Quote The Curtism="The Curtism"Which is what all these sports are. Entertainment.'"
Alas, some take it too seriously....it's akin to the 70's football hooligans ploughhing into each other the way JB, dally et all plough into anyone who dares comment on anything to do with league in a negative light, or commits the cardinal sin of actually saying anything positive about Union. Jesus, if you even use the letters A-F-L- in the same sentence they try to have you burned at the stake.
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London RL has failed to attract fans and therefore sponsors and revenue to the game at its highest level. The reasons for this are many, as are the excuses that get rolled out on a regular basis, but the bottom line is:
The RFL, whilst keen to keep a London Team in the league have contributed nothing to the development of the game in the South East. The community coaches, school visits, club assistance etc has purely come from the coffers of the London RL Franchise. These people have a massive area to cover and I believe that 2011 is the first year that any financial assistance has been offered by the RFL to "spread the game".
The RFL, whilst responsible for the marketing and promotion of the game, have actually only ever become involved in the marketing of 1 game at the stoop, prior to 2011. This was the WCC Warm up game v Manly and you can take it from me, whilst they made a profit from it, they learnt exactly how hard it is to get the media involved...even if you are paying them. TNT Magazine made more money from this game than anyone else..........that is the magnitude of the issues faced in the south east.
2011 is the year that the RFL are getting involved.......when they should have been doing so since 1996.
This month, the RFL and the evening Standard, in conjunction with the club have offered 2,500 free pairs of tickets to the Castleford game. I suspect, 1,000 or maybe 1,200 of these pairs will have been taken up. If any so called heartland team repeated this offer in their local paper, I suspect the 2,500 would be gone in 1 hr. The reason Quins will undersubscribe? It has nothing to do with League....it has more to do with what else is available in entertainment in London on Friday night, the recession (costs to get there, drinks etc) and the fact that only 15% of the standards readership will live within 5 miles of the ground.
I don't know if London RL will remain at the stoop or if it will ever get the investment, either from the RFL/SKY/Private sources to ever attract 10,000 gates that it needs to be self sufficient, but I do know (well, I am 90% sure) that without London RL in Superleague, the game becomes less attractive to advertisers......because like it or not, the Capital City is always key when they are putting their budgets together......and the people they pay for advertising are the same ones that pay the other clubs 12 million each a year, without which, your Willie Masons, Michael Maguires and other "overseas" stars would be off the menu and with the exception of 3 or 4 clubs, the rest would go back to being part time.......as a result, Union would strip the best players and RL in the UK would be worse off than it was in 1993 within 5 years.....IMO that is.
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Like many have said before GF (we, me 
