Give over with the “nigh on impossible to watch your club”. Bloody hell the way people carry on about the likes of Thursday and Friday games is embarrassing. Footballs top competition the Champions League, games are on Tuesday and Wednesday nights and they’re huge occasions yet in RL playing Thursday nights is a huge problem.

Also this victim mentality about Sky.....hell EVERY sport dictates to tv,.....key question to you and others is why should RL be any different?

Are you seriously comparing RL to the Champions League?

RL is NOT an equivalent offering.

If you eventually have 2 French sides and 3 N. American sides in the top flight, ho many away games will you be able to attend.
As for Thursday and Friday games, especially those over the hill, it means leaving work early (minimum) so, not impossible but, certainly made more difficult.
If you have flexitime or another type of flexible working, it's not a problem.

The point is that it is becoming more difficult to watch the games in the flesh and it isn't going to improve anytime soon but, you know that dont you.

150k of wakeys share of the sky money is withheld due to state of the ground. It’s a matter of public record and has been reported in the RL press previously

If that's the case, would it not make sense for the RFL to fund improvements to Belle Vue (apologies for being old school with the name) to the tune of £150k each season?

Why?
Wakey have been promising for over a decade that they’d have a new stadium- my lad just started school- he’s about to leave school and go out into the big wide world- and wakey are no nearer than they were- they’ve had time enough to get their own ground in order- like they promised to to keep their license.

I get your thinking and I’d be all for it except it then sets a negative precedent for other clubs who could hold off improvements and just wait for the RFL to pick up the slack. Why are Leeds spending 10’s of millions on 2 new stands when they could just wait for some RFL funding.

I’d rather the “spare” money goes directly into a marketing pot that is used to market all clubs over the season. Personally I think we could have one club being the focus of the RFL/SL for each round and really put some money and concerted effort into marketing that game. It could be something like a heritage round for that club with an retro kit and references to famous/memorable past games vs their opposition etc etc. The RFL could use its power to extend that clubs reach further than it would normally.

To save any arguments, they could always do the decent thing and pay Wakefield the same as everybody else.

I was referring to the £150k that the RFL were withholding, and not any spare RFL funds.

Why? Because it's money apparently owed and withheld from Wakey. It's not as if Wakey haven't been doing anything to resolve the ground issues in the last ten years.
I get the impression that Wakey supporters would no more want to play at Belle Vue than you chaps wanted to play at Fartown/Leeds Road. Bureaucracy can block the best laid plans at times.

So was I. But doing as you suggest then both defeats the object of withholding the money and also sets a dangerous precedent of the RFL directly funding stadium improvements.

I also don’t find it unreasonable to withhold some of the money when a club is clearly and repeatedly failing so much in one important area of the sport.

I could understand your logic on that but would hardly be fair to other clubs, but they could put it into grass roots instead

No- We didn’t want to leave fartown- but the stadium wasn’t up to scratch and so we moved.
Belle Vue isn’t up to scratch and they’ve done little to change that. Wakey had the opportunity to move into a new stadium but pride meant they didn’t take it. Tough.

Come on then brains, which stadium "could" we have moved into. This should be really interesting.

The offer was there from your council for ONE stadium shared between wakey and Cas. Cas were open to the idea wakey said no.
You had an opportunity and didn’t take it.

So you now are being penalised for failing to act on a promise you’ve had a decade to sort. Tough.


yourself

Is this the new stadium at Glasshoughton ??
It's just a field and just like the proposed stadium at Newmarket, where plans were passed for a COMMUNITY stadium, nothing has happened and unless you are mystic fecking meg, it' still a field of promised.
Also, had Wakefield taken up an offer to pay rent to Castleford RLFC who would have owned 100% of the facility, they would have been on death row.
Absolutely the right decision for Trinity not to go over there and you know it but you choose to try and take a cheap shot at Trinity.
Just another cheap shot at Wakefield, you are Sam Powell and I claim my £5



I know that Huddersfield now share with a football club but, shouldn't you be playing in Sheffield ?
It could be argued that you played some of your own home games at Belle Vue a couple of seasons back or, was that the real Sheffield Eagles

Missed the point there I think.

A chap from Liverpool might have a job on a building site, or in an office on about £20k a year, but because his dad has bee taking him to anfield since he was a nipper, he has no problem taking a few hours or a day off work and flying down to Barca, or driving down to Leicester midweek to watch his side play.
His next door neighbour has a similar job and background, except his dad took him to watch St Helens........not a lot of difference in the allegiances or loyalty of either bloke (other than the saints lad should have been taken into care

), but when Saints are away to Hull, London or even just Leeds on a Thursday, it's a friggin hardship to book the afternoon off?

Yes, football is bigger, but fans of RL are oft heard to call the sport THE GREATEST GAME........but patently it's not worth a few hours off work!

It is to any fan complaining about how they want to be there but apparently can’t. If your reasoning for not going is because it’s not a good enough offering then you have no room to complain about the scheduling as the problem.

So what you want is certain teams in certain locations with fixtures played at a certain time to suit your personal schedule. Fine if you’re putting the same money into the game as Sky. EVERY sport is dictated to be tv, especially football, yet we complain about tv scheduling like we can go without them.

This
A thousand times this.

"It's too far."
"It's the wrong day of the week for me."

When challenged about it being in football nearly every week..
"This isn't football."

The only difference between the football fan and rugby league fan in this situation appears to be how much of an actual fan said person is, not his wage packet.

