Quote: shrink "
Thank you for your reply Mounsey.
Yes I mean "shrink". The player pool we have is created by English SL clubs running foundations and academies. Replace English clubs with North American clubs who will never run such academies and the development system for players here shrinks. Say Castleford make way for Ottawa and Wakefield for Toulouse. I can see crowds dropping alarmingly in Cas and Wakey who will be in the championship, I can see schools being more inclined to play union or soccer, I can see Leeds United building a new ground out towards the south east of the city closer to the WF postcode which is already a catchment area for them but will be even more so if thousands of RL fans are sold out in Cas and Wakey. It has a knock on - do Leeds Rhinos fans bother anymore when these two derbies are gone? Do they join the Leeds United revival? Or are they happy to watch Ottawa and Toulouse instead?
Ultimately we exist because SKY pay for us to exist. SKY don't want a Transatlantic league they want an English league. The TV deal won't shrink it will disappear if we let all these phoney clubs in. The problem is the RL press doesn't have the guts or the honesty to make the slightest effort to analyse the effect of what this "expansion" as they call it will have on the game here. Lockwood and Sadler sit there saying how great it is, but they know darn well substituting English clubs for NA clubs is a death warrant.