What's pretty striking in all of these types of discussions is how the detractors of expansion (and there are credible reasons to be a detractor) have lots of reasons why expansion can't work, won't work or shouldn't be allowed to work, but have very few solutions or suggestions on an alternative.

The RL community, and this forum is no different, has lots of people yelling "focus on the heartlands" but when you press them on what this actually means, they've got nothing.

The sport has been "focusing on the heartlands" for more than 120 years and that approach has got the sport to where it is today - lacking relevance, lacking exposure, lacking players and lacking finance. What kind of "focusing on the heartlands" would yield a different result? The people shouting this must have an idea, surely?

Expansion is not the goal here, it is simply the mechanism. The goal should be to get more people playing, watching and enjoying the sport in a way that makes it financially sustainable as a modern professional entity and if the heartland clubs were showing that they could consistently do that, expansion is not even on the agenda.

The USA has roller derby teams with more financial backing than some of our SuperLeague teams but Rugby of either code struggle. Association Football survives more because it is seen as being accessible to both sexes and is often supported more by middle class Soccer Moms which gives it the grass roots appeal. Rugby league does not have that so unless we can bring in national TV coverage we will struggle to get a foothold. The TV market in The USA is still segmented regionally with cable still dominant and in the internet age they are unlikely to ever develop the kind of all encompassing national TV system that we are used to. What we need is someone who can see into the future. If we find that person can we ask them for the winning lottery numbers?

yay, another new Jean facade

Expansion in the UK has failed due to lack of will to make it happen and more importantly, the lack of serious cash to make it a success plus, if you go back a little way, expansion was foiled at every turn by dark forces from the other code which, had they worked as hard to solve the broken time payments issue, would have meant that RL would never have been a sport.

Interesting that you site "lack of players" and yet bang the drum for the N. American sides to entice players from over here to fill their roster.

Unfortunately, Union, with its seemingly endless supply of cash is smothering our sport and you have schools in Yorkshire being promised grants from Union to encourage some schools to drop RL from their curriculum but, we mustn't play the victim .

RL showed it's true colours when allowing Sheffield to "merge" with Huddersfield and Gateshead to "merge" with Hull but, fundamentally, we suffer through lack of cash / investment.

There should be a grown up discussion on where the sport would like to be in 5 /10/ 20 years time but, this either doesn't happen at all or it's on the bag fag packet in our new leaders pocket.

Yourself and others bang on about us having had 120 years to do whatever and I would suggest that RL greatest achievement has been to help Union go global.
By "stealing their players on a regular basis through the 70', 80's and 90's, they decided to turn their "amateur" game into a pro sport and sadly, with the huge resources at their disposal, RL has become ever more marginalised.

The game hasn't had any kind of proper plan for over 40 years and until some of those, who are paid significant money actually hatch a realistic way forward, change will not happen.

The only way that the n American clubs would benefit super league is if they bring in players from America. Initially it would have to be mainly British and aus but within say 3 seasons they should be bringing through their own players (maybe some nfl rejects).
People don't play rl as often mainly because a lot of them don't know it exists. Having ru on free to view TV encourages ru. Having rl on a pay service doesn't. If we were to have 1 or 2 matches a week on ftv TV the numbers would increase