Other codes in the UK, including other high profile Rugby Union competitions, also witness a few teams dominate the competition.
* The Aviva Premiership has only been won by 7 clubs in its 25 year history, with three clubs winning 21 of those 25 seasons, Leicester (9 titles), Bath and Wasps (6 each). A core of clubs still always place well.
* The Premier League - 20 clubs, still dominated by a Big 4 or 5. 5 winners in 20 years, Man U with 12 of those.
* French Top 14 RU - 14 clubs, only 5 clubs in the 16 years of professionalism, with 2 clubs winning 11 of the 16 titles (Toulouse with 6, Stade Francais with 5).

Players will obviously take up the game for the love of it, and achieve as much as they can, but large offers from other competitions would be very tempting, especially if faced with a pay cut due to a reduced salary cap. Players will also seek to maximise earnings during their player career.

Guys like Jason Robinson, Andy Farrell, Henry Paul, Iestyn Harris, even Vainikolo and Hape were a big loss to RL at the time. The increased earnings in RU would have been one factor in their switch (among a number, admittedly). Current players like Chris Ashton, Kyle Eastmond, Joel Tomkins, Owen Farrell and George Ford would all be excellent additions to SL and the national team - the first 2 would be certain starters. Super League will miss 10 star players that could boost the competition's standards and appeal.

There is also evidence of competitions losing good players to competitions with a higher salary cap In recent times.

* NRL lost a number of players to big deals in SH Rugby (Sailor, Rogers, Tuqiri, Tahu, Folau), the Top 14 (Gasnier, Gower, SBW) and Top League (Craig Wing), and to Super League (over the 2000s).
* Wales RU has seen 8 current test players move to France.
* Super League - to Aviva Premiership, see above. Even so, 4 Aviva Premiership clubs successfully lobbied for a recent cap increase, Leicester's coach Richard Cockerill most vocally complaining about big spending Top 14 and Japan Top League clubs poaching players.
* Southern Hemisphere RU (especially South Africa) - many.

If you don't link it to tangibles like fan revenue, youmay as well just doaway with the cap,as rich owners will simply buy trophies......as I said, Viable Business plans, not projections and the like.

On Farrell being well regarded - so is Mick Ford, Neil Kelly etc they hardly starred in RL and if they could get a job in RL they would be back in a shot. Noble is another one - no one in RL wants to give him a job but he can get work in RU.

England have never had a foreign coach so Lancaster was not really competing with Mallet as you well know. You mentioned Leeds struggling the point of a good coach is to get the best out of the players - can you really say that about Lancaster's time at Leeds?

The point about Farrell was would he be any good in RL - the answer to that is no - he speed of thought is too slow - in RL he would be much closer to the line his decision making would have to quicken considerably also how would he defend against big centres two/three times in a set!!

Greater spread - if one owner goes he takes it all - it is unlikely you whole crowd would go on mass. Most clubs will have fans who have been going considerably longer than any of the owners have owned the club.

True but you lose 2000 fans and your losses become just as great as most owners (London aside) are putting in each year, and it's not unheard of to have avg attendance fluctuations of 2000 a season depending on performance.

gutterfax's scenario also doesn't take into account expense. One club could have 4mill income and be more profitable than a club with 5 mill income depending on how much they are spending on ground hire, coaches, directors scouting trips to Australia etc.