Makes me laugh how Beaumont gives it large about the deficiencies of the French teams.

He buys his way out of a part time League, with about 13 overseas players, doesn’t have a youth set up and can only dream of getting the crowds Catalans do.

For me Leigh with Beaumont offer nothing as there seems to be no long term plan as it still seems to be based on a 5h!t or bust philosophy, which he has done previously and then not learnt the errors of that.

Exactly, we’ve seen it all before. They come up and offer nothing, after being flat track bullies in the Championship.

Playing Devil’s advocate. What, do Toulouse offer other than very expensive away trips and no away support. That Leigh or Featherstone don’t. Given that since Catalan joined there has been no significant extra exposure or funding for the game. In fact probably the opposite.

For me the game is currently in a position where it has to look out of the M62 corridor and instead look further afield. Are places such as Leigh and Fev really the solution to the games current issues?

We've seen it before from Beaumont, splash cash on players whilst hammering part timers in the championship and then half way through the next season they're having to ship them out and are begging for clubs to give a helping hand. Who knows, they might have better resources this time round.

The game has to be adventurous, and the perfect opportunity for that would have been the World Cup this year. But of course, they cant get that right either. 95% of matches across mens, womens and wheelchair rugby are north of Sheffield. Why not take the game to different places? Bristol, Leicester, Gloucester, more than just the one game in London. all areas which have (albeit the wrong code) some interest in rugby. That is how you expand the game, through the national team, someone who everyone can get behind as seen with the womens football team recently.

I am a firm believer that Toulouse should have been given a year exempt from relegation. They started their season with two of their best players leaving and now with six games remaining they're still within a chance of staying up. There is something there, they just need the time to adjust.

Given the 2025 rugby League world cup is in France, having two french teams in the top tier of the Super League will help promote the sport and develop a competitive french team, which in turn could help boost England RL if we played annual competitive fixtures against them, rather than a combined nations all-stars team that attracts very little interest from spectators.

If Toulouse were safe from relegation, a French broadcaster like Bein sports would be more likely to negotiate a TV deal. Catalan are paying 20k a game to put 9 of their home games on TV this year...the rfl are making Toulouse pay for all away teams to travel there this year, so they couldn't afford to do the same.

Toulouse / Catalan both have very good youth set ups and they increase the player pool in super league....several super League clubs have signed french players on recent years. Also, toulouse has a population of 500k...so they'd just need to get 3% of their population interested in the team to sell their stadium out...you'd have to get most of the town's of Fev / Leigh interested to sell their stadiums out.

From a sponsorship point of view, global companies will be more interested in big teams / population areas...we need to move on from being sponsored by mushy peas, free pizza deals,.bookies and small business local to that area (e.g Leigh and sunbed shops).

On the away fans point, yes away fans can bring atmosphere, but apart from saints, Wigan, rovers, Leeds, cas and wire, the others bring no significant away support. Relying on away fans for income is not a good business model...we have 25k seats to sell every other week, we should focus on that rather than relying on 50 fans from Salford to bring some money into the club. Wigan biggest crowd of the year was Vs Toulouse.

Leigh have a nice ground, but once Beaumont has a hissy fit, the money goes and they'll go back down...Fev are just another cas/Wakey and we shouldn't have a quarter of the teams in superleague in such a small geographic area.

If you reversed your argument, what would Fev and Leigh bring to superleague? Other than the game becoming even more northern, insular and small time?

you cant call the ground at Fev a stadium
Its another reason we need to keep Toulouse in S/L a good stadium
Castleford ,Wakefield,Featherstone all within 20 minutes drive of each other and all with crap grounds

The fact that Catalans are having to pay to broadcast their games speaks volumes for the attractiveness of our game to TV companies, and is a backward step from when they joined. Why would Toulouse staying up make it more likely that interest would increase. It could be said that if more UK teams were in the league UK TV companies may be more likely to increase their interest, CH4 for example.
What happens if Toulouse survive, will they continue to pay for other teams to travel. If not, how much does it cost and where do financially hard pressed clubs find the money to pay for it.
Both French teams may have good set ups, but do they sell their grounds out. On the four occasions I have travelled to Catalans, they haven't, and Toulouse don't.
The RLWC being in France is a good thing, but it is a long way off, and there are no guarantees it will be well supported by the French.
For what it's worth I am in agreement with all the past, and any future attempts to expand our game. I just don't think there is the demand out there for it to increase the audience.
Recent developments within sport, specifically TV deals for more diverse sports will probably see that demand decrease.
It may be that we have to accept that the appeal of RL is confined to it's Heartlands.
I hope not.

If Toulouse had 2 or 3 years exemption from relegation like Catalan did then they'd have time to build up a half decent team, rather than signing the cast offs from Leigh, who signed the cast offs from Toronto etc etc. If the French broadcasters knew there were two competitive french teams playing each week, it comes a more attractive proposition than showing Toulouse getting beaten each week...Sky have cut their funding by £14m, so the sport isn't an attractive proposition currently in the UK for broadcasters either...I don't think promoting Leigh or fetherstone will suddenly make Sky give us the £14m extra funding...do you? Only so many sky dishes you can sell to small northern towns.

Catalan regularly get crowds around 10k, they also hold the record super League attendance of getting 31.5k fans at the nou camp...that game generated a lot of press attention. Crowds are down amongst pretty much all super League clubs , very few games sell out anymore, so it's not just a French issue, we don't sell out the kcom, Leeds don't sell out headingley, Wigan don't sell out the DW (they only open 3 stands now for a lot of games)

Toulouse crowds are poor currently around 4/5k, but could increase if they were to become more successful, there is a huge potential market to tap into there given the size of the city...whereas Featherstone and Leighs potential market is a lot smaller...Leigh's crowds are a similar sizes to Toulouses and they've been in super league 3 times.

I’d love to have a ground like Fev. The MKM is a millstone around our necks, a small Rugby League ground for me every time. 13000 fans in a good small ground or 10000 in an empty stadium

Catalans have been with us since 2005 and the TV deals have gone backwards. One off games in Barcelona are bound to attract a crowd. We had a decent crowd in Oz. I was there.

Nothing to stop two uk teams playing at different venues. (Magic)
As I said I’m playing D’s A here.