If all these things are true, that the amateur scene is flourishing, that people are getting switched onto the game and a genuine bedrock for the future of RL in London is being established, then all this will continue when (not if) they drop out of SL.

If it doesn't, then the interest was never there in the first place.

Where does that figure about viewing figures in London come from? I've heard it many times on here but I've never seen the source.

I'm not saying is made up Just checking it wasn't one of those "facts" that gets bounded up so much people take it as gospel.

If those figures are correct then clearly those people don't care about whether London has a team or not as they never go to watch them.

TPM.

Its purely logical. There's something like 8m people live within that area during the evenings, and something closer to double that through a working and socialising period.

If you combined the whole of the SL and Championships populations together, you still wouldn't get 2m and Leeds and Bradford together it would make up around a 3rd of that.
I'm not to a couple of a hundred thousand here or there.

I just want to open your eyes a little to the actual population size Yed referred too.
That is why 50% of sky RL watching public are within that area. I would probably say that figure is conservative too.
Around the heartlands, many of us who follows RL actually go to the games instead of tv viewing. Okay that's a small figure in comparison, but it still needs to be knocked off.

Your main argument for them though seems to be, lets keep them because it's handy for me.
They currently offer nothing to the sport.
If they had been better managed over the years, then maybe it would be different, but as it stands it isn't.
Lets not forget they aren't a new club, they have been going for about 30 years.

Keep them because it's handy for me? Errr no it isn't and it was only this season when they finally moved on my doorstep that it has ever been 'handy'.

He's something you might not have know, before they moved to the Hive, when I went to watch them it would take me 1.5 hours on a good day to get to the ground. Tell me how many stadiums are within 1.5 hours on a good day of the HJ? Would you say that's a convenient amount of travelling time?
On a bad day (Friday night, it could take just shy of 3 hours) in context it takes 3.5 hours on a good day from my house in Barnet to Warrington. You're so far off with your assumption it's untrue.

I want LB in SL yes that is true, in a p&r situation do I think they should stay up regardless? No I don't.
I think p&r currently is a mistake and with the political will the London problem was an easy fix but unfortunately there never was the will to make London succeed from any quarter. If the effort that was put into Melbourne in the NRL was applied here LB would have been a success story.

My frustration lies with the people who know nothing of the London scene, watch one or two London matches on TV and then out comes the flat cap and we hear the usual tripe again.

The Rfl contrary to popular belief do very little for London, they are afforded an extra pittance on salary due to London weighting and that is it.
London never finished bottom of SL a fact also lost on some people.
They currently offer nothing you say, hard to argue. But even when they did offer something people called for their heads and thought promoting Halifax or Featherstone was preferable?

I'm with you on London Yed.
Better them in and Cumbria than Catalan and having a town and city with 2 teams in if the game wants to better utilise the SL spots nationally.