In its current state, London would bring very little to the SL competition other than a minimal presence in the capital and embarrassingly small crowds and whilst I have mentioned other sides that are borderline or not SL quality, I have never said replace them with London.

What is worth noting is that a great many fans of clubs like Leigh and Wakefield who quite rightly defend their clubs from criticism are the very same fans who bemoan the lack of media coverage, the size of the SKY TV deal and various other faults of the RFL, whilst totally ignoring the fact that as we are a local sport with very little reach outside of our heartlands, we will continue to be paid peanuts by SKY and ignored by the national media. I am not advocating London or Toronto as the solution, but insular thinking along the lines of protecting clubs with 120+ years of history who can't even attract 5k fans is only going to compound the issue.
Wigan, Saints, Wire, Hull, Leeds and to a certain extent Catalans and Castleford are clubs with (or close to) a 10k average and a 10K average is the break even attendance that means clubs don't need "director loans" to survive. It is the need for the other clubs to have a sugar-daddy that hamstrings them in terms of attracting bigger crowds, better sponsors and therefore they inevitably find themselves being "predominantly" mid to bottom table sides with one or two taking it in turns to scrap to avoid relegation. There are exceptions....Catalans last year is one, as is wakefield finishing "1 point of 4th", or as sane people call it, 5th......but if we want the game to earn more income and therefore employ more stars and be played in full stadiums with a high paying high volume TV audience that the Media can't ignore, then we need to realise that Huddersfield visiting Wakefield and watched by fewer than 5k spectators isn't going to do it......

But Toulouse and Toronto and perhaps Paris are going to do it.

Attracting "stars" to SL is a difficult one. Where are they going to come from? The best Aussies aren't going to play in SL unless salaries exceed what they can earn in the NRL. The alternative is to increase investment in academies, reserve teams and associated training facilities so that we can produce more of our own stars. This would need a lot of money for the infrastructure, and would probably mean that we'd need to start paying higher salaries to attract the best athletes to the game.

It's all a bit catch-22. We need a lot of money to build the game and then start making money from better TV deals etc., but the game doesn't have the money to make it all happen.

You're stating an opinion like it's a fact with that comment!

Perhaps. But there are grounds for that opinion.

Toronto was already attracting 7,000 fans while in lowly League One. I imagine that they will get bigger crowds in the Championship and much bigger crowds in Super League, such that they might have to move their home games to the soccer stadium in Toronto.

Toulouse is getting roughly the same crowds as Catalans got before their promotion to Super League. When Toulouse is promoted to Super League I am sure that their crowds will rise to the current Catalans 8,000 + mark initially, and if successful over the 10,000 mark because Toulouse has a much bigger population pool than Catalans.

If Paris joins Super League well after Toulouse is established there, I am sure that their clashes will attract the same massive crowds that the rugby union equivalent clashes attracted in both Paris and Toulouse. Why not?

I don't share your optimism, but let's see how things develop. The only real error in your response is saying "When Toulouse..." rather than "If Toulouse...".

well done chorley barry,you have finally managed to write a sentance with the word lowly in it,without tagging leigh on the end.

Brilliant! Another table we (Castleford) are top of that means nothing! Thanks for that!

The RL starved Toronto Public flocked in their 'tens" to a "Live game Event" at the 3 Brewers Bar at the weekend.....let's say 100 at most. 24,000+ followers on Facebook, but fewer than 100 people attending a Live game event and a Q&A with prize draw for players kit points to an awful lot of work before they attract the masses back to their Beer Tent/RL Jamborees......and that's taking the declared attendances with a fair pinch of salt, given no camera angle last year pointed towards a full stand, let alone a full stadium


Toulouse attract 1,400 or so to games.......that is it. Everything else is guesswork, supposition and an awful lot of finger crossing.


I'll tell you why not.....a game or even 2 games against sides from hundreds of miles away with no heritage or pedigree will attract the same level as the Visit of Salford did to Paris in SLII.......I'd steer well clear of Paris and concentrate on the South West where RL has a little traction.....and unless you're going to pack Toulouse and Paris with ANZACS, then fans won't get hooked watching "plucky French players" from Elite 1 getting smashed each week.....

Expansion has to be done from the bottom up......Toulouse are looking better this year but have only played the bottom 4 sides so far and have lost to Featherstone........to compare this to last season (replacing Leigh for HKR) the same set of 5 fixtures saw you unbeaten with 5 wins and a +82 difference.....early days yet and if they do get into the mix, they will be ripped apart by SL opposition.

Our average attendance in SL 2017 put us above Huddersfield, Wakefield, Widnes & of course Salford *in terms of attendances* !

Our fan base has consistently been the highest in Championship RL *bar K.R in 2017*

TW official attendances are less believable than Close Encounters of a Third Kind was.

Wigans away support is shocking for a so called "Big Club" & only Saints brought a support of any great note.

Leigh will once again be the highest grossing Club outside SL *discounting TW 10M fans* & will achieve a higher season average than Salford.

Leigh have one of the very best RL stadiums in all of the RFL & we don't get kicked out because of a F.A match either, whereas Wigan have to borrow our stadium that their generous tax payers kindly paid for !

London, Toulouse & TW are doing extremely well in terms of on pitch performance but I will be incredibly shocked if any of them can achieve the longevity or relative success of Leigh.

Deal with that Call me Dog !

Stability,success and a benefactor all contribute to attendance. Ask London.

When I watched Toronto Wolfpack on Premier Sports, the 9,600 capacity Lamport Stadium has always looked busy. Not that attendance figures can get you promoted or relegated anyway.

This is the game against Whitehaven last September. rlhttps://beta.theglobeandmail.com/ece-images/eec/news/toronto/article36214641.ece/BINARY/w1100/wolfpack08to3948.JPGrl

No doubt it's a decent showing, but the question mark has always been around the reported number of spectators compared to the actual number in the ground. Given the capacity of the ground is 9,600 and the reported attendance was 6,134 for that game, the amount of space on the terraces suggests that they had a lot of ST holders who didn't attend games.

All those 'missing' bodies are apparently in the beer tents and getting burgers from the BBQ don't you know........

What, 3,000 of em.