL don't create a franchise there. www.illawarramercury.com.au/stor ... n-the-nrl/'" What about expanding the game in the UK lots of untapped crowd potential on our own doorstep. www.ukcities.co.uk/populations/

Quote ="JEAN CAPDOUZE"Wigan supremo Ian Lenagan, the smartest and most personally accomplished of the Super League owners, has predicted that Catalans, Toulouse, Toronto and New York will all be in Super League within the next five years. He has also suggested that Perth might join Super League if the NRL don't create a franchise there. www.illawarramercury.com.au/stor ... n-the-nrl/'" What about expanding the game in the UK lots of untapped crowd potential on our own doorstep. www.ukcities.co.uk/populations/

“I’m heavily involved in football in the UK and the [English Premier League, and [chairman Richard Scudamore, have been trying for years to get two of their clubs to play what they call the 49th game out of the UK because they realise what the value of that could be."

Someone tell Lenagan it's the 39th game, thought someone "heavily involved" in the Premier League would know they currently play 38 games.

--------------------------

Also quite interesting that he's using the occasion and opportunity whilst over in Australia to have a pop at them.

Super Rugby weren't afraid to "cull' 3 sides from their competition because it was diluting their talent pool too much.....the 2 culled South Africans now play in the extended Pan European PRO 14 whilst in 'stralia they have simply cut the West off with no pro rugby of either code there....explains why the Rabbits are dragging the warriors there in the season opener.....
....having the steel to cull clubs that aren't working for the good of the game is going to have to happen and sooner rather than later. Fans of some clubs won't like it, but for the game to grow, we need to look at mergers or simply cutting sides loose.


The Years before Franchise protection
2004 - 8,570
2005 - 8,884
2006 - 9,026 (catalans saved Castleford Binned)
2007 - 9,855
2008 - 10,338

Average over 5 years 9,335

The years of protected Francises.
2009 - 9,861
2010 - 9,812
2011 - 9,615
2012 - 10,151
2013 - 9,048

Average over 5 years 9,697

The years of Jeopardy since......

2014 - 8,365
2015 - 10,019
2016 - 9,134
2017 - 8,568

Average over 4 years of Relegation excitement 9,021...or 7% down on Franchising which was 4% up on the preceding years.

Franchising failed on many levels but predominantly because it wasn't policed properly. Crowds were not an area it failed in. Leigh/Wakefield, Huddersfield, Widnes and Salford represented 42% of the 2017 Competition but only 26% of the crowds.......replacing these sides with well run sports franchises is how the game will grow...the minimum any team should get is 10,000 and whilst Castleford and Catalans are close, these 5 named above are light years away

I've zero interest in helping other countries grow the game when the game is on its 'arris over here. The only thing that will happen is that games will have an even worse attendance and atmosphere and it will be 3 or 4 less away games I can't attend.

So-called expansionists will kill the game with their fairytale fantasies. We need to sort the grassroots out in England before we even think about introducing new teams from other countries that will take from the same limited pool of players.

People are acting like the current SL teams who would likely drop out of SL if the likes of Toronto, Toulouse etc. came up, actually bring thousands upon thousands of away fans to games.

No. They're acting like they bring a considerable amount more than Toronto and Toulouse would.

Of the current SL teams the only one that may possibly survive in a truly global, or even northern hemisphere league would be Leeds. Towns such as Wigan, Warrington and St Helens would be of no interest to NA TV.

Your analysis is far too simplistic but fitting of you.

I'm still struggling with the concept, that a successful launch of a number of North American clubs would want to include any of our clubs. With all respect to the top clubs in the UK, including Mr Lenegan's highly successful Wigan, how may of the big cities of North America will have even heard of them?

JESUS WEPT

HOW MANY TIMES?????
£20 a ticket and £15 on beer and merchandise.....so an away fan is worth £35. At best, 1,000 is the average away support split across 11 rounds and I am being really generous here, so Toronto, replacing say Wakefield will cost a SL club £35,000.
The minimum turnover of a SL club is £4,000,000 so Toronto instead of Wakefield is worth less than 1% of a SL clubs turnover.

