Quote ball-in-hand="ball-in-hand"i just dont understand why some people including some members of the RFL, journalists who write for League Express , Forty 20 magazine wallies who do some of the rugby podcasts etc , want to see a Super League made up of teams with names like Toronto, New York Ottawa etc who havent a single american/canadian in them, no avadamy , no local leagues, flown in to places where it is too cold to play half the year in front of crowds who have been given free tickets and are only there for the beer watching super league has beens like Wilkins and second rate Aussies rather than teams like Wakefield, Castleford Feathersone , leigh, Barrow, Whitehaven etc who are the heart of there local communities and the birthplace of the game.
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It's all about the money.
RL is torn between protecting it's core audience (as you describe) and needing new fans, players and investment.
If we cant break out of the heartland's, we face a slow lingering death.
However, the answer isn't just to have a headline name (like Toronto) with no roots and no real connection to the sport.
The brutal reality is that there arent enough hardcore supporters to sustain a top level professional sport and we do have to find a way to attract new/more people into the game, at every level.
If you look at London, for instance, despite their nomadic status, RL started with the headline club and then built around it but, it took 20+ years before their were any "southerners" breaking into their side and it will take a similar amount of time for any other "new" club.
It's a classic catch 22
