Quote: Dropkick Murphy "That's true about Leeds and Hull in RL terms, but you won't find many in North America who know where Hull is and it will be a minority with Leeds too. They will automatically assume London is the biggest team and probably wonder why there isn't one called Liverpool or Manchester given that they're famous "sports" names. Wigan and St Helens are huge names in rugby league, but good luck explaining that in Toronto!'"
The problem is that they (Wigan and Saints) have been big fish in a small pond up to this point in time.
However, if we really are going to go global, they dont even feature as minnows in the grand scheme of things.
RL really ought to spend some time thinking about what it wants and where it wants to be in 5, 10 and 20 years time and then sell their idea to the masses.
Right now, in the Western world, we have falling participation in the UK and a pocket of resistance in the south of France and a rich man's dream in N. America, which takes its players from the UK and Down Under.
There is POTENTIAL to grow something really huge in N. America but, is this ever likely to happen and if so, can someone let us have anything of a timescale.
If all of the salary cap shackles come off and all clubs are allowed to spend what they want on player transfer fees and wages, what will this actually do for the game ?
"We" will still be competing for retiring International players, crocks, bad boys and just maybe a couple of youngsters.
Will this set the game alight and suddenly provoke the TV companies to increase their investment or, allow clubs to persuade "the next level" of sponsors to come on board or, is it more likely to stoke wage inflation and actually leave clubs with a much higher wage bill and leave them financially worse off.