I don't discriminate between fans? Customers are customers wherever they come from that's my point. let me try it this way....2022 10 club Superleague.....

(a) Hull.v.HKR, Castleford.v.Wakefield, Leeds.v.Wigan Wire.v.Saints and Fartown.v.Salford what? 58,000 customers...or

(b) Hull.v.TWP, Wigan.v.New York, Leeds.v.Ottawa, Wire.v.Boston. Saints v.Montreal what? 48,000 customers

Forget putting fans in boxes which business model do we go for 2022 English or Transatlantic?? You choose....

I never cast aspersions Donnyman, but I a am still unsure of your credentials..... Theres a tad of the unsure about you..... You're like the alterego that was missing from the russian doll set

You are the suspicious one, aren't you?

QED!

The names Drake, John Drake.

While i get your point it's a little simplistic. What about TV veiwers and the wider global apeal to broadcasters

Following on from my assertion we need to maximise crowds and not be prejudice against "away" supporters, it also occurred to me (eventually) that if we plump for a Transatlantic league and not an English league 2022 then another issue is not just "no away fans"

Hull Daily Mail asked fans in Hull what they thought of the North American dream and 20% were fine with it and 80% were not happy with it. Let's work on 18,000 RL fans attending matches in Hull on a regular basis. If HKR were made to stand down for Ottawa, how many HKR fans would walk away from the game? Do Hudgell and Crossland walk with them? Do any HKR fans bother any more? If so how many? I suggest maybe the vast majority as when Rovers were at their lowest ebb 1,000 crowds were reached.

But that was at a time the club had hope and ambition, to be rejected for good for a Transatlantic League may see crowds drop to the hundreds and eventually New Craven Park become Industriai units? But what do the 11,000 Hull fans do? Do they rejoice at the demise of their hated rivals? Or in times of adversity do Hull fans start to boycott the Transatlantic League in numbers? 80% of 11,000 Hull fans is quite a pressure group? We have already see solidarity with rivals when they wanted to do away with Fev and Cas and have one team called Calder. I don't think that the debate here is whether foreign clubs "boost their local economies" it's whether they will destroy the game here? Your view of crowds here under a five-five split Transatlantic league??

A wiser man than I once said

Good points for both kinds of league, but i think times have moved on. These days its all about profile and image and fans come a distant 3rd. For anyone loking to invest in a share of superleague, they will be looking at image. Would they rather be looking at featherstone, leigh, cas and salford, or new york, toronto, london and paris/tolouse/boston?

Like all successful things i think it will turn out to be a mix of tradition and progression

By the way have we even discussed the equity news yet?
rlnews hererl

Quote: AXE2GRIND " Speaking of their blinding success to date, I find it very strange there's been no mention of a 2020 sponsor and no sign of a 2020 playing shirt. This points to both continued troubles with suppliers and AirTransat's 3-year tenure as shirt sponsor for flights as having come to an end. They signed SBW and followed this up by extending some pretty average players contracts and all we've heard is that they expect to sell an extra 1,000 ST's on the back of SBW...it all sounds really sustainable, doesn't it? '" there's just this bit of info on their kit deal https://www.sportbusiness.com/news/toro ... gue-debut/

Quote: AXE2GRIND " Speaking of their blinding success to date, I find it very strange there's been no mention of a 2020 sponsor and no sign of a 2020 playing shirt. This points to both continued troubles with suppliers and AirTransat's 3-year tenure as shirt sponsor for flights as having come to an end. They signed SBW and followed this up by extending some pretty average players contracts and all we've heard is that they expect to sell an extra 1,000 ST's on the back of SBW...it all sounds really sustainable, doesn't it? '" there's just this bit of info on their kit deal https://www.sportbusiness.com/news/toro ... gue-debut/

Interesting. It will be key that the TV rights are up-sold for this to generate a ROI for this investor and it would seem that an announcement is imminent.

"Private equity" or investment into a private commercial operation, looks to make ambitious but well considered changes to said operation to make it more profitable and thus get a return on the investment that may outweigh simply buying shares in public companies. Wiki puts this in a dozen paragraphs where a sentence will do.

Yes the Private Equity money is flowing into British and Irish Rugby Union, and it may be their plan is to form a major season long league (such as one) that does away with the parochial "midlands and south" English league and pits Cardiff, and Swansea, Dublin, Edingburgh and Glasgow against the giants of English Rugby Union, a league that they project may attract more sponsors, wealthier owners, bigger paying crowds and much better TV deals. The Private Equity guys are then given a return on their investment, the principle is it is NOT charity.

So how do we restructure to increase revenues ? Superleague started to lose it's parochialness but in a very poor way, dumping Widnes for Catalans 2006 hardly achieved any return at club level, BUT the main aim was France/GB internationals before big crowds and on TV. That bombed. Then the idea was to ship playing squads from poor clubs here to the likes of Toronto whilst they developed new and exciting players, brought in TV deals and major sponsors - so how is that going - last I heard they were heading for a £10M loss??? These PE guys don't want a cut of those losses do they? They may find us some real growth but they want their cut and they certainly aren't miracle workers. BTW Boston don't exist even as a plan? These boys don't invest in dreams.

It appears to me the Private Equity guys are to negotiate the SKY TV deal working out what will deliver us the best (reduced) deal possible, the PE guys would then push us towards certain changes that maximises SKY's deal BUT going Transatlantic ain't going to do it is it? How many SKY subs do we sell there? Maybe they'll dump TWP and Les Cats and bring Bradford and Leigh back in? Maybe Perez's new "temping"job will become permanent

A different slant on the PE story https://www.thesun.co.uk/sport/10574736 ... ot-happen/

A different slant on the PE story https://www.thesun.co.uk/sport/10574736 ... ot-happen/