It strikes me that rugby league is part of the sporting and cultural heritage of the north of England. I think the RFL, as guardians of the game, should be doing everything they can to preserve and strengthen that heritage. Is rugby league stronger if SL is played in more places but the heartland is weak? Or is it stronger if it's only played in Yorks and Lancs but in front of large enthusiastic crowds, encouraging youngsters in schools and amateur clubs to take up the game and celebrating its own strong northern identity?
Other sports can claim a strong historic and cultural link with a particular country or part of a country (gaelic football, shinty, curling etc) but I can think of no other sport that is willing to sacrifice its own heritage and identity in order to "expand" the game.
My own view is that it will all go t1ts up. Expand the game by all means, but not at the expense of heartland clubs because without them, the game loses its souls and becomes a mere shadow of what it was and should be. The majority of people in the new expansion areas will not identify with the new teams and people in the heartlands will cease being interested in any great numbers (as is happening now in places like Oldham, Workington even Wakefield).
Trinfan's vision of the future is a tad optimistic - I don't really see Warrington, Huddersfield and Bradford fitting in to the brave new world. It's also my idea of a plastic, globalised, no soul, no substance nightmare. Not for me thanks.

Sky pulling out could be sooner than people think.If one of the Murdoch offspring takes over or if they
rldon't get their own wayrl

Are we talking club rugby union, football, rugby league, or many of the sports who, without Sky, would not have the riches available to them? The fact still remains, we relied on a 'sugar daddy' but the problem was he didn't have enough money to continue to support the club.

Anyway, Sky will not pull out of anything which brings in subscribers, plain and simple, they're a business. People continue to pay to watch Super League, Sky will keep the money flowing...

I totally agree with the lot but as an aside I would add that it seems the playground stuff has only become nothing to wakey fans since the outline pp was called in, before that you loved trying to stick it up cas fans with rodney walker and newmarket.

Strange how opinions change to suit circumstances

The benefits of a new stadium have been missed in this discussion.

1) Increased Capacity
2) Vastly superior facilities
3) Increase in Season Ticket sales
4) Increase in sponsorship

Those four factors will impact on the first team as with improved facilities and monies coming in we can compete for the better player as we are a more attractive proposition.

Put that stadium on the M62 corridor and ask yourself what is the best option for semi final and international rugby league, because it won't be Headingley.

Everything goes in cycles and I believe we will all see that change. If you want proof look at BLACKPOOL

To be fair not everybody everybody jumped on the try and stick it to Cas band wagon. That being said even though Cas have applied for full planning permission that doesn't guarantee a new stadium does it?

There has been more than a fair share on minority fans on here jumping on the band wagon and sticking it to us in our current position.

So like you say

They are all very good points, but the one major point you have missed is

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I'd be quite happy (as can be) to see Wakey go down to the national leagues, and if we get our house in order, we would have a good chance of returning to Super League. That has got to be every national league clubs hopes of course. However with the current regime that is in place at the RFL I don't see where tired old clubs like Wakey, Halifax and Featherstone fit in to the master plan that the RFL (I have come to believe) have in mind.

Obviously there may come a time when someone will take the reigns of the RFL and see a different vision, where clubs promotion and relegation will come back. I've opposed the franchising system since it came in, to me it's just a way for the RFL to cherry pick teams that get Super League status by setting their own guidelines.

But right now, after many conversations with my pro football friends, with me defending the sport and the way it is run, I have completely admitted defeat. The sport as a game is IMO one of the best and most exciting in the world, but my attitude towards the sport has dwindled since franchising came to fruition. It has taken away that competitiveness that promotion and relegation provided, and took away the chance for clubs like Wakey, Halifax, Leigh and the rest a chance for a pop at Super League.

Hull KR got in at the right time, and they are proof that a club can rise from the national leagues and be successful in Super League, had they not been promoted when they were, they may be in a similar position to that of many championship clubs at the moment. It angers me that it now requires not a competitive playing squad and a good coach to get promotion, but money and investment. For me it has taken away all that I love about professional sport.

