Quote: Call Me God "The sport is smaller, but that has nowt to do with Licensing and a whole load to do with bad management and clubs spending to stay up rather than grow....the best examples of this would be Widnes who were competitive both on and off the field during licencing, but who have reverted to spending to stay up and sod the rest of it.
As for Union, they are well managed at all levels and still hemorrhage cash at an eye watering rate......but they have adapted to open professionalism and have allowed "nature' to take its course seeing Quins, Northampton and Newcastle all be relegated and have to fend for themselves without tweaking the format...the RFU/IRB are the dog and the club game is the tail and the god wags its tail, whilst in League, the tail wags the dog and the elite few will protect their status no matter what......it's why AFL dwarfs NRL in aussie.....it's why soccer is growing fast over there 10,700 average...only 4k behind the NRL now....36k for a Sydney Derby....more than the Bunnes v the Dogs drew this year......the sport is badly managed across the board and that's why it's smaller in the UK.....nothing to do with Licensing!'"
But surely abandoning the pyramid structure was an example of bad management, in other words, it has everything to do with licencing. The current obsession with Toronto is another example of bad management. It'll end in tears just like Celtic Crusaders did. Expansion has to be organic or it won't work.
IMO Licencing is one among many appalling decisions the sport took without reference to the supporters. Summer rugby was another. Union have grown their crowds, from in some cases the apocryphal two men and a dog watching some of the top clubs (not Northampton or Leicester) to substantial, respectable crowds playing in winter, whilst our crowds have been declining. Licencing added to that decline I'm afraid. The game is a mess. Allowing Widnes into SL in the first place is an example of that mess. They had won nothing or proved nothing on the field and yet were allowed automatic access to SL. DR is another stupid decision, and yes my club "benefits" from it. The game needs a thorough housecleaning from top to bottom.
HOW MANY TIMES?????
£20 a ticket and £15 on beer and merchandise.....so an away fan is worth £35. At best, 1,000 is the average away support split across 11 rounds and I am being really generous here, so Toronto, replacing say Wakefield will cost a SL club £35,000.
The minimum turnover of a SL club is £4,000,000 so Toronto instead of Widnes is worth less than 1% of a SL clubs turnover.
There are many valid reasons for and against expansion into America, but "AWAY FANS" isn't one of them. 
:d7dc4b20b2c2dd7b76ac6eac29d5604e_76030.jpg
