Totally agree.
We need to promote these things properly, instead of the "build t and they will come" style that we usually come up with.
If we want to sell magic weekend to the locals, we need to be hitting all of the local tv and radio stations up there and stick a great big rugby ball on the "Angel of the North".

SIMPLES: re Magic
between each "proper game" 2 "7 a side" games for 12 - 14 year olds from the local area, say 6 teams of 10 each, a a league for that goes to atrophy.
The kids get into playing in front of people at a big occasion with parents watching.
Easy to play 7 aside across the pitch

I had wondered whether the Toronto side would have been given a home in Birmingham or somewhere like that in an attempt to expand the game on both national and international fronts.

a trophy not atrophy: RL HQ has enoughof the latter

I'm trying to think of a sport that I enjoy watching but have never had any interest or exeperience in playing.
I'm all for expansion, but my point is that do people just watch sport because they enjoy it or is it born out of some experience with the game.

The best example is London. It was in the top flight for many years, yes it moved about but we are talking London one of the biggest and richest cities in the world and it could not get a regular 5000 people turning up to watch.

I know the saying is build it and they will come, but I doubt that the sheer enthusiasm of a backer can spur 10,000 to turn up to watch a game they have no experience of.

You're from Halifax. Sowerby Bridge is what you'd call call a weekend away. Or for those from Warley, maybe a week at Hollingworth Lake.

Did Birmingham show any interest?
Maybe it won't work. But that won't be the fault of the people from Toronto.

80,000 people watching the NFL at Wembley say you're wrong.

London is certainly not the best example. London Broncos was and is a pitiful joke of a club, they got just about every single thing wrong that it is possible to get wrong. If I lived in London I wouldn't watch the Broncos if you paid me, I would watch Skolars. It also doesn't help that London is a place which already has negative preconceptions about RL, which TBH are probably justified given the attitudes of a number of fans who seem to want the sport confined to dying Northern pit towns.

How do you explain Sheffield Steelers and Nottingham Panthers getting average crowds of 5k and upto 10k for bigger games in a game in Iceland Hockey that has almost no presence in this country.

For me, there is an Andrew Johns in every city in the world, he's just not played the game. If we expand we will tap into a greater talent pool and our sport will improve because of it. More players, more high quality players, more teams, more high quality teams, more fans, more interest, more money, therefore we keep our better players in this sport, all round we have a better sport!

The population in towns like Halifax Batley Wigan Hull Castelford is minute. There's a whole world out there. Canada Chile Scandinavia Jamaica Serbia are all growing their interest in our sport. It can only be good for the game if we tap into that.

Don't use London as an example. They were ran abysmally. Had they ran a club in Yorkshire, it would have been relegated.

There are plenty of examples of sport being popular, without large numbers taking part.

American Football (they can fill Wembley stadium and the game isn't really played in this country)
Tour de France (Yorkshire) Huge numbers watching a sport that has never previously had mass appeal
Horse Racing. Not too many people have taken part in this but, plenty turn up to watch
The Boat Race (the biggest load of tosh ever but, viewing and spectator numbers are huge)

Even Figure Skating was popular a few years ago.

It's all about publicity and hype, plus clever marketing

If we paid some celebrities and put an advert together along the lines of "I'll be going, will you" and gave it sufficient air time, people would turn up.

The media can generate interest in absolutely anything. For our sport, it has proved too difficult to get them on board.
As to why they are so reluctant to show any interest is not known but, with the right marketing, anything can be "sold" to the general public.

I keep reading in League Express how the amateur game in the heartlands is in a steep decline. If that is the case is there any choice but to expand the boundaries of the game? Or are less people playing in Hull because there is a club in Oxford now?

They don't show any interest because people in most of the country don't care about Wigan and Hull, and have never even heard of most of the other places where RL is popular.

We have expand to attract new people to the game and new sponsors.
We are expanding, but at a slow pace.