I really don't care if we don't get a franchise, it's our own fault at the end of the day, we have had years and years to address the issue of having a decent ground to play out of, and I think most Trinity fans agree with me. To see our board begging us for money, and moaning how they would like to just watch from the sidelines is just not good enough, and just goes to show how badly our club is being run. As such I have zero sympathy for our current situation.

However this doesn't mean to say that I will walk away from the club if we are rightly relegated. I would just like to feel as though we are on an even playing field. But I fear that we are not and could easily be brushed aside in the wake of the RFL's new love child, may that be in the form of another Welsh, French or Southern club. I would much rather the RFL be honest about their plans for the sport, but I doubt that this will ever happen and we will always be kept in the dark.

There is a decent argument to say that expansion would help the game, albeit it would ultimately relegate our club permanently.

For example, if they created a Birmingham side that attracted 5,000 people a week, that is 5,000 people who don't go to games currently who would then be interested in the game, plus the extra knock on benefits of school and amateur interest. If we drop down a league and the crowds go to 2,000, then game has a 3,000 attendance profit.

The problem we have is that there are a lot of big clubs close by, and so the young players still have big clubs to play for, like Leeds, and smaller local clubs to use as a stepping stone, like us, Fev and Cas. I might be wrong, but I imagine that all that has changed around Fev, for example, or Leigh, is thT the youngsters aspire to play for the bigger clubs, like Leeds and Wigan, as opposed to their real hometown clubs.

I would argue that the actions of the sport (RFL) at this moment in time are causing more disillusion with rugby league than I can remember in my lifetime. I only subscribe to sky to watch the rugby league and I am on the verge of cancelling everything which includes sky HD, multiroom and the full programs package.

I agree with the argument that if the RFL don't want us then we wont get a franchise.

One thing that i don't think has been brought up is the conflict of interest the the RFL has. We all know that they have loaned Crusaders 700k so therefore the RFL have a vested interest in them succeeding meaning there is a conflict of interest when deciding if Crusaders get a franchise or not. Conflict of interest, correct me if i am wrong is illegal under business laws.

That is very true but given the fact we are talking about the RFL, I think it will be fair to say that this issue will have been covered by clever wording in the terms of the agreement for the financial support. They want Crusaders to succeed and will go through hell and high water to make it so. They are not going to be undone by a technicality.

The RFL would love a strong Wakefield side in SL. There are around 330k people in the district, thats a huge market. They would love a club representative of all those people, able to tap into that market at all levels with a Wakefield club at the top of the pyramid. It is a strong amateur area and the RFL would love a club able to take advantage of that strength.

However they arent getting that. What they have at the moment is two clubs in tired stadiums struggling to survive who spend more time fighting each other than fighting for the game. Wakefield and Castleford are the two biggest obstacles to success either face. That is what the RFL want to get rid of. The game can no longer survive as a parish v parish game, with a couple of thousand people keeping pit workers in beer money, that will kill it.

SL needs a strong Wakefield club, at the moment that is neither the Wildcats or the Tigers.

P+R damaged the game, we saw it every year, we saw clubs struggling to put in place the long term plans needed, we saw a game which in some areas bounced from crisis to crisis for years. How can Wakey not have a pop at SL, they are in SL?

Other areas have a right to this game just as much as the heartlands. The games current structure is weighted towards the heartlands, the RFL need and do give a leg up to the expansion sides but all that does is level the playing field.

I think the other leagues should break away from the 'Super' League this would allow them to get back to what Rugby League is all about, it's practically run like two different sports anyway! All the other clubs ought to achnowledge that chances of promotion are very slim anyway and work against the Super League focusing only on their own game and promoting that, they could boycott the Challenge Cup too! It would be interesting then to see how much this franchise system matters and how much the RFL really needs/wants the clubs in the lower divisions. I'd happily watch Wakefield Trinity in a lower division then!