Quote: HXSparky "Well, we only saw the two (multiple times).'" Here are some others https://twitter.com/TOwolfpack/status/1 ... 0551489537

Quote: HXSparky "Well, we only saw the two (multiple times).'" Here are some others https://twitter.com/TOwolfpack/status/1 ... 0551489537

<REMOVED - Please read the forum posting rules>

Cats in 20 years have become a whole lot more than Fax or Leyth have in over a hundred.

Toronto and Toulouse have much more to offer than some scruffy backdrop towns full of pound shops!!

It is quite obvious that you are not very clever, and again I ask of you, please elaborate on your latest comment.

Well done, Toronto, tremendous effort to beat the current champions on their patch even if they are garbage.

Answer the question. In what way do they have more to offer?

Night night everyone, and all the best to everyone in RL, which is ultimately what matters in the end anyway. I can't get down to London tomorrow evening, but it should be a real good game to watch. Fax by 6 (heart), London by lots (head).

Whinges about the lack of Toronto fans not travelling 3000+ miles across the Atlantic and paying out thousands of pounds... Can't be d going to London to support his own team.

Some absolute beauties on here.

OK Leeds are safe, but still a terrible result for them

I genuinely don't think their were any 'fans' who travelled from Canada, there were maybe 50 people cheering Toronto but I would bet they were a mix of Canadians who live in Leeds and had no idea what was going, and people from West Yorkshire who don't like Leeds and came to see the game out of curiosity.

I don't think the problem with Toronto is their away support, the problem is that it is another waste of time gamble by the rfl that will go nowhere and distract from actual real ways the sport can grow, just like a Paris team or a test in Denver.

2 things making you look a bit stupid here:

1- Perpignan is a relatively poor town of similar size to Halifax

2- Catalan was originally added to the league for two main reasons: to help the French develop a stronger national team and to grow French support of the game. By these barometers they have failed miserably, as they become ever more reliant on imports and couldn't fill half their allocation for the CC final.

A bit like Wigoon then with an abundance of pie shops.Pity you don't have coffee shops for your disgraceful new full back.

A bit like Wigoon then with an abundance of pie shops.Pity you don't have coffee shops for your disgraceful new full back.

OK Budge. I'm going to at least try and engage in the discussion with you, because whilst I don't agree with the way the poster has put it, I agree with the sentiment.

It's no secret that I think the sport needs to find new audiences. In RL, we have clubs that are OK at talking to the people that already buy the product, but not at people who don't (all clubs, not just the smaller ones, are guilty of this). Why is that a problem? Well, it stunts growth - our audience is getting older, and we aren't engaging and keeping fans to replace them. And our audience is one that doesn't have a lot of spending power, and is one that advertisers can reach very cheaply through new media - less than £50 per thousand in some cases.

That reflects in our TV deals and sponsorship agreements. If we have an audience with low spending power and one that can be reached very cheaply, the sport only really appeals to sponsors that are largely banned from those cheaper advertising platforms - like bookmakers. And the same applies to Sky - they aren't going to pay us more when the value of ad slots around RL content is getting lower.

So what audiences do we need to attract? Younger, urban audiences with spending power who are generally harder for advertisers to reach - and they live in big cities. That's the nature of the modern service economy.

So the future of this sport as a professional entity is not necessarily in Toronto or Toulouse or any other city in particular, but it is in cities generally. It's in crowded media markets that advertisers are willing to pay money to reach. Unfortunately, in SL right now, we only have one of those - Leeds (I'm not getting into the Salford / Manchester debate).

Toronto is not necessarily THE answer to that issue, and it comes with huge risks, but it is currently one of the few answers that we have.

I'd be more than happy if the existing heartland clubs could prove themselves adept at reaching those valuable audiences, but they just aren't. York have shown that it's not difficult to reach new people, but the reason why places like Toronto are on the agenda in the first place is because there are so few clubs like them.