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.

The very NRL that doesn't haveI 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.'"

They had many years & failed dismally, hence they are in the position they are now.

Is that so. Look back at your history books.

You won't find OK Bulls in there though.

You don't half talk some tosh.

The most successful rugby league in the world is the NRL and you don't even get that it does not have P & R. Indeed it is astonishing that anybody would genuinely believe that the winning team from the Aus stiffs league could be promoted and take a place in the NRL.

Your other theory about potential investors begs the question as to why, in the century before SL, new clubs with such investors had not sprung up all over the land. Whereas [isince[/i the advent of SL, [isome[/i clubs [ihave[/iattracted deep-pocket investors.

(You could also consider one of the most successful leagues in any sport, with certainly some of, if not THE, biggest investors, the NFL. How much P & R does that have, remind me?)

You finally also have no clue about company law. OK Bulls Ltd is a new company. Bradford Bulls was and is a business, which runs a rugby league team. That business used to be owned by one company, now it is owned by another company. I entirely get that you hate that idea, but the actual (and legal) fact is that the business of Bradford Bulls continues uninterrupted. The administrator successfully sold it as a going concern. Irritating things, simple facts, aren't they?

I have a feeling that that explanation would be a very useful sticky for at the top of the forum for all our new resident posters who are enjoying our troubles. Or maybe that should be part of a new site banner?

Funnily enough, I've just written an analogy on the same topic in another thread as some people really seem to have a hard time understanding the difference.

So do you!

The Bulls went bust. Full stop.

The Newco with the funny name bought the business and assets (but not the liabilities mind) of the Bulls from the Administrator. But not as a going concern
...only COMPANIES can be bought as going concerns.

The NewCo has effectively ditched the £1.5m debts the Bulls owed - the biggest element of which was owed to you, me and all other taxpayers as it was due to HM Revenue and Customs - not to mention the effect on all the small traders in the Bradford area who are struggling financially and have now been stitched up in this way .

Some Bradford fans can't seem to accept that they've had £1.5m worth of entertainment on the pitch that you weren't entitled to (as your Club couldn't afford the expensive players it had).