Enigmatic must still be asleep!!!

There is no reason for the RFL to save LB while playing in the championship. However if we had been in SL maybe this is a serious question and is something that has been raised on this board in the past.

Yep,the question seems academic now. There would be no reason to save us even if we did get back to SL as clearly the world hasn't ended without us there.

What would you like me to have said?

If you want to fund expansion then it needs to be done centrally and the LONG TERM BENEFITS need to be sold to and understood by all concerned. Instead, we've had 4 years of Licensing before they started to search for an alternative and the game has contracted in size and regional demographic as a result.

Less Players, 22 of the top 24 sides playing north of sheffield, a sponsor who pays us per customer, a TV deal that restricts us and a fan base that will only turn up to major games if they are heavily discounted.

The RFL and SKY should have bankrolled London and PSG at the start of SL. If the other 10 clubs wanted to play in the new comp, then they would have had to accept 20% less revenue each which would have gone to these "expansion" clubs (800k each for the 10, 1 million each got the 2) and if they didn't like it, they could have stayed where they were and perished. 800K a year was about 800K more than they would get if they turned it down.

This is the major difference now. The NRL is starting to flex its muscles at the clubs. It negotiated a massive TV deal and immediately started planning for the next one......the RFL meekly accepted the SKY deal.

So, to answer your initial question, nope, Fatty Wood shouldn't have saved London......because if they'd done it properly in the first place, London wouldn't have needed saving and by the time Hughes "wobbled" their was SFA left to save.

So the Titans, are now a 4th club bankrolled by the NRL in 18 months, how exactly does that help the NRL? Also, where do the RFL suddenly get the money to bankroll London or Paris or anyone else for that matter.

Sponshorship and TV deals are down to the RFLs ineptitude and unwillingness to SELL themselves elsewhere, no offence GF but I was against "franchising/licensing" back then and I'm still agin it now. Selling what we have PROPERLY is the key, MARKETING what we have PROPERLY helps!!!! Telling those who repeatedly shaft us to stick it where the sun don't shine, will help!

As I said, pre-SL the clubs were on 0 revenue. Murdoch gave the game rl87mrl to switch to summer and between 1999 and 2003, there was 11.4 million per season in tv Cash.......some of that would have been a good place to start!

If you'd divided that 11.4 between 12 you got 950,000 each. If you divided it between 13 it's 877,000 each, with London getting 1,750,000........as I've said before, your average northerner would have choked on his faggotts, but the GAME would have benefitted. The London club would have been owned by the comp and the opportunity for loan players to join us to help their development may have been more attractive.

Instead, we have in all probability flushed 30 million in SKY cash and 40 in Private investment down the tubes over 19 SL seasons and all we have to show for it are a handful of cockneys plying their trade north of the gap, 150 or so die hard season ticket holders and nowhere to call home.

When 888 is binned and a London outfit are again invited to the top table (dreams of the skolars/hemmel etc are just that....dreams), then the ownership model outlined above is the only way forward. By all means build the David Hughes Stadium and erect a statue of the guy on each corner, but a single investor ownership model just wont work in the capital. If the other clubs/the game owns it, then the time and effort needed to make it a success becomes key to all of them.