Big shout there sparky......care to back up what featherstone, halifax, dewsbury bring to the table that they haven't already in 125 years?

I have no interest in London, Toronto or a team from Mars replacing wakefield or Leigh just so long as you're happy with tin-pot TV money, tin-pot sponsors and not a pot to pi55 in for anything else......let's revert back to the way it was....a la BREXIT RL STYLE.........and now Mickey Mouse owns Sky......well, we've found outr home!

I like you, you have a good sense of humour

It's a false dilemma to think we have to choose between the game thriving in the heartlands and expansion - these things are not mutually exclusive. Also expansion doesn't mean replacement.

Who needs planet earth when you've got the town teams of Wigan & St Helens to push the sport to new heights

Yet when I suggest a compromise, which encourages expansion whilst offering a route into SL via on field success, you advocate leaving the league?

Didn't realise that regarding Toulouse's stadium. That would clearly need sorting out. Do they have plans in place? I'm less worried about the crowds as one could reasonably expect them to greatly increase if they were playing in Super League.

I'm not saying those two sides are currently running an academy in the lower leagues, I'm saying I'd make it a condition if they were to be put into SL and granted exemption from relegation. They need to be developing new players rather than relying on those produced by heartlands clubs. Same regarding Toronto's crowds, if they dropped off then I'd no longer protect them from relegation. I can't see that happening though given that they have been getting such good numbers in their first season in a division which generally gets a few hundred on.

This is absolutely right.

Rugby League has to adapt to the commercial realities of modern sport, and that starts with taking a cold, hard look at exactly what we offer potential commercial partners and broadcasters.

Major sponsors don't want to pay money to reach the sorts of audiences that we offer. Those that do want to reach those audiences, can do so much more cheaply and much more effectively than through the medium of sports sponsorship.

When marketers at the sorts of brands that we want and need to be attracting look at demographic data, they look at things household income, they look at employment, they look at consumer spending power, they look at educational attainment, they look at average age, they look at health standards and they look at job quality.

On most if not all of those measurements, most of the towns that make up much of RL land don't tick those boxes. We have no right to complain that we only attract online bookies, payday loan firms and tinned mushy peas as sponsors when we insist that the future of this sport lies in small northern towns where the High Streets are made up of bookmarkets, pawnbrokers and fast food takeaways.

We've really got two options. Either we find new audiences that are going to keep this sport alive (and in that case, it's incumbent on every club that is making a case to be in Super League to explain how they plan to do that), or we can continue this slow and painful death.

I'm as excited as anyone (if you see it as a positive) with the North American sides entering the UK competition but believe there are potentially some serious issues with obtaining insurance for USA sides (as a result of the NFL head injury claims). Canada was a struggle anyway but the USA sides will be even harder to place and could scupper the whole thing which would be a massive shame!

The route to SL via on field success would be worthless to unprotected clubs. Accepting that sort of sporting second class citizenship would be an absolute affront to dignity; genuinely shameful. It's a compromise in the same way that the mooted mini-licensing round following Bradford's first demise was a compromise (only more explicit) and it'd be met with similar derision. Clubs won't be complicit in their own shafting - not on that scale.

And that's before the practical implications - can you imagine a final round game between a bottom two who are level on points but one is protected and the other isn't? The latter is doomed to relegation or a play-off irrespective of the result. It'd be farcical.

If the 'integral' teams want another breakaway, inviting others as and when they think they're ready, then that's up to them - as I said SL isn't a prison. But I couldn't follow a puppet club that was only allowed into a league (as opposed to a competition, in this instance) to 'do a job', as they say in professional wrestling I believe.

So, on balance, I'm not quite ready to buy-in

most of what he is saying is right, the Luddite attitude and even worse pre renascence way of thinking is/has held Rl back in this country. we need to take the |NFL approcag if your not getting the fans and not meeting the other criteria, you get help, but if things dont improve we move your team to somewhere who wants it.

Nfl was up until the 60's a college based north and north east seaboard regional sport, they had a plan, to expand nationally, new pro teams in major cities. Dallas Cowboys, expansion team biggest sporting team in the world (arguably, with real Madrid and man U) Miami dolphins, new York jets etr, some of the biggest names in world sport. all expansion teams.
Nrl Melbourne storm expansion team in a hostile aussie rules area 20k average best team in Nrl for over a decade.
rugby league needs a plan, expansion is not the total answer but its part of it, make the game appear bigger and it will get bigger, this will not only help the big clubs it will help all clubs, don't think anyone is saying kick clubs out, but our flagship competition needs the best teams with the better stadiums with the best support and the best geographical spread.

Pretty much along the lines of a conversation I've had this morning.

You just need to look at Union partners/sponsors (NatWest, Land Rover, Guinness, Aviva, Old Mutual Wealth, O2, Samsung, IBM) compared to League's (BetFred, Kingstone Press Cider, Batchelors Mushy Peas). That hasn't happened by accident, it's happened because partners/sponsors know their target market and they want to be associated with a game that speaks volumes about their product, and the social standing of its potential customers.

League is a mostly Northern sport played in predominantly working class towns and former mining communities, flat caps and whippets and all that. In Union, you have clubs in largely wealthy areas, a solid base of aspirational middle Englanders, the old boy network, and if you play your cards right, hell, you might end up rubbing shoulders with the royals! If you were in charge of an investment bank's marketing/sponsorship budget, which sport would you throw the money into for the best return?

Short of a social revolution, there's not a lot that can be done for a quick fix. Calls to just 'market to a wider audience' are simply pie in the sky. This is a deep seated issue with class, political division and the North/South divide at the heart of it.

I've been to a League game in Batley, I've been to a Union game in Bath, they exist in totally different universes.

Bring in teams with largely middle class support bases, like Toronto, New York, Montreal, Boston and Philadelphia, and the sponsorships and advertising revenue will soar to the heavens.