Your point about Catalan is transferable to Cumbria.
It is a very big county with one professional sports team.
Rugby is in the blood up there.
Perpignan is in a remote region of France, with no big football teams locally.

If the RFL wants to expand, then surely getting a proper team off the ground in Cumbria, with the safeguards they gave Catalan, which was an amalgamation of local clubs, is the best way?

I am not adverse to them introducing a second French club along the same line either.

The London model has failed, and fans are fed up with it!

That said, corporate governance rules need to be properly enforced in the heartland areas.
There can be no more token punishments for clubs like Widnes, while Wakefield and Bradford get off scott free with repeated bankruptcies.

If 'Cumbria' were given a place in in SL I think there would be a fan unification BUT Whitehaven/Workington/Barrow would still exist and their fan base would still be the same, it would be a means to 'recruiting'.

The London problem won't change with a name, I think people compare it to football regards the 'having a local name' forgetting how big football is and then how many people are in London.

Union have generic names Saracens, Harlequins, not exactly connecting with the locals.

Barnet Football club actually attract less than Broncos, so being Barnet Broncos isn't going to attract people in, people talk of multi cultural London but it's just pockets of nations and religions, each one as insular as the next, extremely hard to break into, the marketing is more complicated than simply putting the word out and I think way beyond the capabilities of Gus the goon.

I seem to remember them having viynls on a few black cabs two years ago, needle in a haystack springs to mind! To be fair there was a big billboard outside Twickenham Station last year though.

Has Rhys Williams found anywhere yet? He'd get a gig at London.

Any news on if they've even got a team signed up for next year?