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Wire Quin at work:



There are social differences no question. Currently the main barrier the game faces is that it is played in 2 x 10 mile conurbations with a city to the east also playing. Which companies have a product that sells or targets exclusively to the M62 corridor? Hence why we get Mushy peas (p1ss take, no different to Specsavers on the refs top) as our sponsors.

The game must spread before it can benefit from the larger sponsors. It has to break into the south.

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I always feel that with expansion, we have 33 million people in the north of England and we should be trying to push more into Leeds, Bradford, Manchester, Liverpool regions that further afield.

However we should ensure that anyone starting up outside like Toronto gets the support they need. focus on your strengths first and the rest will come on its own.

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[img:2penstlp]http://img301.imageshack.us/img301/5994/saints7sk.gif[/img:2penstlp] "...the biggest boor, the most opinionated pompous bigot that frequents these boards and he is NOT to be taken at all seriously. ":187.jpg



Quote: Sadfish " I always feel that with expansion, we have 33 million people in the north of England and we should be trying to push more into Leeds, Bradford, Manchester, Liverpool regions that further afield. '"


The problem there is that we're probably at market saturation in those areas. That might sound weird given the small attendances, but we need to take account of the fact that soccer dominates sport in England to the exclusion of almost all else. The issue of social class has been raised above, and it's very relevant, in that the middle-class sports market offers strong support for other sports than soccer, notably cricket, tennis and rugby union. These sports are fostered in private schools, and draw on well-funded facilities and administration based around historically wealthy governing bodies sustained by huge national sponsorship deals and major international events. Other sports are also increasingly relying on participants from middle and upper socio-economic groups, including athletics and swimming.

The working class sports market, which is overwhelmingly where we draw our players and fans from, is much more dominated by soccer; it's almost a sporting monoculture. Call-Me-God may have a caustic style, but he's right in saying that our demographic is not being replaced. As our old fans die off, and our player base retires, we are not replacing them with new fans or players, because soccer is hoovering up pretty much every athlete except in tiny pockets around South Lancashire and parts of West Yorkshire, while its unbelievable riches and publicity make any other sport seem trivial and uninteresting by comparison to young people. Essentially, the only thing sustaining our existing clubs is an almost hereditary habit, and there's evidence that even those communities are beginning to lose interest.

Quote: Sadfish "However we should ensure that anyone starting up outside like Toronto gets the support they need. focus on your strengths first and the rest will come on its own. '"


I thnk, given the above, that there's a strong case that we've been focussing pretty much exclusively on our strengths for the last 130 years, and where we are is a matter of record. Our existing top clubs are probably at maximum capacity now, in terms of interest, player development and crowds. They are now in a fight to maintain that existence, rather than grow it. Looking across the entire league structure, I could only imagine Bradford and London being able to produce similar levels of support to Saints/Wigan/Leeds etc, and that would require them to be relatively successful for a good period of time. Bradford might, if they recover quickly, be able to reconnect with their own version of the hereditary support, while London have the advantage of theoretically being able to manage a decent level because you only need a tiny percentage of 8m people to do ok.

That's why, for me, the North American ventures might be our last lifeline as a professional sport. No single sport dominates in North America like soccer does here, and the class-based sporting system which hurts us in this country doesn't apply to anything like the same effect in the US and Canada. They're also clubs based in huge urban areas, where again they'd only need to attract a small percentage of the sporting public to generate scale similar to our existing best.

RL has to find a way to exist on the fringes of a sporting world in which there isn't really a gap for a working-class team sport. We're never going to challenge soccer. We're never going to have the middle-class support network which maintains RU, cricket and other second-tier sports, and developments of the last twenty years, like online gaming and on-demand streaming are not going back into their bottles. That means that 33m people might sound like a big number, but we're probably only going to realistically be able to access 1% of that, either in terms of potential players or fans. The only solution is to seek out new fringes elsewhere, establish new hereditary habits, and seize on every possible opportunity to stand out in a marketplace which strictly speaking doesn't have any space available to us.

j.c
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22/03/2013 Get LEIGH outta wigan:



Quote: Sadfish "I always feel that with expansion, we have 33 million people in the north of England and we should be trying to push more into Leeds, Bradford, Manchester, Liverpool regions that further afield.

However we should ensure that anyone starting up outside like Toronto gets the support they need. focus on your strengths first and the rest will come on its own.'"


Can you imagine how far the sport could go if fans of some clubs put aside their own self importance and realised how important Manchester & Liverpool are to northwest rugbyleague, and so to the sport as a whole in this country.

