Based on what? Your myopic "rugby league is a local sport for local people" bias??

A sweeping statement based on what evidence? Could it be that Rugby league is a "local sport for local people"?

I have just seen this post on the Fev forum thought it was pretty sums up how stupid this whole franchise thing is. I would love Rugby to just be about Rugby again.

I've got a great idea that will change the way the RFL is seen worldwide. Lets invite the 2012 Olympic Committee to follow the way we run Rugby League? This is what we do. We invite athletes from all over the world to come to London and have a knockabout in the new stadiums we have built. After a while we choose say, ten or twelve athletes to go forward to the 'Super Athlete' stage. (These will be chosen by who is wearing the nicest colours). Then, these few selected athletes run up and down a few times. It won't matter who is first or last because the winner will the one who has the best smile on television.
I believe this will bring in 100's of millions of viewers from all over world in the same way that thousands are flocking to watch non-competitive Rugby League. We can invent athletes, anyone even if they have never run before.
This way we will see a lot more sporting disiplines taking part in absolutely pointless sports. We wont have to follow particular atheletes or countries, we wont have to get excited about watching nail biting endings. All we would have to do is sit in front of the television and simply watch.

Seriously though, without competition and fire in the belly to succeed any sport is pointless. Even Primary School sports now have winners and losers in their sports day. Someone, please, at the RFL wake up and make this wonderful game a game worth watching.

Clearly not as many as you would like, but then we're not bunched up together on the M62 are we???

All I can say is good luck. SL would be poorer without Cas and/or Wakey.

The same can be said of most of SL at some stage. Giants for example perenial under achievers , using you top 8 finished criteria, but now make a go of establishing themselves amongst the SL "Elite". As for no money that goes for most of the SL clubs who survive on the goodwill of deep pocketed owners and board members.

I'm not saysing all at Quins is a bed of roses. It is not. But the same can be said for many of the current SL clubs in regard to finances and stagnant crowd figures.

Whilst the naysayers and myopic amongst the northern supporter base remain so the game will not improve at either local nor imternational level. England and English rugby league will remain in it's current malaise and I would argue in the long term even go backwards. But as long as you got your M62 corridor to travel along tpo play your "local sport for local people" the myopic northern supporter will remain happy. Wont' they?

I've never understood this argument. In terms of crowds, the onus should be on the home team to market games and pull punters through the door; not the away team to prop them up.

I'd rather Quins put their efforts into increasing home crowds rather than trying to persuade their fans to take on the M1/A1 every fortnight, often on a Friday night.

Better than Cas or Wakey in some cases,
rlhttp://www.slstats.org/Away.htmlrl

All that is very well but where is the support for the game in London and Wales??
Are they all hiding ??

Fact is buddy outside the M62 corridor and a few fanatics in France, nobody else wants the game, so why try and force it on them ?

Please don't insult me with those stats because they are a joke!!! Have you seen those attendances???? What are they.... Murrayfield magic full day attendances divided by the number of teams who played on that entire day?



Or does every team get 40,000 or so to add to their averages? a joke!

Just calculated it. It is all their away game attendance and Murrayfield Magic divided by 12.

Considering Wigan themselves marketed the game out of it and got an 18k crowd, Warrington's first home game of the season (11k), and five figure crowds for Saints, Leeds and Hull FC would explain why it is so high.

Taking out MM takes it down to 9447. It is highly flawed, however, we do have a massive crowd against Saints to come.