There are many valid reasons for and against expansion into America, but "AWAY FANS" isn't one of them.

How so Einstein?
The claim was lower gates, which I showed was incorrect....how is that far too simplistic?

Exactly and that for all teams, you take out the likes of Leeds, Hull, Saints etc.whose place realistically won't be under threat and just concentrate about the teams who would be in the firing line then you're looking at a few or several hundred in some cases.

Leigh, Wakefield, Widnes, Salford and Huddersfield averaged 5,21 last year......the others averaged 11,454......and guess where most of the anti-expansion fans reside?

The deadwood needs to be culled......the sport was happy to lose the Capital city and Bradford, one of its better supported sides to let a few pit villages dream of a year in the spotlight before returning to obscurity.
If the game wants to survive (think about what options we had for our leisure £ 20 years ago and then imagine what we will compete with in another decade?), then we need to expand to new markets.
I am not saying Toronto, NYC or anywhere else is the answer, but I can assure you that Leigh, Wakefield, Widnes, Salford and Huddersfield aren't the answer!

A league as postulated might include 4 UK clubs at the very most: London, Manchester, Birmingham and Edinburgh, although I doubt it'll be more than 2.

We need to get away from this mindset that clubs can only market to their postcode.

There is no reason why Wigan cannot draw support from the wider Greater Manchester area. That's an area of 2.8m people - roughly the population of Chicago.

There is no reason why St Helens cannot draw support from the Liverpool City region - an area with a population that is similar in size to Philadelphia.

The population of Leeds alone is comparable to cities like San Francisco and Seattle and there is no reason why Warrington couldn't market itself as a team for Chesire - an area with more people living there than Boston and Atlanta put together. These are serious markets, if the clubs themselves can position themselves in that way. If US TV audiences are interested in a tiny little village in Wisconsin, then why wouldn't they be interested in what we can offer if the product is right?

That doesn't mean that our clubs need to have to rebrand, but just that they broaden their appeal - something that every single club should be doing anyway.

This obsession with "away fans", and this myth that paying spectators and TV audiences have any interest in two teams fighting for the prize of being "the least crap" needs to stop.

Any club that relies on away fans for its finances really should be facing serious questions about whether it has a place in any sort of elite competition, because either they aren't trying hard enough to reach the local audience, or the local audience simply doesn't care.

The Lenagan model would retain the top supported existing SL clubs — Wigan, St Helens, Warrington, Leeds, Hull FC, Hull KR, Catalans and maybe Castleford — and ditch the strugglers by relegating them to the Championship in favour of the new French and North American clubs.

Special dispensation would possibly be given to London because of its centrality for southern development and player recruitment, and because of its usefulness as a brand name to attract corporate sponsors.

There would be an open door for future financially viable French and North American clubs, as well as a financially viable Bradford.

....no thanks. We've never had special anything and have no interest in getting favours now......if we have a money man waiting then fine, but no "handouts"......we need a fiscally viable plan!

They'll go with the same clubs they have now, and English rugbyleague will once again fall further behind the NRL and union, and unfortunately we will then fall behind North America once their clubs have established themselves and the same fools that post on forums like this will still blame wakey fev and halifax etc

You really think there'd be 2 Hull clubs in there?
Because I don't and I support 1 of them. I also doubt weather Cas (who go against every expansionist on here's argument of population, crowds and market they can appeal to). or Bradford (they won't be financially viable by then, and apologies to Bradford fans but even if they were could they be trusted due to there recent history ).

If Toronto, Toulouse whoever come up through the current system then great fair play to them. If they don't then tough try again next year. We shouldn't be putting in just cause they're nice places to go, it look's good in the papers, and they may bring better opportunities for marketing. Because they also may not.

As someone else has put, why aren't we looking at Scotland, Ireland?