Totally agree.

I'm agreeing with most of that. Even more reason why any thoughts of expansion need dashing pretty quickly and we need to preserve what we already have.

How a sport with such a poor record, in normal times, for expansion success, can believe it can achieve, with a global league, what no other sport has ever managed, is pretty baffling.

So many variables at the moment but undoubtedly challenging times ahead for RL (and a lot of other sports / industries).

When something like this happens it exposes the underlying weaknesses i.e. the businesses most likely to fail are those which were already in decline. I really didn’t have much confidence in the Toronto model and I didn’t expect them to be around 5 years from now even before Covid. I’m not sure what is going to happen to the travel industry but I do expect costs to rise which will hit Catalan. I think that people will also be less enthusiastic about travelling abroad which will result in a reduction in gate receipts from away fans who like to make a weekend of it.

Until the end of 2019 it was all about globalisation. Relatively cheap air travel meant that, in many cases, we were enjoying more than one foreign holiday per year. Long haul travel was nothing special and in my job I managing teams and customers none of whom were in the UK. There will be a certain amount of bounce back but, for a few years at least, I expect the world to become a bigger, rather than a smaller, place. Having a sport centred around the M62 corridor may not be such a bad thing.

I know alot of people aren't fans but i preferred the licensing systems. 3 years to produce home grown talent build a fan base etc i really loved the idea. The NRL has the same teams with no relegation and they're thriving.
I know it's different over there with football and Union dominating over here, but Australias population is only 25 million, we're at about 65million but can't expand our game, keep the same systems, can't decide on rules, can't decide whether to have relegation and promotion or licensing etc
Rather than having a set sport and saying this is our game and this is how it's run, we're like a start up company that has no idea what it's doing yet.
Until we can sort out the basic most fundamentals we shouldn't even bother with trying to expand, we're trying to sprint at full speed but can't even walk yet, it's beyond a joke and absolutely highlights why we're a dying sport. A sport that i love beyond anything else but am losing interest slightly more each year. It's really sad

Absolutely mate

I've been watching our glorious sport since the late 50's. Did I find it less enjoyable or exciting playing workington, Dewsbury, etc, when most teams were semi-pro? True, skill and fitness were not at today's level, but watching your team play,provided the effort is apparent, will always be a joy.