I am just pointing out that Catalan in over 10 years in the top flight has failed in two of the major objectives of putting a team in France in the first place. I never said they have failed completely and are a solid SL club by anyones standard, but they do not prove that expansion teams are the holy grail.

I don't think the name of the club matters at all, if sponsors are not interested in Fev then why should they be interested in Everton or Tottenham say, why not pump all their money into Birmingham City or Leeds United for that matter?

By your logic Paris should have been a huge success, and short term you may get a sponsorship boost from putting a team in Toronto, but so would you for putting a team in Madrid or Amsterdam or Berlin or any major world city. The problem is that after a few years these clubs built on little to no foundations will crumble and the RFL will be stood scratching their heads as usual.

The problem with RL in England is viewership and participation, neither of which can be fixed by sponsers, unless they paid so much that SL actually financially overtook RU or the NRL so it could attract some star names (and better quality). The RFL would be FAR better spending their time and money getting RL played in the schools of major northern cities like Leeds, Liverpool and Manchester, where young players could naturally be picked up by the SL academies, which would also boost viewership as people became more familiar with the sport.

Except, as I pointed out, the "objectives" that people seem to be holding them to seem to be:
a) completely made up.
b) completely out of their control.

Catalans are not and cannot be held responsible for the successes or failures of the FFRXII.



Everton and Tottenham have a wide and diverse audience that advertisers want to reach. They also have a global appeal, pulling in viewers and supporters from all around the world - audiences that advertisers want to reach.

Featherstone does none of those things.



That's not my logic in the slightest. When it comes to generating sponsorship and broadcast revenue, what matters is the audience that the sport reaches. Being in big cities can help with that but it is not, in itself, a solution to the problem. Paris had no audience upon which they could build a sustainable club.



Agreed



Disagree. The sport needs finances in order to make it more attractive to star players and to retain the talent that it has, but that revenue also plays a huge role in supporting the grass roots of the sport. Much of the RFU's youth development and community work is funded by NatWest and Mitsubishi - that's sponsors directly investing in the player pool, supporting participation and investing in facilities.



Disagree. RL is already played in schools across the heartlands.

The sport, and more particuarly the clubs, would get a far better return from expanding their reach and growing their audience amongst the groups that advertisers, sponsors and broadcasters care about. Professional sport today is essentially a form of media, and we need to start thinking like one - a magazine or TV show that sells content to an audience, and that sells access to that audience to potential advertisers. That's where the revenue comes into the sport to fund pretty much everything else.

The biggest failure with this sport is that it spends too much time focusing on the people who already buy the product, and not enough time listening to the people who don't. At the moment, the only person who does seem to be doing that is Adam Hills. Until we address that, this sport will continue to go nowhere.

The objectives are not made up- go look back at all the rfl statements giving their reasons for artificially promoting Catalan.

Toronto and every other expansion club would also lack these audiences, the point is that the name/location of the club does not effect the ability to attract sponsors much at all.

What makes you think that Toronto or New York or any other half baked expansion team would have a more sustainable audience than Paris or London did? Catalan is a bit of an anomaly in that there was already a pretty decent RL following in Perpingnan.

Sponsors could help but chasing them blindly with gimicks won't cause any sponsor to act in the way Natwest do for the RFU.

RL is not played in nearly enough schools in the big northern cities, there are huge sections of manchester and leeds that either play RU or no rugby code at all and huge sections of Liverpool where people wouldn't even know what RL is. If we don't effectively grow our game in its supposed heartland then what chance has it of growing elsewhere?

I haven't found a single statement from Catalans or the RFL where a stated objective is to "improve the national team". There is a stated aim for 75% of the team to be made up of French players, but I don't think the club could really be held to this in a structure such as the S8s.



Rob Elstone is on record as saying that Toronto is, in many respects, a leading example of how this sport reaches new audiences - particuarly younger audiences in urban markets that advertisers want to pay to reach.

It is not necessarily a case of putting pins on a map of cities, but about how hard any club works to engage people who do not currently buy into this sport. That's the point I'm making here. For too long, clubs have spent too much time and effort talking to people who already buy it, and little to no time on the people who don't.



What gimmicks? The sport needs finance. Commercial revenue is a source of finance. In order to realise that, we need to reach audiences that those commercial sources want access to. It's really not hard.



That's ultimately down to the clubs to tap into those markets. There is nothing stopping any club from promoting themselves in Liverpool, Manchester or those parts of Leeds where the game isn't well known.



Again, the heartlands can only sustain this sport so far. If we want to insist that the answer to these problems is to concentrate on towns where the high streets are full of payday lenders, bookies and fast food shops, we've no right to complain when the only sponsors we can attract are online bookies, cash convertors and tinned mushy peas.

The sport needs to reach new audiences, people who don't already buy this sport, and to make itself more relevant in the modern sports and media market. As much as I'd like to think that could be done by "concentrating on the heartlands", the evidence from the clubs so far makes me seriously doubt it can.

the circus continues www.totalrl.com/toronto-set-sigh ... pean-tour/

the circus continues www.totalrl.com/toronto-set-sigh ... pean-tour/

Quote hooligan27="hooligan27"the circus continues www.totalrl.com/toronto-set-sigh ... pean-tour/'" How dare David Argyle try to raise the profile of rugby league by having the vision to try something new!

Quote hooligan27="hooligan27"the circus continues www.totalrl.com/toronto-set-sigh ... pean-tour/'" How dare David Argyle try to raise the profile of rugby league by having the vision to try something new!

Just imagine the reaction when people see the price of a pint in Copenhagen.

Pretty much what Barry Hearn did a decade ago with snooker.

-1/3 degrees in Copenhagen in Feb...... Only stadium with a roof holds 40k. He's just names cities that anzacs visit on their Oversees Experiences.

If you genuinely think it is the responsibility of professional clubs to get the sport played in more schools then there is no point continuing this conversation. What club is inspiring people to play RU in Leeds? But I can guarantee that RU will be played in more schools than RL in Leeds and there are also definitely more amateur RU clubs in the city. But hey I am sure a team in Toronto (and possibly another French team) is gonna push participation and school funding through the roof!

Why do you think Copenhagen was selected? Has this come from nowhere or have things been going on behind the scenes?