as Rugby 7s is now in the Commonwealth games, is there anything stopping the RFL putting in a team to challenge Englang RU to represent the country at the games ?
as a minimum wouldnt it be nice to have a mixed team, so that neither code loses face ?

What about Koukash? He can't wait spend a bucket load of cash. As long as the owner can afford it or it comes from a 3rd party and the clubs finances are in order what's the problem?

Could do with changing games to Sunday afternoon, have 1 game Friday and 1 on Saturday for sky then all the rest on a Sunday afternoon.

By playing games on Sundays you get more away support.

It depends what you do before/after the game I suppose. For me the Mrs knows Friday is rugby night, and generally that's fine because there's little else happening on Friday apart from going out round town, in which case me being available from 22:30 works out alright. It also means I can regularly persuade a couple of mates to come to the game if I go out round Wigan afterwards, one even ended up buying a season ticket and another three tend to spend about £200 a season each on tickets. Plus a tenner each every week on beer at the game.

Compare that to a Sunday, the Mrs will have plans for me, my mates will be watching football or just not want to come out because it's work the next day.

Makes me sound like a right p*sshead but I bet a lot of people are in the same boat. Having said that Sundays would definitely make more sense for Hull and London where you can struggle to get over unless you go straight from work and only eat when you get there.

One thing that has always interested me, is the American attitude to sport. In most things the Americans are very capitalistic, they don't like the idea of the NHS as they see free healthcare as some form of socialist oppression, however in their major sports they operate salary caps and are fiercely protective of them. I follow NFL, and the American attitude is very much that the game comes first, they market the game vigorously through things like NFL films all about bringing money in to the game, and wanting a fairly even competition to keep interest in the game. They are also very wedded to their playoff system and aren't too bothered about the perceived unfairness that a team can go 15-1 in the regular season and then bomb out in the first playoff and season over, where a team can go 8-8 in a weak division and end up scraping their way to winning the Super bowl.

The American attitude to sport is much more about levelling the playing field being a good thing.

Two big things make it work in America.

1. The US is a big place with a lot of talent and sport is taken seriously at all levels. There are enough quality players, to fill NFL rosters with elite players. Where there aren't enough elite players like over here you get imbalance.

2. Youth development in the US is not the responsibility of the clubs. It is done by the colleges, which means they have a separate system for developing young players, and then give the clubs a chance to draft players from those colleges. The draft system means clubs that struggle one year get prime picks of the new graduating talent. I also think its a good system that they have very strong college football and rather than players turning pro at 17 or 18, rookies in the US are 23 or 24, which is probably why its so common to see the best rookies have incredible seasons straight away - they are pretty much the finished article by the time they graduate in to the top level.

In the absence of points 1 and 2, you can't replicate that kind of tough open competition even with a salary cap. In Australia they sort of get close as they have point 1 but not point 2. Although in some ways they do have point 2, in terms of the Queensland Cup. Melbourne Storm don't have an Academy, they draft in the best graduates from the Queensland competition. Could we use the National Leagues in a similar way? Difficult, but worth exploring.

2 more big thing that make it work in America

1/ No American Football "Union"

2/ No American football on the other side of the world offering bigger salaries

If rugby league had a lockout like the NFL did in '11 how many of our superstars do you think would hang around?

As I understand it, the NFL SC is a collective bargaining agreement between the clubs and the players union. Can't see the RL club owners going for that!

The NFL clubs don't face direct competition from another sport for their elite athletes. However the game in general faces competition from a lot of other sports in America, for the best young talent. There are high school kids that are offered scholarships for basketball/baseball/football/ice hockey and those sports also offer big earning power.

But yes it is a big point that there is no rival competition overseas. When people talk about a salary cap in the Premier League in football, the first point to shoot it down is, unless the other clubs in Europe have the same cap, then English clubs will slip behind.

RL doesn't face European competition though so you could co-ordinate it so that the NRL and SL have the same salary cap more easily than you could enforce European wide cap in football.

Any increase in away support would be too small to worry about, with most clubs (Wire & Saints apart, and they're not seriously affected by Friday travel). A possible increase of a few hundred, at best, which would be swallowed up by the drop in home support - Friday has consistently been preferred in Wigan fans' surveys.

I don't disagree that the atmosphere is better on a friday but I reckon its due to people being highly strung due to bombing it out of work, getting changed and straight to the game having a heart burn burger for tea. I much prefer the relaxed Sunday games and used to love going to Salford and Cas away on a Sunday afternoon in the sun.

Used to love it as a kid playing on a Sunday morning then going to Central Park afterwards.

Bring back Sunday games!

Lots of good analysis here, in my view. If I could point out a couple of things, though...
Playing rugby for my university many years ago in front of about 10 people, I then went to the US and watched Ole Miss v Tennessee play College Ball in front of 80,000. That's a big gap to bridge. In the South US I have watched high school games played to a high standard in front of 10,000 spectators. What's more just about everyone is involved, cheer leading, playing in the band, selling tickets etc etc. there is a huge cultural gap, and I haven't the brains to work out how to bridge it. American fans aren't so parochial, in any sport (at least within the US itself) so the pro and college teams have very wide fan bases. No local derbies and not many travelling fans. No national team to cater for. A very short season compared to ours, with one major prize at the end. Clubs are franchises, and if they don't pay, they get moved, sometimes right across the country; under that system most English clubs would no longer exist apart from Wigan and Leeds. London Broncos in particular would have been closed down years ago. American Football is a business, without room for sentiment or tradition if they get in the way of commercial considerations. We've a long way to go to catch up, assuming anyone wants to!

I agree. Their sporting culture and ours are miles apart.

I think the popularity of college, and even high school sport, is due to the lack of 'lower divisions' like we have here. Here every small local area has a football team of some sort and people support them in their league (as well as the bandwagon supporters following Man U etc). In a lot of towns in the US the college or even high school will be the local team and local focus of interest. People will be aware of the history and the players that have played in that team, and they may still be living and working in the community and command respect.

Another thing I find different in the US is how seriously people take their sport. They are very in to the concept of sacrifice and discipline and doing what you have to do to make it to the top. They are very in to coaching and even high school/college coaches have sophisticated playbooks.

Agree with your point on franchises being moved around the country. Can you imagine the reaction here if Koukash had come in and said there is no future in Salford, I want to take the Red Devil franchise to Milton Keynes!

Very much so - and in most cases the sports coaches at schools and colleges are the highest paid staff members.