Relegation of Wigan Athletic from Premier League is not yet certain, but a distinct possibility.

If it happens, Wigan Athletic lose a lot of prestige and money.

Will that boost the stocks of Wigan Warriors within the town and surrounding areas?

Are pointless threads your speciality

If it happens, Wigan Athletic will still receive £23m next season, £18m the year after, and £10m for each of the next 2 years in parachute payments from the Premier League. Or, to put it another way, they'll still get 12 times more money for being relegated than Wigan RL will get in the same period.

Makes absolutely no difference one way or the other.

Is that because the pool of sports fans in Wigan and surrounds are set in their tastes?

Is there not a soft core, floating fan base which goes with the prestige teams in the area?

I couldn't give a flying feck about the latics.

But I'd expect only one of the clubs to make a profit.

wigan board surely??

A few people watch both teams, but I don't know anyone who'd stop going to watch Latics *and* switch to the rugby. Same the other way too - when Latics got into the premier league, I don't know of anyone who stopped going to the rugby to watch the football. It's largely a different fan base. In fact there's quite a lot of hostility between some people. I've never felt that way - despite never once having watched Latics live, I always hope they win.

Yes it would be. My kids seem to come home from school with free Latics tickets every other week that don't get used. I'm sure I'm not the only parent in Wigan who doesn't take advantage of this and Premier League football is more attractive than Championship football. There is bound to be kids who would be RL fans instead of football fans if Latics were not a PL team.

quite alot of hostility at huddersfield too between the clubs, except football is king here and not rugby

The football team is also guaranteed European football next year regardless of the result of the FA cup final so will still have something to look ahead to.

Was their any difference at the KC when Hull City had a couple of years in the Premiership (they'll be back again next year too).....not really.

And I don't think it just has to be confined to ones that share the same ground. The fortunes of the Leeds teams (Rhinos and United) have been massively different since 2003 yet did it have a big affect in the city? Again not really. United still are top dogs in the city

No such sentiment from me I'm afraid. All the bandwagon fans were unbearable when they got promoted, telling us all about how the town's turning blue. They kicked us out of our stadium when we had a play off game. They sprayed over our 'Super League Champions 2010' sign. They abused that poor woman at McDonalds which got all over the internet. I understand there are plenty decent fans who aren't like that but plenty are, particularly the ones I went to school with around the time they came up. All these things gave me a bad impression of the club, and at the end of the day most of them love it when we lose. I hope they go down and get hammered at Wembley on national tv.