See Melbourne Storm. The city of Melbourne and state of Victoria are not traditional rugby league areas. However 25000 people just watched them win the minor premiership. Having previously effectively been owned by the NRL (via Newsltd) they are now privately owned and thriving after less than 20 years of existing.

It also took a huge amount of money in a sport with plenty of national media attention, and a significant amount of cheating to get them to this point.

It has to be repeated in London for the game to gain the publicity/expansion it deserves

Sadly the fat parochial sod wont allow it.

You've been trying for 35 years. Using the word parochial does not add any strength to the failing argument that Super League is / would be better off with teams from outside the heartland.

The biggest problem with London is them never having had a settled base. Most people don't seem to realise that moving from Twickenham to groundshare with Barnet was like moving from Sheffield to Leeds. All the good work they'd done in SW London lost by asking fans to travel nearly an extra hour across the most congested city in Europe. They do seem to have acknowledged that with the latest move to Ealing, but we'll see.

Too many people seem to think they should succeed because London has a population of 9 million, but because of its geographic size, you're never going to be appealing to more than a fraction of that with the way RL is structured in terms of the salary cap and limited media exposure. They aren't doing too badly compared to clubs that have had an 80+ years head start on them. With a settled base and continuing to do good youth work then they'll be alright.

I'll just add to that, people need to ask what they expect from expansion.

Heartlands clubs with 100+ years of history aren't able to compete for the top four or dream of getting 10,000+ through the gates, so to expect new clubs to get that within the first few years is completely unrealistic. Slowly building up teams like Coventry, Oxford, Crusaders, Hemel, etc. is the way forward to build a nationwide game with a strong base producing the extra talent that will find its way to the top of the league. It might not sound so glamorous, but without millionaire backers (which the games structure doesn't support), then sustainable, yes.

Bradford, Sheffield, York and Salford all on the brink.

I daresay there's plenty of other clubs in the same position.

A sport that's struggling in its own backyard.

A sport that has hardly expanded in 121 years of existence in this country.

But let's get expansion done right.

Right?

Yep.

If Eric Perez is very successful with the Toronto Wolfpack getting into Super League by 2019 or 2020, and Montreal follows in Toronto's wake then Eric Perez should be favoured to take over the management of Super League from its current clique of pizza eating drones.

BTW, has anyone heard a peep out of a chap named Barwick, who is supposedly the Supreme Leader of Super League, and a man, so we were told, with all the media connections that could boost the profile of the game?

Four basket case clubs, York and Salford run by egomaniacs with no real plan of sustainability, Sheffield having gone professional without the base to support it, and Bradford's problems far too long to go into.

It's not up to the RFL to run the clubs themselves, that would only lead to bias against smaller well run clubs (and besides, they have gone out of their way to help York and Bradford in particular), but if the game had a broader base of clubs across a wider area then it wouldn't be so hard hit by the demise of those that are poorly run.

Without broader appeal (especially in regards to media coverage) RL would become a glorified pub game.
The sport has to find a way to grow.

The main source of income is drawn from the TV deal, which in turn, relies on advertising revenue which is dependent on viewing figures.
Are there enough people interested in watching clubs from 2 small areas in the North of England to generate the level of interest required to pull in TV broadcasting companies.

Sorry but, it's expand or die, especially on the International stage.

The inclusion of an additional French club and Toronto will certainly increase media interest and the game could take off in Canada (I know there is a long, long way to go) and if this is at the cost of dropping a heartland club from SL, so be it.
Of course, it would be preferable to have a 14 or 16 club SL and it's only the greed of the big clubs that has caused the reduction to the current 12 clubs.
With a higher level of funding and progressive marketing (which Toronto seem to have) the sport can grow which, in the longer term, is good for every one.

Why do we keep talking of expansion when in reality we are struggling with the momentum of contraction in many facets of our game specifically here in the UK.

Whilst we haven't seen a decent level of expansion at SL level, we have at grassroots. Junior & Open Age amateur clubs have sprung up all over the place in the past 10-15 years or so. Have a look on twitter, or on the RFL club locator and you'll be pleasantly surprised.

Wrencat above sums it up, we need the broader appeal. The best way to do this is a consistent International Calendar that Joe public is able to follow. We've taken the first step in doing that with the World Cup on a set 4-year cycle at long last. We now need to figure out what the best thing to do with the intervening three years is. We also need to spread games out more, as at the moment we shoehorn a few games in late October/November. We should have a 3-week International break around June.

With a successful & competitive International game, the media/public attention will follow.

Regards to the club game, sides like Toulouse & Toronto need supporting, as in order to really grow, we need clubs in big cities and the commercial revenues they could potentially pull into the sport.

Which facets?

I think that The Aussies are partly to blame on this.
Nothing happens on the International scene without their blessing and they always appear to put their domestic game above all else, which ultimately is not helping the game to grow elsewhere.
I agree about International fixtures in that they need to be given a higher priority. However, we are stuck with too few options, with only 3 top tier nations, plus 5/6 second tier teams and an improvement with France (a strong Toulouse club would help) is the first step in giving GB a meaningful mid season game.
Without them, we should be playing Aussie and NZ in alternate seasons.

Ask Brian Barwick, report back when he gives you a sensible progressive way forward.