To be clear. I am not willing toronto to fail, simply pointing out that if Argyle had bought Bradford or Halifax then spent the millions he has, then that team would now be in SL...... The difference being that hed not have to give away tickets and the club would be a lot closer to self sufficiency already through TV cash and Gate receipts. As it is he has neither, nor to date a major sponsor either and if he's dropping $7 mill a year for a hobby, then let's hope he doesnt get bored and looks both ways when crossing the road.

Slightly off topic.

I see that they've got their perspectives right over on toiletrldorcom With a thread started wondering if the national natural disaster befalling australia at the moment will impact the NRL season...... To call them shallow is to say they are too deep?

The difference is, if Halifax or Bradford got into Super League, it wouldn’t make mainstream media. Nobody outside of the same old would care, even many in RL circles wouldn’t bat an eye lid. Gate tickets earn nothing. If you think your club survives on tickets you’re deluded. It’s sponsors, screen time, corporate support and wealthy providers.

We’ve all moaned for years about the lack of coverage, if you have to buy column inches then so be it. Wigan bought names, actually they were attractions, in the 80’s. They were, and are still, a brand because of that.

If someone wants to plough in their money, good luck to them. Stop moaning and enjoy getting a bit more coverage, enjoy seeing SBW included in your season ticket price and enjoy a trip to watch your team in one of the best sports city’s in the world.

If the average price of attending a game in SL is say £20, then the 2019 season saw in excess of £30,000,000 taken on the gate at SL games including play-offs and the Grand Final.
£2,500,000 average gate income per club is more than £1,800,000 TV money that those clubs receive. I am all for off the cuff remarks when they are accurate, but yours is not...by any stretch even remotely that.

Sponsors you say?
HKR are sponsored by a local company who specialise in Domestic and Commercial Drain Cleaning in the Hull Area......Wigan are sponsored by another local company, as are LEEDS BUILDING SOCIETY on the shirts of the Rhinos....do you really think these firms are trying to grab customers in London by sponsoring the local RL side

?

I'll give you wealthy owners and the occasional corporate bone being thrown in, but gate receipts are a key part of the turn over of successful SL clubs. If you doubt me, look at the NRL or even super Rugby Union clubs that are frantically trying to replace the fans they alienated a decade ago when they all thought the TV cash could keep them afloat.

You’re talking about having reduced away support though, due to Toronto fans not travelling. With respect, 500 away fans, by your average, brings in £10k. That’s before you open the away stand, police and steward it, pay for utilities and kiosk staff. I’d argue you’d get more home fans that don’t have season tickets go to watch SBW and the like than a normal lower end of the table team, so it’s swings and roundabouts. If ticket sales were that important, and away ticket sales at that, Warrington wouldn’t have to travel to Hull on a Thursday twice this year. Away support is pennies on the bottom line. Toronto can worry about their own home support.

Regarding the sponsorship, the only reason sponsors are local brands is due to those seeing the game. Spread the game wider, more brands are likely to consider it due to wider coverage. Keep playing to the same audience and you’ll keep getting the same results. Brands like Hoover and Air Transat will be thinking a little bigger than sales in the Calder region I would hope, the sponsors are there, clubs just need to be ambitious and pitch a brand that can spread far and wide. Having the local chippy on a shirt is hardly a badge of honour.

The anti-Toronto/expansion agenda is ridiculous. People have moaned about not getting any coverage for years, then get jealous and moan about a new club making mainstream media in the middle of the off season. If there’s a club that can do that, without it being a scandal, we’ve not seen them since Wigan in the 80’s and 90’s

Gate receipts are a part of it, but they are probably too much of a proportion of RL club income than they should be. Look at most pro sports and the reliance on gate income has gone down (replaced by TV, commercial and non-match day) yet in RL, it remains very high. Its the sort of situation that leads to decisions like loop fixtures - clubs rely on game income, so they insist on more and more games.

All clubs need to do better on commercial performance. When you take the difference in TV income out of the equation, Leeds (our most commercially successful club) turn over about the same as Rotherham United - a club that attracts an average of about 9,000 vs Leeds' 13,000-14,000 or so.

