Sale don't appeal to the wider Manchester area. I've lived and worked in Manchester for nearly 19 years and I don't know a single person who supports either Salford or Sale. Sale appeal to the rugby union community around the North West as a whole as they're the only club, but even then they're probably only the fourth best supported "rugby" club in the NW after Wigan, Saints and Wires. They obviously have more money because they play a sport that generates higher revenues than RL does, but they don't have thousands of fans across Manchester.

Salford trying to rebrand as Manchester would be a pointless gimmick that would annoy long standing fans and appeal to no one. Sale actually did it years ago I think, and then reverted back once they realised. Those 20,000 fans at the GF, who probably would have gone to Wembley too had they been able to, will be a combination of lapsed fans who don't go regularly anymore, friends and family of regulars who went along with them, and locals who simply jumped on the bandwagon. Every club has that at finals, it's not exclusive to Salford. The fact that the GF is literally a five minute walk away from the City of Salford boundary, and Man United are by far the best supported sports club there, probably helped too.

I think the location of this ground is far better for the community than Barton is, and I agree it would be good for Swinton too as it is a lot closer for them than their current home in Sale. I worry about the capacity though. Average attendances being lower than that or not, I don't see how 5,000 is sustainable as a Super League venue when you have clubs like Leigh and Widnes playing in the Championship with far more suitable facilities.

Cas and Wakefield have both been hammered for years over their grounds not being up to scratch, but Cas in particular can at least get decent sized crowds in for big games.

in reality away fans dont number anything like that many and most home fans pay nothing like £25 a game, not to mention concessions. Many clubs ( eg wigan in your example) make zero from sales at the stadium. Your maths is flawed.

wakey and cas still havent fulfilled the franchise requirements from last time around. I'm not sure how Salfords rental works but Hudds and Wigan pay a rental based on the numbers attending. the smaller the attendance the smaller the rent. so if attendances drop so does the outlay.

I think that requirement died with licensing and is clearly no longer a pre-requisite of Superleague membership.

I've been in Belle Vue when it sold out for the Cas play off game, and it was a fantastic experience. Equally I've been at Huddersfield in their modern stadium before some very low SL crowds that wasn't that great.

Grounds need to be safe and that includes not over filling them, and that's about it for me unless I wan't to goad any Wakey or Cas fans on here which I don't. I'm not suggesting you do either BTW, but it happens all too often......