So then...back to the original question.

If we get to Magic weekend and t looks like Leeds/Wigan are in any danger of going down, will there be a hastily arranged meeting of the SL chairmen to expand to 14 and welcome toronto and another team up?

If anybody says no they won’t will you believe/accept it anyway?

I've asked a question, so of course I will accept someone else's opinion, regardless of if I believe it to be right or wrong. Believing it is nether here nor there.

For me the comp cannot survive the demise of either of the 2 best supported clubs in the game at the moment.....the idea of Leeds or Wigan being relegated and the game losing at least over 10% of it's top tier gates is unthinkable. We are not football, we don't have the depth of support football has.

When Bradford went down, they were averaging 6k......that was bad enough, but tempered with the loss of London who were themselves dragging the average down, neither side averaged ABOVE the comp figure that year......



Perspective is everything, especially to advertising execs. 140,881 fans attended Leeds Home Regular season games in 2018, of 1,100,508 who attended the 11 home games at each ground that season. 13% of the fans who attended regular season games, did so at Leeds games. 11% at Wigan.......these are two of only 3 current SL sides who have won the comp and are arguably the 2 biggest names in the game in the modern era, along with maybe St Helens.



If London were to be relegated (as I believe we will) the impact would be more circumstantial than factual, with the loss of a capital presence felt, but the loss of over 10% of the fanbase that SL broadcasters want would be far greater.



Wigan's gates this year are abysmal....10% down on last year, 3k down on 3 years ago....and they are the champions......the game is in a tailspin and losing one of the big clubs would be a catastrophe.....IMHO that is.

That's two threads I've had to agree with you on, I need to lie down in a dark room

I didn't realise it had to be in its first season

Well by entering the British system, they could have a SL quality team playing other SL quality teams within 5 years (that's the goal).



How long do you think it would take to get the USARL up to anywhere near that quality and prestige?

What's pretty striking in all of these types of discussions is how the detractors of expansion (and there are credible reasons to be a detractor) have lots of reasons why expansion can't work, won't work or shouldn't be allowed to work, but have very few solutions or suggestions on an alternative.



The RL community, and this forum is no different, has lots of people yelling "focus on the heartlands" but when you press them on what this actually means, they've got nothing.



The sport has been "focusing on the heartlands" for more than 120 years and that approach has got the sport to where it is today - lacking relevance, lacking exposure, lacking players and lacking finance. What kind of "focusing on the heartlands" would yield a different result? The people shouting this must have an idea, surely?



Expansion is not the goal here, it is simply the mechanism. The goal should be to get more people playing, watching and enjoying the sport in a way that makes it financially sustainable as a modern professional entity and if the heartland clubs were showing that they could consistently do that, expansion is not even on the agenda.

The USA has roller derby teams with more financial backing than some of our SuperLeague teams but Rugby of either code struggle. Association Football survives more because it is seen as being accessible to both sexes and is often supported more by middle class Soccer Moms which gives it the grass roots appeal. Rugby league does not have that so unless we can bring in national TV coverage we will struggle to get a foothold. The TV market in The USA is still segmented regionally with cable still dominant and in the internet age they are unlikely to ever develop the kind of all encompassing national TV system that we are used to. What we need is someone who can see into the future. If we find that person can we ask them for the winning lottery numbers?

yay, another new Jean facade

Expansion in the UK has failed due to lack of will to make it happen and more importantly, the lack of serious cash to make it a success plus, if you go back a little way, expansion was foiled at every turn by dark forces from the other code which, had they worked as hard to solve the broken time payments issue, would have meant that RL would never have been a sport.



Interesting that you site "lack of players" and yet bang the drum for the N. American sides to entice players from over here to fill their roster.



Unfortunately, Union, with its seemingly endless supply of cash is smothering our sport and you have schools in Yorkshire being promised grants from Union to encourage some schools to drop RL from their curriculum but, we mustn't play the victim .





RL showed it's true colours when allowing Sheffield to "merge" with Huddersfield and Gateshead to "merge" with Hull but, fundamentally, we suffer through lack of cash / investment.



There should be a grown up discussion on where the sport would like to be in 5 /10/ 20 years time but, this either doesn't happen at all or it's on the bag fag packet in our new leaders pocket.



Yourself and others bang on about us having had 120 years to do whatever and I would suggest that RL greatest achievement has been to help Union go global.

By "stealing their players on a regular basis through the 70', 80's and 90's, they decided to turn their "amateur" game into a pro sport and sadly, with the huge resources at their disposal, RL has become ever more marginalised.



The game hasn't had any kind of proper plan for over 40 years and until some of those, who are paid significant money actually hatch a realistic way forward, change will not happen.

more utter bollox, at least tomorrow is pension day.

Again, we have lots of problems, lots of excuses, but not a lot of ideas to change things for the better.



There are various reasons why certain expansion ventures have failed but lets not pretend that heartland clubs are any less vulnerable to the whims of benevolent owners. The situation at Leigh last year is evidence of that. I don't think you could accuse David Argyle of lacking the will to make it succeed at Toronto, or Leighton Samuel of lacking the will to make Celtic Crusaders succeed. The latter failed because the business plan wasn't right and the finances didn't work. I'm not sure what "strategy" or "will from the RFL" you're hoping for in that sort of scenario.



But it doesn't do the sport any favours to obsess about the rights and wrongs of the past. It doesn't change the harsh realities facing the sport. The sport can't influence what the RFU and its clubs do or don't do and you need to get over yourself if you believe that RU went (publically) professional because it saw what RL was doing. RU went pro because it saw the commercial opportunities that it would bring. What RL needs to focus on is how it can change its own destiny, not what those big, bad evil forces were doing.



I mention players because the facts don't lie. Participation in this sport in the UK is falling, it's falling fast, and something needs to be done to address that. [iOne[/i of those things that can be done is to introduce the sport to new areas where there are potentially untapped talent pools - why can't North America be one of those? Let's get over this idea that our players can only come from the M62 corridor because the facts are that we're getting fewer and fewer players from those areas.



Yes, Toronto in their whopping 2.5 years of existence haven't produced much in the way of professional-ready talent, but that doesn't mean that all attempts to take the game to young people in other parts of the world should be consigned to the "can't work, won't work" pile. Toronto's priorities are clearly about getting into SL quickly, and that's there perogative.



And you know what? If this sport can offer young men from the North of England the opportunity to play and live in some of the most exciting cities in North America in their 20s (NY have commited to being predominantly US-based), then that's a huge attraction to anyone playing this game. I know I'd jump at the chance for a contract to spend a few years of my 20s in New York City. What an incredible life experience that this sport can now offer young talent.



For all the talk of "expansion strategies", the reality is that the RFL or SL isn't in a position to do that without willing stakeholders like David Argyle and Eric Perez and, given that it is their investment, its right that they get a say in how and where they run their respective clubs. If that is Toronto, Thatto Heath or Tahiti, it's their money to risk.



And the point still stands that the very issue of expansion is only on the agenda because of failures at club level - failures to grow audiences, engage communities and to reach audiences that sponsors want to reach today. It is they that have got the sport to the state it is in today and at some point, we have to start listing to someone with better ideas, rather than those who just want to talk about problems and keep doing the same things that got us here.