In response to Faxtastic, (and on 2012 franchise applications in general)

If I am brutally honest, I don't think it would be good for Barrow to get a franchise in 2012. I also think it wouldn't be good for Fax. Neither of our clubs has the fan base or I suspect youth development programmes at present to support a successful SL franchise.

The only club approaching these necessary standards and infrastructure is, may my tongue turn black for saying it, Widnes! However I still think it would be a big step up for them, possibly too big, unless they establish/demostrate the financial viability that SOC is striving for and add another 2 - 3k to the gate. Possible but ambitious and no criticism or offense is intended.

The problem both Barrow and Fax share is we need to more than double our existing gates to be a viable franchise, with a salary cap of £2m pa thats a £4m turnover. Not sure how many clubs are currently doing that in SL, tho the info is available, but none of us in the Championship are anywhere near that. This is also where expansion will always fail unless the club can be underwritten by a substantial financial backer until the sport/club starts to attract the nembers and sponsorship required to support itself.

Which should be the main focus of the RFL for all Championship clubs , but do they really want us to achive that , if we did , it makes it more difficult to bring expansion clubs through the lower tiers

well they have the biggest attendances in the league and may be able to draw more in. they are certainly in the best position. whether thr RFL think they are a club that is expantion enough is yet to be seen.

i dont think the RFL will have be able to turn Widnes down 2 franchises in a row.

Steve O'connor has threatened legal action if we dont get in.

I doubt it would be as simple as that , unless of course the RFL have stated to him that the only reason last time was because of the financial situation

That would happen the moment we enter SL. We averaged around 7,000 fans the last time we were in SL. And that was with a poor team heading for relegation.

Has he?

everyone can get bigger attendances in super league.

dont have the actuall figures but am sure we will have been avaerageing 5k a week in super league.

Yes, we would all increase our attendances in SL. I'm not sure what your point is?

My point was in answer to "Off! Number Seven", who stated that we would need to add an extra 2-3 thousand in SL to be sustainable. I assumed he was not talking about getting an extra 2-3 thousand while still in the Championship. that would mean we'd have to average 6,500 and no club in this league will ever achieve this. That would be impossible. Several, existing, SL clubs don't even get that average. So it must be a total for SL. As such, as I pointed out, we averaged that last time in SL, and would almost certainly do so again. Ergo, we should meet his target of 2-3 thousand easily.

Yes faxstatic mate.More away fans which is obvious with big clubs like leeds,saints,wigan,hull,warrington etc.Only a few teams bring poor away support.The frogs and the welsh minibus.You also get fans who only watch top tier rugby and is a better market in superleague.

naa misunderstood what had been written in the previous messages,

just been through them my mistake misunderstood what was being said.

Oh yea of little faith

It would, and you know it!

Having no promotion will guarantee it stays that way too.

Somebody said , it couldn't be done and he with a chuckle replied

Maybe it couldn't but he would be one who wouldn't say so till he had tried

So he started right in with a trace of a grin , on his face if he worried , he hid it

He started to sing as he tackled the thing that couldn't be done

And he did it

2000 - 5,500-ish
2001 - 4,800-ish
2002 - 4,000-ish
2003 - 3,000-ish

4,200 average over 4 years.