Quote: bramleyrhino "Even if we absolve Whitehaven of blame entirely for their situation (and we shouldn't), what is happening here is precisely the result of not expanding, of not reaching new audiences and of not making this sport more attractive to broadcasters and commercial partners.
A poster on here a while ago claimed that a chairman of one Cumbrian club is on record as saying "he knows how many season tickets his club would sell just by looking in the obituaries section of the local paper". If true then that, right there, is why too many heartland clubs have very bleak futures.'"
This.
It’s not ‘expansion success’ or ‘heartland success’; it’s ‘expansion success’ or ‘heartland collapse’.
The problems of the heartland clubs are a direct result of a sport losing strength in the sports marketplace. The clubs we have don’t attract the money, the profile or the players to sustain the historical semi-pro structures. If Toronto, Toulouse, Catalans and the London and Wales clubs didn’t exist, Whitehaven would still be in trouble. Quite possibly in more trouble.
RL in this country is in serious decline on every indicator you want to look at. Our historic existing marketplace is shrinking and cannot support what we have, let alone what we want. We really are now in a situation whereby if we can’t find and develop new marketplaces, then we’re toast.
The expansion clubs aren’t hurting Whitehaven or other clubs like Whitehaven: they’re actually the only hope Whitehaven has of surviving in the long-term.