If you think you're entitled to go to every game and it fit your schedule, you're not a fan. You've had it easy having every game on your doorstep every weekend.
The game has changed. Are you a fan? Or was it just convenient? If the former, then the changes won't be much of an issue. If the latter, well maybe we shouldn't be building the future of the sport around entitled snowflakes like you?

No. That's poor comprehension.
I'm suggesting that, to the Canadians and Americans, a small schedule of home games in a season is quite familiar so not the issue you make it out to be.


So, what you're saying is, you've made a point but cannot give me conclusive evidence and so you're asking me to go and find it on the internet? Am I right?

Sounds very much like a "so and so says they give it thousands of free tickets, no one ever pays."

So and so probably has an agenda.


Loads of clubs do give out free tickets. They're often targeted at particular people and markets to attract them. I have no doubts Toronto give it some in this manner, like all other clubs. I don't subscribe to the "half the crowd get tickets free" camp supply because why would the other half bother to pay? They're getting decent attendances every home game.
They must be doing something right to engage the locals and get 7-8k locals into their ground to watch an alien sport to them.


Take Huddersfield, an established team and one of the oldest footballing clubs of all codes - yet gave away tickets to a game against Catalans last year (free tickets for everyone). Their attendance for that game? 9,121. About 1k more than a club 150+ years younger.


You can keep believing free tickets are the only reason Toronto are pulling in the fans, but it doesn't make you right either.

There's more to their success than the unprovable "free tickets" theory. I think you're too scared to believe it.

Playing the victim. Interesting debate tactic. Not going to work

There is a suggestion that your opinions may be biased judging by the club you support. That is a valid opinion, based on the fact that the success of other teams puts clubs like yours most at risk.
When people discuss the growth of the game, you tend to find these pockets of resistance support the same types of clubs.


So, a new club in a new area for a new market bringing in new money isn't good for the game?
Yes, I question your judgement. I question it because you're only looking at the parts you don't like and ignoring the rest because you've already made your mind up.
They're a threat and you don't like them.


This is professional sport. It's all about money. Your club wouldn't be around without it. Nor mine.
These traditional clubs that are at risk are at risk because they aren't bringing in money.
This isn't amateur, purist (sic) rugby, were gentlemen (sic) part only for the love of the sport and their local club (not for the back handers they get).
These "traditional clubs" have had decades, even over a century, to get it right, to attract money and become a force. Some of them can't even run an academy or attract fans. They can't complain that they're getting overtaken by a "fly by night" expansion club.


The difference is you FOCUS on that. You HIGHLIGHT the potential negative and ignore it for others despite it being exactly the same.
Salford, Wakefield, Widnes, Bradford to name a few have needed propping up by someone at some point. I don't think there is such thing as a self sufficient sports club these days. If the chairmen leave, they're all in the same boat unless someone else comes in.


The same for EVERY club. So why pick on Toronto for this?


Ah yes, one of those traditional clubs that needed bailing out and, even with a multi-millioniare, still couldn't succeed but should be prioritised over a new "plastic club"...


If they get bored and pull out, and the club cannot find new investors, then the club won't exist. The same as if it happens to Salford, Wakefield, Leigh, Bradford, Widnes...
If new investors can be found, then they will exist.

What I don't think we should do is be so scared of the possibility of this happening that we never let new teams in, which sounds very much like your mindset. The sport will only ever shrink in that case.

What is lost if Toronto fold at the end of the season?


So what? They failed.
Should we not have ever bothered?


If it were your business, I'd hope you'd look longer than 2 years at a plan involving significant sums of money.
It's short termism to do anything else.


What a shame that a sports club has attracted investment to help make a sports club successful. We can't be having these in professional sport can we!

It's ok though, because the "true fans" of the "traditional clubs" will always follow their club... unless it's on a Thursday night, or over 100 miles away. We can't go traveling outside of the north or midweek, unlike those football fans.

I cant do the micro - dissecting of posts but, thanks for the reply
Interesting twist on most of my comments but, i'll live with it. especially regarding fans that do support their club.

Perhaps you can tell me why, if it's so easy for fans to make the Thursday night games, free transport in now provided for away fans.
Not just for Wakefield, Salford or Huddersfield but, for the fans of all SL clubs (apart from Catalan, now that would be a freebie and a half). This does of course include the so called bigger clubs, whose following is also pitiful on a Thursday but, you know this anyway.
I acknowledged the excellent work done by Toronto in promoting the game to new fans of the sport and "we" could do with some of the same nous in the English game
However, you fail to contemplate the logistical difficulties with playing over there. Playing only half of the home fixtures at home doesnt seem quite right but, as you point out, it's all about the money so why should anyone give a toss ?

You also aren't bothered that the criteria for all other members of SL (and I know that Toronto aren't quite there yet) wont be applied to them in the top flight.

Just for arguments sake, IF Mr Koucash were to set up a club in Liverpool, very unlikely now that Widnes have been re born), should this club be offered the same concessions because he's a seriously wealthy guy or should the criteria applied to the rest of the league apply to this club. Unlimited imported players, no academy, play just 7 home games a season at home, dont take part in the cup. Basically do what the hell you want because you're loaded ??

Also, as we increase the number of overseas clubs in SL, should we look at changing the academy structure or, should the "overseas" academy sides be based in the UK or, should all clubs fund their academies when clocking up the air miles

Get a life.

One thing we've learnt in this thread. Wellsy13 has way too much time on his hands.