Melbourne has had something like $50million extra funding and are only just coming good in terms of crowds and profile. It costs a mint to have a successful club in a non heartland city, reality is rfl simply doesn't have the funds to pay for a SL club in London.

The only way that London could be 'centrally' funded would be for SL to drop to 10 clubs with the extra 4 shares of TV money going to London. No doubt there will shortly be a stampede of current SL incumbents to do the decent thing for the good of the game. After all London are vital to the TV deal, aren't they?)..........

nobody knows, but we may well find out in the near future......I know my clients will spend more to advertise during a "national" competition than a "local" one........it's one of the reason the RFL have as one of their main brags on their about us section....

...it makes the game sound like a national sport......

...interestingly, it is in SKY's interest and that of the RFL to have a "national presence" but yet they never advertise the London team to this supposed 50% audience......even Wiggy saying something like "get down to the stoop to catch Wigan v London tomorrow, tickets a start at a tenner and KO is 3pm...INSTEAD, they weRe happy for a benefactor to pay for all their expansion and now the RFL clam up when he decides 16 million is enough!

Steve, your thoughts are appreciated. What makes me particularly sad is that I grew up in the north and don't remember there being so much of a negative attitude as there is now.

No maybe about it.....it really was the beginning of the end when the RFL, afraid of the reaction of a few clubs, decided it would be wrong for IL to retain an interest in London.

and quite rightly so. Having one person own 2 SL clubs would open up all sorts of conflict of interest possibilities. Don;t blame the RFL for the sht way the London Broncos/Quins/Broncos have been run or the lack of public interest in London to support them. That lies squarely at the feet of the club, as it does for Bradford, Wakefield and others who have equally screwed up the running of their clubs.

He would never have hung onto the Broncos long term after he bought the Pies. Dont let sentiment get in the way of business.

Like Melbourne storm, Brisbane broncos and for a time NQLnd cowboys having the same majority shareholders then

Yes exactly like that. Any coincidence that as soon as the NRL was independently owned news ltd sold the Storm?

They do appear quite happy to have one family form a voting block of three clubs though

The idea that multi-millionaire construction magnate Paul Caddick, Multi-millionaire haulage and logistics guru Steve O’Connor and the owners of Wakefield Wildcats would allow their money and reputation to be used as the personal playthings of the Hetheringtons is one of the craziest conspiracy theories I have ever heard. Yet we see it continually perpetuated.

I have no idea why anyone thinks Paul Caddick would allow Gary Hetherington to use his club for a personal power play, why Steve O’Connor would appoint James Rule so that Gary Hetherington could use his club for his personal power play, or the most ridiculous of all, why Michael Carter and those at Wakefield Trinity who aren’t particularly rich men, would risk their homes and finances to save WTW, then go and employ Kath Hetherington so that she can use Wakefield for Gary Hetheringtons personal power play.

No....Melbourne is a great example of how to expand the game......
Do you think Melbourne Storm or Brisbane Broncos would have been as successful during this period if they didn't share the same "genes" or that NQLND would have survived without a "blood transfusion" from the same "gene pool"?

London's owners have made many mistakes, of that there is no doubt, but being left to fend for themselves shows how insular RL is as a sport......if London had received the extra funding Melbourne had over pretty much the same period, then the RFL would have had to get involved instead of burying their heads in the sand.

Which has nothing to do with the conflict of interest of more than one club being owned by the same person.
Broncos would be successful even if they were run by the London farce of a management. Melbourne have been successful because they have had over $4million a year thrown at them every year since inception and for the foreseeable future.

If London was anywhere near as valuable to the rfl/SL as storm are to NRL then they would surely have stepped in by now.

If the RFL stepped in financially now there would be an outcry from certain myopic chairmen and fans such as has never been heard before.

They are reaping what they sewed.......which in this case is a mess.

The debate about London's usefulness in regard to a TV deal may well be coming to a conclusion. £90,000,000 over 5 years was the last deal......given the doubling up that other sports have seen recently, will ESL get £180,000,000 next time out with 11 M62 teams and a small French Outpost?

If anybody broadcaster offers a £180m deal they can have it conditional on there being a London and a Cardiff team (first season at least) if they insist.

Of course they won't whether London are there or not - other sports have more than 1 broadcaster courting them and Sky will merely pay the minimum they can get away with.

I may be just an eternal optimist but has anyone, and I mean the RFL, enquired about taking London back to their roots at Fulham? They had decent attendances for several years, so what would it take to persuade the present owners to let them back into the cottage?

Fulham get relegated perhaps?

That's a real possibility but we should be trying everything we can to save them

The rfl has no money, how are they going to step in financially?

Try to get permission to play at Craven Cottage, change name to Fulham and play in Fulham FC's colours. Show the Fulham owner the press clippings from the day after the first match in 1980 if he wants to feel the potential.

Does anyone see anything wrong with that map/caption?

2 choices. Either change the heading to "Its a National Superleague" or add the Championship/Championship 1 clubs which would then make it far more of a National Game.

Usual SL arrogance ignoring the game outside SL.

Most sports latest TV contract is absolutely nowhere near a 100% increase on their previous one. The last football league one was lower than their previous one, and the last ECB one was thought to be pretty much the same.