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JESUS WEPT :WALL: HOW MANY TIMES????? £20 a ticket and £15 on beer and merchandise.....so an away fan is worth £35. At best, 1,000 is the average away support split across 11 rounds and I am being really generous here, so Toronto, replacing say Wakefield will cost a SL club £35,000. The minimum turnover of a SL club is £4,000,000 so Toronto instead of Widnes is worth less than 1% of a SL clubs turnover. There are many valid reasons for and against expansion into America, but "AWAY FANS" isn't one of them. :BEAT::d7dc4b20b2c2dd7b76ac6eac29d5604e_76030.jpg



Quote: Zulu01 "I like you, you have a good sense of humour icon_wink.gif

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Bless, I never realized (until now) that a lot of RLFANS care about our sport, rather than their own club..... d040.gif

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JESUS WEPT :WALL: HOW MANY TIMES????? £20 a ticket and £15 on beer and merchandise.....so an away fan is worth £35. At best, 1,000 is the average away support split across 11 rounds and I am being really generous here, so Toronto, replacing say Wakefield will cost a SL club £35,000. The minimum turnover of a SL club is £4,000,000 so Toronto instead of Widnes is worth less than 1% of a SL clubs turnover. There are many valid reasons for and against expansion into America, but "AWAY FANS" isn't one of them. :BEAT::d7dc4b20b2c2dd7b76ac6eac29d5604e_76030.jpg



Quote: j.c "If carlsberg did posts on this subject on rl fans forums ........Imagine "The Special Brew Super League"......intoxicating ...

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[quote="-VIKINGMAN-"]TBF he's a good lad Snowy. A wind up merchant but a good lad. :lol:[/quote] [quote="-VIKINGMAN-"]That sig snowy is Ssooooooooooo old !!![/quote] OOpps - nowt changes !! [b]Widnes 8 Leigh 10 LOL!!! Leigh 23 Widnes 16 LOL!! Leigh 30 Widnes 16 LOL!! Widnes 18 Leigh 38 Oh Dear !! Leigh 54 Widnes 16 FFS!!! Leigh 50 Widnes 18 We gave them 3 tries !!! Widnes 18 Leigh 24 Still no points in the 2nd half!! Good luck Widnes. See you in 2015 !![/b]:8043.jpg



Why is it that whenever 'Expansion' is mentioned on a thread or 'Licensing' etc, we always get the grade A cocks jumping on out of nowhere just to get their ever purposeful mundane and boring point across ? I dont think half of these people even watch RL, they just want to wind people up and over criticise.

' We dont want Leigh, Wakey has a crap ground, Catalans are the best thing since sliced bread'. Its BORING , Yet there would be no RL if it wasnt for the likes of Leigh, Batley, Fev Fax etc.......

North America can have its own bloody league eventually, and take Canada with you !!!

I am all for expansion, but it has never been done properly from day one. All we want to do now is 'Over expand'.

I can live with France as its the right thing to do, but lets go back to the original Plan A from the mid 1990's and look into Ireland, Cumbria, Wales and Scotland, South of England, Newcastle, Kent etc.

Rugby League is going to be famous for over Globalising our sport whilst killing it in GB. Some expansion strategy that will be !!

Rant over !!!

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Quote: Snowy "Why is it that whenever 'Expansion' is mentioned on a thread or 'Licensing' etc, we always get the grade A cocks jumping on out of nowhere just to get their ever purposeful mundane and boring point across ? I dont think half of these people even watch RL, they just want to wind people up and over criticise.

' We dont want Leigh, Wakey has a crap ground, Catalans are the best thing since sliced bread'. Its BORING , Yet there would be no RL if it wasnt for the likes of Leigh, Batley, Fev Fax etc.......

North America can have its own bloody league eventually, and take Canada with you !!!

I am all for expansion, but it has never been done properly from day one. All we want to do now is 'Over expand'.

I can live with France as its the right thing to do, but lets go back to the original Plan A from the mid 1990's and look into Ireland, Cumbria, Wales and Scotland, South of England, Newcastle, Kent etc.

Rugby League is going to be famous for over Globalising our sport whilst killing it in GB. Some expansion strategy that will be !!

Rant over !!!'"


Way to go Snowy

I can just picture the scene now - All the expansionist will be busy typing on their keyboards, checking out GOOGLE, throwing loads of facts and figures at you. You gone and done it now!!!

Wait for it

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:



Quote: bramleyrhino "I'd partly agree, but I'm not sure to the extend the political / class division fits in.

There are some affluent parts of the UK right on the doorstep of RL land. I find it hard to believe that we have done all that we can to tap into certain markets of, for example, North Yorkshire and Cheshire.

Thousands of people commute from places like Harrogate to Leeds every day. The train between the two literally passes Headingley Stadium's Western Terrace.

These are people that will at least be familiar with the Leeds Rhinos brand, but how much activity does a club like Leeds actually do in these areas? Have they tried and failed, concluding that the people in that area aren't interested? Is it considered too high-risk, compared to other forms of marketing? Or are they just not interested in that market?

And this applies to all clubs, not just Leeds. We have clubs that are failing to engage markets that are literally across the road.'"

To be fair to Leeds they do have a sizeable contingent of wealthy supporters, Leeds sell a large number of corporate packages for their games. I believe with the new north stand the corporate capacity will increase significantly. Other clubs need to follow suit.

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Quote: "Wait for it'"


Are people in Leigh being a little over sensitive or just realising another SL team 5 miles from the largest team in UK doesn't really add a great deal to the game generally.

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Quote: wire-quin "Are people in Leigh being a little over sensitive or just realising another SL team 5 miles from the largest team in UK doesn't really add a great deal to the game generally.'"


Maybe we are , but what exactly do you want us to do ?

Funny that the new owners of Man City picked on a club a few miles away from the biggest football club in the UK to invest in , rather than any other ?

What will be will be ,

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Quote: Budgiezilla "Bless, I never realized (until now) that a lot of RLFANS care about our sport, rather than their own club..... 5.31982421875:5
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