The SCMP is a Hong Kong based paper that has about 100,000 readers who are ex-pats living in South East Asia, with maybe a few in mainland china. The 75 million claim if only 1% would get into it is a long time claim by fans of AFL, whilst the reality is that Neither sport is of interest to any Chinese people.....


Plenty of people, not just Bazza and his army of forum bots. And if it's not to save or even benefit the UK game, what is the point of it? 9,000 canadians attending a beer festival a dozen times a year and that's it? What is the point?

The only tangible benefit is to the other 11 SL clubs who will be dividing up the spare 2 million on the pretext of using it to cover their travel costs and the Championship, which will be a far better competition now the mercenaries have gone.

Sonny Bill Williams playing in Super League is good for our game, opposing fans will look forward to seeing play in his 1st season, some of the novelty will have worn off in the 2nd one though. Jean and his mate are bigging it up on here as if Tyson Fury, Ronaldo, Tiger Woods, & Lebron James (that's especially for you Steph) have also signed for Toronto Barbarians. It's great for the club, and any other North Americans who are aware of him, might take note. That's it, nothing more. For the SL clubs playing Toronto is something new anyway, the fact that SBW is in their team might add a few speccies on the ground, who can tell ?

Quote: kobashi "Please stop with the ridiculous tens of Millions viewers claim. It's complete BS!'" It is not BS. You obviously haven't followed the evidence on this. The BBC World News had 121 million viewers in 2017: https://www.bbc.co.uk/mediacentre/lates ... ce-measure 121 million is legitimately described as "tens of millions." Or are you suggesting, based on no evidence, that the BBC World viewership has dropped 90% in the last two years? Sonny Bill Williams may well have been viewed by tens of millions of people today around the world. It is the kind of publicity that the promotion of little M62 clubs like Featherstone, or Leigh, into Super League would never have gathered. Toronto Wolfpack, and Sonny Bill Williams, truly are a huge bonus for rugby league.

Quote: kobashi "Please stop with the ridiculous tens of Millions viewers claim. It's complete BS!'" It is not BS. You obviously haven't followed the evidence on this. The BBC World News had 121 million viewers in 2017: https://www.bbc.co.uk/mediacentre/lates ... ce-measure 121 million is legitimately described as "tens of millions." Or are you suggesting, based on no evidence, that the BBC World viewership has dropped 90% in the last two years? Sonny Bill Williams may well have been viewed by tens of millions of people today around the world. It is the kind of publicity that the promotion of little M62 clubs like Featherstone, or Leigh, into Super League would never have gathered. Toronto Wolfpack, and Sonny Bill Williams, truly are a huge bonus for rugby league.

Neither are, but it suits you to wind up fans of traditional northern pit towns because it makes you moist.
BTW, was Money Bill not a huge bonus in either of his first 2 stints in RL, or did him becoming an All Black make him one?

That's Jean....perfect summary.

Sonny Bill was a huge bonus for Canterbury-Bankstown when he began his rugby league career, gaining newspaper headlines on almost a weekly basis. He was definitely a huge bonus for the Sydney Roosters and the NRL when he returned to rugby league in 2013. His rivalry with South Sydney Rabbitohs' Samuel Burgess while playing for the Roosters certainly put bums on seats. I was in Sydney in September 2013 and I followed the news of the NRL on the Australian media during the late playoff period when his performances were crucial.

If Toronto can land a capable half back -- and I think that the Canadian heritage half back Ryley Jacks now at the Gold Coast Titans could be a great choice -- and an influential prop forward or two, plus another Australian back line star such as Valentine Holmes (who is on David Argyle's radar), then the Toronto Wolfpack will rampage through Super League and bring an even larger proportion of the people of Toronto into an active involvement with the team.

Such an impact will put great pressure on New York and Ottawa to compete in the coming years. By the time these teams get promoted into Super League we may have unearthed some quality Canadian and American players, and hopefully some real grass roots development of the game (which is Eric Perez's goal with Ottawa).

In Canada they have a sophisticated marketing machine, headed by the marketing genius Eric Perez, that can take maximum advantage of the presence of Sonny Bill Williams being in the Toronto team and Super League.

All the signs are positive for rugby league expansion thanks to Eric Perez, David Argyle, and the good people of Toronto. It is time for the Little Englander naysayers to wake up and smell the coffee.

