Was it Saints who signed SBW or did we miss that.
You'll be telling us next that we're missing out on a huge TV deal from both France and N.America.

Do you think that ANYONE in say, New York or Toronto knows where St Helens is
I would think that your average man on the street in the south of England doesn't know.

The only major cities that are playing RL in SL this country are Leeds and Hull, so, if you want to go for "big names" in "big cities" the rest will have to go.

They do say, be careful what you wish for

That's true about Leeds and Hull in RL terms, but you won't find many in North America who know where Hull is and it will be a minority with Leeds too. They will automatically assume London is the biggest team and probably wonder why there isn't one called Liverpool or Manchester given that they're famous "sports" names. Wigan and St Helens are huge names in rugby league, but good luck explaining that in Toronto!

Good point for us fans that watch our team away from home but struggle to make a France due to work and family commitments the one match I used to watch on SKY was Catalans away and now that’s gone... so SKY could lose subscriptions but probably not as I enjoy a game of RL on TV even with Wigan, Saints or Leeds

I don’t like the Toronto field of all colours keep looking for a Jesus Christ superstar..... so avoid watching them

So what exactly is it that these so called 'big clubs' actually 'bring to RL' considering most still require sugar daddies to remain in existence?

It's strange how the Brians have had a sudden conversion to the philosophy that a RL club should be able to spend whatever it likes in order to buy success; I wonder what prompted that?

This, by the way, is ballcocks:

"People worked out; 'no, you don't go as fast as your slowest man, you go as fast as the group can go and if the slowest man can't keep up, you leave him behind"

I'd like to play against that defensive line every week...

Be needs to shut his big gob, spending other people's money so easy to spout the crap he does

In fairness, I don't think Noble's ever argued otherwise. Wasn't that pretty much his ethos at Bradford and didn't he fritter a fortune on Fielden while at Wigan?

Who has been listening to you all these years, you've only been posting since ruuBron108 got found out, unless nah you couldn't be could you.

He's correct in one way. What sort of TV deal do you think superleague would get if there were say 12 clubs the size of, say, Wakefield or Leigh or Whitehaven (just using as an example) pulling in 2 to 4k fans every week, no clubs with marquee players and empty stands. Not very vibrant at all. Like it or not its the big clubs which keep it going - and you could say that about so many other sports too

they secure a respectable TV deal without which the sport flounders (see post above)

The problem is that they (Wigan and Saints) have been big fish in a small pond up to this point in time.
However, if we really are going to go global, they dont even feature as minnows in the grand scheme of things.

RL really ought to spend some time thinking about what it wants and where it wants to be in 5, 10 and 20 years time and then sell their idea to the masses.
Right now, in the Western world, we have falling participation in the UK and a pocket of resistance in the south of France and a rich man's dream in N. America, which takes its players from the UK and Down Under.

There is POTENTIAL to grow something really huge in N. America but, is this ever likely to happen and if so, can someone let us have anything of a timescale.

If all of the salary cap shackles come off and all clubs are allowed to spend what they want on player transfer fees and wages, what will this actually do for the game ?

"We" will still be competing for retiring International players, crocks, bad boys and just maybe a couple of youngsters.
Will this set the game alight and suddenly provoke the TV companies to increase their investment or, allow clubs to persuade "the next level" of sponsors to come on board or, is it more likely to stoke wage inflation and actually leave clubs with a much higher wage bill and leave them financially worse off.

well, we now hark back to karl fitzpatrick and warringtons approach to promoting games at the start of this year, and the wolfie videos, which were met with stony face silence from some clubs and derision from a lot of fans, i've said it on here before, every club should be pulling in and trying to do something in countdown to the tbe new tv deal, rather than being happy to just exist.

Christ, we managed to horn in on the sonny bill williams media day getting him in a video with wolfie dicking about. Every team should have been fighting to get involved with that.

Over to you Curry boy & Jean !

The level of TV deal very much depends on the numbers of viewers and advertisers that can be "encouraged" to support what is being shown on the box.
As we have seen recently with Women's football, if there is sufficient drive and promotion put in, numbers can increase exponentially.
If you go back 5 years, how many people would have tuned in to watch ladies football ?
And yet, after wall to wall media coverage, they can now sell out Wembley !

What is severely lacking in our sport in anyone with the ability to really "sell" the game.

We like to say its "the greatest game" but, as a sport, we have struggled to convince even the most diehard fans that it actually is.
In a way, it doesn't matter if its Wigan or Whitehaven, somehow there has to be a "buzz" created and with the exception of the people involved at Toronto, there doesnt seem to be anyone at the top of our game capable of properly promoting the sport.

The flip side of your argument about what kind of deal would clubs like Wakefield, Leigh or Whitehaven be able to achieve is, what would the difference actually be if you only had Wigan, Wire, Saints, Leeds and Hull in the pot ?

So come on big boy, how much greater would the deal be, assuming that you could still sell a sport with only 5/6 UK sides taking part

Although Football does really well on the back of half a dozen big sides, it also makes the most of it's diversity and doesn't deride the smaller clubs in the premier league and without the smaller clubs, there aren't any big ones, just football clubs.