Pah, pin money where I inhabit.

The Bulls may have 10,000 fans but they don't benefit other clubs to that extent. The away following is probably 1500-2000, that is what is of benefit to other clubs in the league. If the Bulls were replaced in Super league by another club, fax, Fev or leigh how many fans would they take to away matches.....500.?? 1000..?? that is what benefit clubs have to the league as a whole........

Home fans only contribute to their home club, it is away fans that contribute to the league as a whole

reducing the league may not be the answer, if teams have less home games that in effect means less money into the club, would the increased Sky money cover it....maybe for a club with average home gates of up to 7500k but clubs with gates in excess of 10,000 would have less income with reduced teams and home games......

You are mistaken, I do not and never have blamed fans for the current situation, in fact without the extreme generosity and commitment of the fans the situation would have been considerably worse. I think the fans of the bulls are superb and was one of those fans o would do and say exactly what you are.

No, I blame the board of the bulls for getting into the mire, but I also blame the RFL's licencing process, a process that is supposed to protect against this sort of thing. And it gauls me that the rfl told Halifax that their finances were SPECULATIVE. How on earth they missed the speculative finances of the nulls bid beats me.

As I have said we all know that the mini licence applicatio process is just a sham being run by the RFL to make appear to run a
fair process and the bulls will be on Superleague next season.

I don't accept that. If you figure in internationals, finals etc where the individual club is not represented then the club with the larger support will sell comparatively more tickets than the club with the lesser support. In terms of cup/play off matches where the individual clubs are represented and where income goes to the RFL there is no doubt that thr club with the larger support will contribute more.

Then add in the larger demographic purchasing Sky and thereby being reached by sponsors and it's clear that the clubs with larger fanbases contribute proportionately more than those with smaller fan bases.

If we want to expand the game & sponsorship are money & media people going to be interested in yet another small M62 town/village, as cruel as that might be?

So what your actually saying is that Fax, Fev or Leighs only chance of superleague is if one of the other small M62 clubs, like Castleford drops out?

I would see little merit in replacing one small M62 town with another.

It's a good job the NRL don't have such a myopic view of the "little Sydney suburbs" that make up most of their league.

I know it's just my opinion and people can disagree. But my belief is that any professional sport in the UK should set a pyramid structure of leagues with at least one up-one down automatic promotion/relegation between them.

A bit like Soccer.

I personally would live with the long term results in RL even if all the teams in the top league were eventually from 'M62 towns'. Who knows, if such a system were established, a financial backer might decide to set up a club in virgin territory in the knowledge that, with recruitment of players good enough to win the league two years running, his/her new Club would be able to achieve Super League status within two seasons via Championship 1 and Championship. They would know that they would stay in Super League if they didn't ever finish bottom - and not have the risk of it all been taken away from them by a committee operating some sort of 'licensing system.'

Personally, I would just prefer the integrity of such a system of automatic promotion and relegation to committees deciding who plays where. Once Paris went and Dublin, Barcelona etc failed to materialise, there should have been a realisation that central planning doesn't work.

Not necessarily. What is perhaps more the case is that Super League cannot afford a Cas to drop out because even a weak Cas outfit is in a different 'league' to those clubs. Cas has a base of support, youth development, sponsorship that the Super league needs to keep. The issue is the gap between the two leagues is almost unbridgeable without a massive injection of funding.

Were you to ask Steve O'Connor how much it costs to go from the Championship to the Super League with the genuine prospect of ever being competetive I suspect it would be £5-£8 million over a five year period from him alone. Hence throwing one club out and letting another in is a collossal gamble.

Give some champ clubs many years at the top and they will build a fan base too. Give teams nothing to play for and watch them die fanbase wise.

Last time I checked Wakefield didn't bin off their old company and their historic debts and start a NewCo................unlike Bradford have done by all accounts.
So not the same at all.