What Leeds Building Society does get from their sponsorship with Leeds is, amongst other things, a relatively cheap way to get on TV nationally (they do have branches and serve customers nationally). What they pay Leeds, vs what it would cost for a similar amount of TV exposure of they simply bought the media, is probably very good value when you consider how frequently Leeds games are televised.

But if the clubs are going to do better on commercial but that means they need to get better at attracting audiences that there companies want to reach. Only speaking to C2DE demographics in the North of England that are easy and cheap to advertise to isn't going to do that.

All I did was disprove this. £30,000,000 on the door is about £8,000,000 more than the clubs get from SKY....no PRO/ANTI wolfpack rhetoric, just cold hard data.......

clubs like Leeds, who turn over good money will still earn more on the gate than any other single avenue of funding......£3,300,000 on the gate is going to be more than any other avenue isn't it?
London only took 600k on the door last year and their #1 source was Hughes, but other than them, salford, Hudds and Wakey, the other sides all took more cash on the turnstyle than they did from SKY.....

It also costs more money to get that income. Top line, that’s correct, but to open the doors costs money. Banging on about away teams not bringing supporters is irrelevant. I’d rather have a progressive club with ambition getting the game coverage that an age-old plodder who bring 500 fans.

I for one will be looking forward to watching Toronto. Regardless of the away end is empty. And the media interest in them, and hundreds of pages of debate on here, proves it is worthwhile for the sport, given that they are not taking any handouts from the game.

Well said! You are right on the money, if you will pardon the pun.

Yes of course we hold that against them. All SL clubs were required to develop players and that was, and remains through the "foundations" the SL clubs run that encourage and develop local grass roots RL. All English SL clubs have them and staff them. Why not look them all up?

You won't find such a system at Toronto, all you will find is a club that buys all it's players from here, or players from the NRL. Catalans don't seem have a junior development system that works either and they don't do academy anymore and an even larger proportion of their squad is now non-french (and the first choice team has only the odd Frenchman in it). Toulouse would not have any French SL players as the best go to Catalans, then Ottawa, New York, Montreal and Vancouver - the latter two who Perez revealed are in the pipeline - would also not have any home grown players.

So come on then. you support a Transatlantic league? Explain it to me? How many clubs will it be? Who will be in it? How will it get a TV deal?? What will happen to the academies and the local junior game when you shut down Wakey, Cas, HKR, Fartown, etc to make way for these overseas clubs????. Given 80% of hull fans are not keen on it which way will crowds go here??

I bet you won't answer this properly. And finally this nonsense about perez has left the club so the club aren't beholden to "his" business plan, it really is naive to pull this trick. Perez explained on behalf of TWP what TWP's business plan was. They were accepted to the RFL (and NOT Superleague) on this business plan and they did not and by their own admission will not deliver it. They should have been thrown out but a legal agreement sustains them 2020, and 2021 if they avoid relegation.

Now think about why New York who are seling off their last bits of merchandise and and Ottawa whose CEO has gone to Bradford haven't made any moves to join the game here?? Think about why TWP aren't recruiting many players, and are tying up existing players to 2021 and no further??

You mean the "glamour"? Let me know exactly what financial income, or quality players they bring to the sport as a whole by being glamorous??

I can do the maths on the likely reduced crowds here and put a monetary value to it. We must compare notes at the end of the season though. The "double header" will be used to convince us all TWP have a massive pulling power.....

Thank you for your reply.

Of course I want expansion. It was defined by Mr. Perez himself that TWP would expand the player pool and expand the TV deals available to the game thus providing the resources to gradually push back the contraction of the game. We stood at 14 clubs at one point, then cut to 12 and in recent years 10 has been often suggested. But McDermott has recently admitted that there will be no new players and no TV money from North America. So if TWP, Ottawa, New York and Toulouse want in then we will have to remove, Huddersfield, Wakefield, Salford and HKR. That is geographical expansion of course, but this only adds massive travelling costs and stops fans going to away games. It's not business expansion. It also ends up being "substitution" as clubs here with development foundations and academies are substituted for clubs without academies which means a "contraction" for the player development system.

I want expansion but you don't seem to be able to grasp what we have is "substitution" leading to "contraction". Substitute the four "expansion" clubs for the four "traditional clubs" and what happens then? I'll tell you if you have that capacity to be open minded about it, the development system for players will "contract" and crowds will "contract".......discuss??