You have summed it up nicely in a large nutshell.

That is why there is no point in me answering all the dissenting posts from the insular northern Englanders.

If expansion works, it will be played in a parallel universe.

I love the fact that some space cadets are still talking about expansion when those in the real world are hoping to avoid further contraction!

Expansion isn't even on the agenda such is the state of the game and won't be until the UK and especially France regain International credibility and the game attracts more money. The problem is we don't have the cash to make that happen so it's catch 22. I mean 3 French teams, come on. Now please give it a rest.

It might be for the best if you are going to adopt that tone.

Put simply - we do not have the cash for 14 SL sides 20 is an insane proposition.

Secondly you are being hugely overoptimistic for sides like Hemel. They won't be getting out of CC1 for many years. Look at how long Gateshead and Skolars have been in that division. Do either of them look like getting near SL?

North Wales and South Wales are no closer either.

Now if you said 2080, we might have humoured you, as we really are talking about that length of time.

I agree that more London sides are needed but this isn't going to happen at SL level. Broncos struggle to get by as it is and there isn't any money or interest in a 2nd side.

With Hemel joining CC1, there will be a Skolars vs Stags derby which could be interesting. If we had enough sides for a CC1 North and a CC1 Midlands & South then we could start to build up professional RL outside the heartlands with lots of local rivalries and away fans. But it ain't going to happen at SL without it happening semi-pro level first.

Can't believe nobody has thought of that before. It would instantly create thousands of RL fans in the London area and hey-presto, we could all say yes - expansion does work.

I'm all for expansion of rugby league, but I think it is a myth that it is needed to progress the sport.

If you plot a route around the Super league Clubs on Google Maps, going from Widnes to Hull, we cover quite a big area of the country. Add to that two satellite areas of London and Catalan.
Rugby Union has exactly the same map at the bottom end of the country. They have two satellite areas in Exeter and Sale, and the rest are across an area very similar to M62. The difference is they cover areas where there is a lot of money.

No one ever complains that London Welsh, London Irish and Harlequins are within 5 and 7 miles of each other.
They have similar attendances to Super league clubs. As an example London Welsh get 12k when Harlequins come and 3k when Exeter come (and of course they had to take games on the road too sometimes....just like we do.

The thing that makes the difference to us is that when you compare Wakefield and Castleford to London Welsh and London Irish, the London teams have an implied better area to draw crowds from, but only if they actually get out there and drag them in (marketing wise).
Would we need expansion if 10,000 people turned up to every Super League game?

I guess the expansionist argument is that we need to move to new areas to get that 10k number. Leeds and Bradford have big cities to draw from so could achieve that, but Wigan prove that with the right marketing, history and on field success it can be achieved in a small town just the same.
The supposed small M62 corridor is actually a massive area, with a lot of big business and money there. We just have to get them involved in Rugby League.

Rather than hope for a Super League with all the new conference expansion clubs in it, I would work on building all the teams, including the new ones, to a point where people want to come and watch, and media want to report.
If Swansea Rugby League Club got an average crowd of 10k (or even 5k) they'd be happily welcomed in. As would Gloucester or Northampton. Putting them straight in to Super League won't help that in the long run, we need to create a rivalry and a history and an entertaining spectacle.

So in my view, expansion as a fast track to a bigger map on Google is a poor model that will ultimately fail and lose money.
If expansion is a long term plan to bring the game to a wider area, with targeted city/towns that could be a focal point for an area and build slowly. Great. Bring it on.

Yep expansion in SL has been a roaring success!
Gateshead
Paris
Sheffield
Crusaders
London

Hmmmm

This may seem a negative viewpoint but it comes from knowing the history of RL and its heartland clubs as well as outpost expansion clubs. The current expansion of the championship leagues will have worked only if in 10, 20 or 30 years time the clubs in Hemel Hempstead, Cheltenham, Oxford (and Coventry who should step up next year) still exist as semi-pro or pro clubs at whatever level of the game they can sustain. It will have worked in the places that still have viable clubs in those future years.

Talk of them being in SL at any arbitrary point in the future is erroneous. Immediately wanting to put every team that ever comes along into the top level and aiming for that alone is what has helped so many clubs fail. There are many expansion clubs that have been set up and disappeared within a few years when either money ran out or someone got bored and walked away because their new club wasn't sitting at the top of the tree as they had hoped. Over the course of its history RL has lost a plethora of clubs in what is called the heartlands as well. Most of us could reel off a long list of former clubs, many from the last thirty years. Clubs die in all sports but new ones popping up and then vanishing has been an all too common feature of our sport.

If a club wherever in the country it plays is able in time to rise to the top and challenge for the major honours and be considered to be one of the big guns then great. However not every club can be a Leeds or a Wigan or a St Helens somebody has to be the Dewsbury, Batley or Leigh somewhere in the middle of the heirarchy and somebody has to be the Gateshead or London Skolars scrapping it out at the bottom of the pile. It doesn't matter so much where in the pecking order a club is, if it can keep going at the level it inhabits then it (and thus expansion) has succeeded.

There is a slight difference between "within 5-7 miles of each other" when we are talking about Europe's largest city and when we are talking about Wakefield district.

And it's not true either "London Welsh" play in Oxford. Oxford is not within a few miles of Twickhenham. "London Irish" play in Reading.

Very many people have thought of it before but nobody has the cash.