www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-australia-31598266 Quote On Tuesday, NRL chief executive Dave Smith said that the takeover would give the club a "fresh start". In a statement, Mr Smith added that the club as been placed in voluntary administration by the directors after conceding that the club could no longer continue to meet its financial obligations, including staff and player salaries. He said: "This is an important region for rugby league and the Titans remain part of our long-term plans for the game." The Titans will hand over their licence to the NRL on Tuesday but that the club's current board would be retained, he said. '" 2 Clubs "rescued" inside 9 months. Is this to protect the TV revenue? Compared to Blake Solly offering the Landlord of London Broncos a "marketing budget" for the 2014 season to encourage him to take them in, this is how a proper governing body protects its expansion interests.

www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-australia-31598266 Quote On Tuesday, NRL chief executive Dave Smith said that the takeover would give the club a "fresh start". In a statement, Mr Smith added that the club as been placed in voluntary administration by the directors after conceding that the club could no longer continue to meet its financial obligations, including staff and player salaries. He said: "This is an important region for rugby league and the Titans remain part of our long-term plans for the game." The Titans will hand over their licence to the NRL on Tuesday but that the club's current board would be retained, he said. '" 2 Clubs "rescued" inside 9 months. Is this to protect the TV revenue? Compared to Blake Solly offering the Landlord of London Broncos a "marketing budget" for the 2014 season to encourage him to take them in, this is how a proper governing body protects its expansion interests.

Its to prtect the clubs themselves. The Titans were effectively going bust. The difference in the NRL is that the TV deal gives enough money to the NRL to do this. There's no way the RFL or SL or whatever could financially support a failing club, as we've seen in the past.

When SL was set up Paris and London should have received twice the cash of the other 10 teams. Each SL side should have received 7% with the 2 expansion clubs getting 14%. I have no doubt that the owners of the other 10 clubs would have preferred 7% of something to what they were currently receiving and if any of them didn't fancy it, they could always remain part time and living hand to mouth. If the current budget for 12 SL clubs is 18 million, this would mean 10 clubs getting 1,286 million each and 2 expansion clubs getting 2.6 million. It wouldn't be very fair in the eyes of the heartland supporters of a few teams and therefore, you have a 12 team SL camped predominantly along 1 motorway with a sole outpost in the south of France packed with Australians and of no assistance to French RL as a whole.

This is why the NRL have come to the rescue of the Titans, as they did before at the Knights. The "reach" or perceived "reach" is what keeps advertisers and sponsors happy. A quick glance at the siting of the 11 english top flight teams in SL points to where we are going wrong....

I agree with you about differential payments to expansion clubs, though I don't think double the amount of heartland clubs would get accepted by the heartland clubs. But certainly the RFL should have been supporting London financially last year to give them a chance to stay in Super League.

If we didn't have London in Super League all those years we would never have developed Dan Sarginson, Tony Clubb, Louis McCarthy-Scarsbrook, Kieran Dixon and many others playing at a professional level in Super League. If London stays in the Championship for a long time, we may not see similar quality players emerging from southern England again.

Nigel Wood and his cronies appear to be clueless about the needs of the game.

Whilst the RFL isn't perfect, the most clueless are the SL clubs. As the games " elite" they are supposed to be the epitome of how good things are.

Sadly, and has been obvious for years, this not the case.

Maybe they should get back in touch with Marwan if he's still interested in buying an NRL club

Don't forget the Tigers and dragons, the nrl has bailed them out as well last year. Good job they got a shed load of money in last tv deal.

It's a disgrace you should cut your cloth and you reap what you sow etc. etc.

4 clubs unable to manage?

Yeah!!!

What we really need and would really ram your point home, is a map with little coloured dots on to convince everyone of the parochial nature of RL you don't happen to have one do you?

I'll see what I can do


Edit:
Found an Aussie one with AFL, NRL and Soccer.


I think the blue and green dots show sports which have a national reach, whilst the red dots seem very east-coast-centric.
Edit II:
Found it...



now.....if I can just find the French one....
Edit III
Well whaddya know?

Not sure if I've delivered what you wanted, but East coast of Australia, 1 road in England and a French town.....oh, hang on. New Zealand? Where's New Zealand?

Edit VI. Phew...got the full set.

Oh goody another NRL thread that seems to have escaped from the .....NRL board !!!!

Don't the dots also show where most of te populations are to be found as well?

No, the dots are world famous McDonalds outlets, which as there are more of them, are clearly serving better food than Gordon Ramsey's pitiful offerings, after all theres more of them!!!!!

Yeah, your map confirms all the big NRL clubs are spread all across Australia and the expansion of their competition is amazing. Naaaaaaaaaaaaaat!

No map with top-flight Association clubs???