You're on the wrong forum, you're just a 'wind up merchant' who has NO interest in the British game. This is me being polite, but you don't deserve it.

It’s not Rugby! It’s Rugby League. The other code is very much not in its infancy, hence the significance of Toronto signing RU players.

You should have a chat with John Drake et al over on totalrascistrl.com. They are adamant that League should be referred to as Rugby, in some sort of childish disobedience action. It's hilarious how anyone who has anything negative to say about the game is admonished and god forbid you mention bigger more popular code.
Personally, Toronto IMHO have been very smart about the way have hooked up with Union. Better to get paly with the rather than have them stonewall the game. SBW, although well overpriced, is a ideal signing to get that cross over from fans.....I'd like to see an effort to try and fill a bigger stadium at least once this season coming
They host wire and Salford either side of Canada day, with the latter on the 4th of july, so if SL can't arrange for a fixture swap and move the salford or wire games to July 1st, maybe take the Salford game to BMO field.

it wouldn't be difficult to re-jig the fixtures with Toronto Hosting Wire on the Friday Night instead of Saturday and making Salfords preceding game the Thursday night match, giving both sides time to recover for a Wednesday Afternoon KO in Toronto?
Canada day is a big thing and I reckon a full BMO would be a great advert for the game

Wrong! I have great interest in Super League, which is dominated by British teams. I just don't support the archaic clubs located in the former pit and mill towns on the M62.

I have great interest in the British team known as the London Broncos. I supported the Broncos in person when Virgin's Richard Branson was a devoted sponsor, and the great Lionel Hurst was CEO, and even after the departure of Virgin and Lionel Hurst, when the great Ian Lenagan was Chairman of the renamed Quins. During those years I was privileged to be able to attend games, and post match meet with players like Denis Moran, Sylvain Houles, Richard Barnett, Thomas Leuluai, Luke Dorn, Mark McLinden and Tulsen Tollett (now a BBC World News Sports compere).

However these days, although I still wish London Broncos well, and want them back in Super League, I primarily support the non-British clubs of which we only have two at the moment: Catalans Dragons and Toronto Wolfpack. Hopefully those two great clubs, with their significant local fan bases which dwarf the likes of Salford and Wakefield, will be joined by Toulouse Olympique in 2021, and New York and Ottawa not too many years after that. At that point we will have a truly international Super League, a North Atlantic Super League (NASL).

This forum is open to expansionists like myself, as much as it is open to M62 Little Englanders, who are opposed to international expansion. That is why it is incorrect to say that I am on the wrong forum.

It's so hard to get decent bar staff in London...it's why people like Bazza here were such a godsend. Working for peanuts + accommodation and really as thick as the proverbial pair of short planks, they were a "special" bunch.
I know this to be true, because we didn't import French bars staff, nor expect folk from Chorley to come down, but no matter what bazza says, it was the lure of 6 VB for £10 in a bucket that did it for him...eh cobber

Where did all the journalists come from at the press conference? There were more in attendance for that Toronto press conference than attended all the super league games in total last season.

Proof again that Toronto are a massive draw, even in a foreign country

Quote: JEAN CAPDOUZE "Sonny Bill Williams made a great impression on the BBC. Tens of millions of viewers around the world saw him speak of the challenge of returning to rugby league from rugby union as "awesome." Sonny Bill Williams stated that the Toronto team provided a great opportunity to establish the game of rugby league in North America. None of the Little Englander/M62 negativism to be heard from him. He said that he was looking forward to playing for the new team. The appearance of Sonny Bill Williams on BBC World News shows that his signing and the emergence of the Toronto Wolfpack are indeed a huge development and provide great publicity for rugby league.'" he just reminds me of this bloke https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=ULeDlxa3gyc

Quote: JEAN CAPDOUZE "Sonny Bill Williams made a great impression on the BBC. Tens of millions of viewers around the world saw him speak of the challenge of returning to rugby league from rugby union as "awesome." Sonny Bill Williams stated that the Toronto team provided a great opportunity to establish the game of rugby league in North America. None of the Little Englander/M62 negativism to be heard from him. He said that he was looking forward to playing for the new team. The appearance of Sonny Bill Williams on BBC World News shows that his signing and the emergence of the Toronto Wolfpack are indeed a huge development and provide great publicity for rugby league.'" he just reminds me of this bloke https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=ULeDlxa3gyc

Have you gone off Avignon now, all of a sudden?