Toronto's first league game was in London. Their first home game was v Oxford. Toronto agreed that with the RFL in order to ensure people mulling over whether or not to try a new sport out viewed it as credible opposition i.e a place they had heard of.

North American expansion is creating a real opportunity for London assuming franchising returns, pretty much nailed on, and there is someone willing to run a franchise. That bit may be the challenge but don't totally write it off.

A very reliable birdie told me there was a serious attempt to put a consortium together to buy Broncos three or so years ago. Franchising and a possible return to the top tier may see another go. Stress may, I have no inside info on any current plans.

A consortium 3 or 4 years ago means nothing today though.

The problem is the more the word of rugby league spreads in N America, the less important "known city names in UK" is! When the word has spread the importance to Toronto, NY, Hamilton, whoever, will be names in rugby league not big city names!!! They are going to want to see Wigan St Helens Leeds not London Skolars or Oxford Cavaliers.

The hard part with franchise is going to be how many teams. So assuming similar business set up you will have: leeds wire saints wigan hull hkr Hudds Catalan Widnes cas wakey leigh salford Toronto london broncos
That's 15 possible teams
Stick with 12 who do you lose? Out of that lot at the moment wakey, due to stadium, us same reason, the rfl will want Toronto in so Leigh Widnes or salford are out
Make it 14 teams that could play better for us, but even when we were SL our crowds didn't really stack up. So even if we got a stadium I don't think our history helps outr cause, Toronto would get the nod ahead of us

I suspect the ultimate aim would be conferences which would allow you to have more teams in Superleague. That won't be for a while, if ever, realistically.

I'd agree London franchise would be a leap of faith financially by the backers and would probably have to happen early in the process. The cachet of the name London would be at its most valuable then.

Whether a consortium a few years ago is still relevant depends on what the potential members think. Franchising would change the situation substantially, whether they would consider it attractive enough to try to get involved is down to them. If it happened we wouldn't be up against Toronto for a franchise, it would be the British teams in danger if a London franchise happened.

i disagree, selling something in NY, Hamilton etc would be easier if you have to say "and we will play London" saying "and we will play Widnes" doesn't have the same ring to it..........

Quite right Brian, Most North Americans would have no knowledge of where Wigan, Widnes or St Helens are. London they would know.
Their knowledge of the outside world is not that good.

Brian, bosty, true for what happened with Toronto, but they are now up and running and the success of other teams will be built on the back of what they do. Toronto was in effect virgin territory hence the mention f known cities in the uk rather than rugby league. May I suggest that next year Toronto will not be saying we need london first!!!
Hamilton if that rumour is true, is not that far from Toronto, the marketing (sounding like dog now) will be very different to an audience that has already had exposure to the game.
Once knowledge of the game spreads so will the names of the teams involved.

Not necessarily......the current owner is owed a considerable sum of money and any "sale" would have to involve DH walking away with nothing....at the time, we were borderline as to whether we'd fulfill our 2014 fixtures and we did still have our SL status, but if the same little birdie who told "Halfden" was the one communicating wih me, then there were a number of stumbling blocks, not least the level of debt a new owner would be prepared to take on.....but the same people are still around, based out of the Capital and still of the belief that the club can be a success if given the right backing by the RFL and other clubs.

The interesting words in there are backing by the RFL and other clubs!!!!!!

A number of things that were on the table included the ability to field NRL loanees, no "quota" although the academy and reserve grades would have continued, additional salary cap room to account for the increased cost of living and to tempt English players south.......the kind of things that smaller clubs and their fans would roll out as proof that London didn't deserve to be in SL.......like they did for 20 years anyway



The RFL would probably agree to it, but the likes of Leigh, Fev et al would be up in arms claiming unfairness.......so the game will applaud a Toronto outfit bankrolled independently and stacked with NRL/UK talent as "expansion" and simply ignore the number of Players at this years RLWC who either came from our ranks or who passed through our club when unwanted by the bigger teams. We have a good number of current players at the RLWC and even more past players there too.....London RL was starting to pay dividends but as the game insisted that DH foot the bill, it was never going to last.....

So why should we be allowed no quota?

Developing a successful side of London grown players would take 2 generations.......we were getting there and have continued with the academy and yoof sides to DH's credit, but to attract crowds, which is the route to self sufficiency, we need success.....Melbourne Storm cheated their way to relative stabilization......stripped titles and fines only galvanised their audience into a "Millwall" menatality....nobody likes us we don't care.......crowds have nearly doubled in 10 years....

I am all for the quota system to ensure that the UK game develops a larger talent pool, but expansion sides should be allowed to import more talent SO LONG AS THEY RUN ACADEMY AND YOOF PROGRAMES.

Once Toronto hit SL they should be forced to run academy and youth set ups (as should all sl sides) or receive reduced central funding....said funding should go to clubs outside SL that are trying....like us and Halifax....
...we need more LMS and Clubbs on TV with their cockney accents.....we need a successful side winning things.....we need raz-a-amataz around the promotion.....all these things will attract players to the game in the south and fans to the sport.

So.
We have been around for 30 plus years. We should now be able and expected to stand on our own 2 feet and compete under the same rules as everyone else.
Yr suggesting that we should be exempt the quota rules every other team has to abide by? Not sure how that works?
No one has ever suggested we have a team of london born players, no club in the land can claim that.
So scenario, we are given free reign to sign who we want with no quota, we win super league!!! What does that achieve?