RU are going into North America as a sport - not as a league & it's a massive difference that people really need to understand. The Gallagher Premiership have ventured over to the US, with a goal of finding new commercial partners, not to lay the groundwork for a US based Premiership side. The US has its own league and the focus of the IRB is to grow that league, not to assimilate it into something thousands of miles away. If RU gets big, then that's why.

I think the old saying "you don't build a house on shaky foundations" rings true for SL at this moment in time.

I've said it a million times, but if SL wants to grow then it needs to improve the product on the filed. The quest for competitiveness has come at the expense of quality. The RFL needs to look at Friday's game and say - that's the benchmark, how do we replicate that week on week and also improve on it?

Imo I'd actually like to see a league of 10 teams, with either licencing brought back or P&R scrapped. Let's build from a solid foundation of 10 quality teams, each with infrastructure like academies and possibly A-Teams. Deliver matches on the level of Friday week in an week out and the game will grow.

Thought would need to be given to filling the lost revenue of one home game per club, but that would be somewhat balanced out by the Sky money being distributed around a smaller number of clubs.

I posted on the VT regards the tv deal that too many clubs in RL are happy to sit and collect the tv money without actually doing anything and you've nailed it with the ones you mention.

Their downfalls don't mean a team in Canada with very little RL history are a good idea. We have tried converting RU players/fans in Wales and now gridiron in Canada.

Let's look closer to home. Toulouse, York or Newcastle for me but it has to be done as a long term project in the same way Catalans was.

Doing it right off the pitch? How? They get hardly any fans, and are lucky to have one full stand never mind stadium!

London are starting to produce academy products and promising ones as well. The problem isn’t in setting up a new club in “non heartland” cities; it’s the whole mantra of the sport. The whole way we actively want these clubs to fail and laugh when they do. How the RFL/SL constantly change tact, I’m a RL die hard and can barely keep up, how do we expect non RL fans to?

We sit and wonder why our sport isn’t growing as it should. Well which of these sounds like a match you’d want to watch? Leeds v Toronto or Castleford v Wakefield? Wigan v Newcastle or Salford v Featherstone? London v Toronto or Huddersfield v Hull KR?

The sooner we rid the game of the flat cappers who bemoan the fact we’re a northern sport with no money whilst also laughing at and celebrating the demise of a truly innovative and forward thinking expansionist club, the better. For too long they’ve held the sport back.

Toulouse have just released a 4 minute video that can be found on YouTube outlining the reasons why they should be in. I’ve got to be honest it sold the idea to me but maybe I’m an easy win. To me they bring the most to the table from a growth point of view but people will have reasons for not wanting them in. We need a stronger France to kick the game on and the opportunity is there to help facilitate that.

Well worth a watch (not a clue how to post the link).

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=h7R1K41eNOc

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=h7R1K41eNOc

I’d have Toulouse in.

Don’t get me wrong, Toronto were less than ideal. The ideal situation was a pro AMNRL league but realistically that takes years if not decades to build and get going, even longer to get the standards of play up to scratch and youth systems in place (something which rather embarrassingly flat cappers wanted immediately from Toronto).

I’d like to see Newcastle, London and York in there as well but the talent spread just isn’t there as it stands.

Like I said for a championship side they had 3200 last year as an average against 3600 at Salford with more away support, Cas V wakey out of them games, but you want a team In Toronto who ran out of money?......flat clappers are putting more into the sports than the flash in the pan men who are doing it for publicity or hobby instead of love of the sport

When was the last time anything Fev did make the news? Get people talking and interested?

I’ll wait.

Yes I want a team in Toronto. I also want teams in every major city in the world. Why do you not? Why do you want a sport confined to the M62 and two Australian states?

Doing it for publicity is EXACTLY what the sport needs. Eric Perez did it for the love of the sport and the publicity. To get our sport out there to the masses in North America, to get it international recognition, to bring in more money and new fans. To turn people’s heads and get them interested. All of which he achieved. They ran out of money due to a pandemic that no one could plan for. They weren’t entitled to any money from the RFL or the Gvt. Were they mismanaged? Absolutely. They ran before they could walk but they added a new interest to RL and actually widened the sports appeal.

But yeah, let’s bring in Fev or Leigh who are doing alright in the championship

Reading the BBC report it seems the RFL and/or SL didn't do due diligence on Toronto's financial status when they were first admitted. I could not believe it when I read that. This is another screw up along the lines of saying Bradford were financially sound before they went bust when we had the franchise model.

It also seems the clubs who voted against readmission were concerned the financial projections from the new owners were not believable so they voted to avoid the chance of a repeat performance next year. Given the covid situation is not likely to be resolved quickly I can understand that it would be a huge risk to readmit them and that is before you start asking questions about is it right a club that drops out can just waltz back in regardless of where they are from. It's a pity its all gone wrong but given this is RL it's not that much of a surprise.

My view is, a shame, but not surprising. Seems the majority of SL clubs felt like Lenagan, and voted against (but not Saints?). The project always looked dubious to me in the long term, and in the current covid climate, with the sport struggling for survival, it hardly comes as a shock.

Pretty much this.

I’d pick either London or Toulouse. London would have to find a proper ground first though.

That would be cool 2 holidays in France every season

It hadn’t crossed my mind