It's not a case of expansion fans buying into the expansion sides. It's a case of sports fans buying into the sport. It may be good for Toulouse to be dropped straight in, but many of the rest will not like how it has happened and feel that their place hasn't been earned,thus turning them off it.

Can the game afford to be held back by clubs who have always struggled to succeed and draw more fans at a higher level. Can the game afford to be held back by the flat earth society and the ludites who cant see further then the m62. Can the game also afford to be ran by the current regime who seem to lack the nous to advertise the game better and draw more revenue to fund expansion.
I dont know the answers but believe if the game doesnt expand it will remain a minority back water sport and stagnate.

Explain how these clubs are holding back the sport ?

They are not holding back the sport at all. Dropping teams into the top flight just does not work. We have had so many failures of trying to fake teams being top flight teams.

Selection will never surpass sporting achievement.

If Toulouse put on a good show in 2017 I can see the RFL saying that they will expand SL in 2018 to 14 teams. But they need the fans and they need the product on the field.

All those who want expansion regardless of sporting outcomes are blinkered to what most people want to see. People watch sport for the competition not for a rigged system with no consequences.

If Catalan, Toulouse, London, Canada and Wrexham were all dropped into SL in 2018 and told they would face no possibility of relegation at the expense of say, Hull KR, Huddersfield, Widnes, Leigh and Wakefield I think it would basically draw up the bridge again, numbers watching would drop and quite frankly fans would get bored as there would be no competition. Just several rounds of meaningless games.


With the current set up, teams can grow like all other sporting teams in the UK.

With some RL expansionists in charge of the Premier league there would have been no Leicester City phenomenon.

They would have been so appalled that a small team could do so well they would probably remove them from the competition mid-way through the season.

Football isnt a fair comparison as it has world wide appeal. Rl has a salary cap , a narrow team base( the m62 cats aside) and a similar rival sport in ru. Whilst the heartland clubs should never be forgotten should the larger clubs be held back by smaller clubs. Nrl has seen many teams amalgamate to survive which has allowed other teams to form and join and storm are a great example of this, as are a few others. I believe in promotion/ relegation as the lower clubs need a target to aim for but some will never have the fan base to succeed due to their location and size of the local population as well as rival sports to contend with.

Football isnt a fair comparison as it has world wide appeal. Rl has a salary cap , a narrow team base( the m62 cats aside) and a similar rival sport in ru. Whilst the heartland clubs should never be forgotten should the larger clubs be held back by smaller clubs. Nrl has seen many teams amalgamate to survive which has allowed other teams to form and join and storm are a great example of this, as are a few others. I believe in promotion/ relegation as the lower clubs need a target to aim for but some will never have the fan base to succeed due to their location and size of the local population as well as rival sports to contend with.

Again

Explain HOW a small club is holding anybody back ?

Just answer the bloody question

Sorry i mean more a small club mentality,because many fans would oppose rl spending enough cash to start , fund and sustain a club in a new area to win major honours and buid a fan base on the back of success.

and because we have many small proud clubs struggling to stay afloat in areas were they are competing with other small proud clubs for fans and resources. If clubs within a small geographic location amalgamated they would in time compete with the larger rl clubs due to uniting their resources and fan base meaning they would be more self sufficient as the local fan base would not be divided and their cash would go in one pot allowing rl to concentrate more cash on expansion

Explain ' Small club mentality ' ?

So which clubs do you believe should amalgamate ? , who should Leigh amalgamate with ? , Halifax ?

So what you are really saying is like Mr Peacock you begrudge Batley their hard earned money

I think dropping teams into the top flight only works under a licencing system with a very strict criteria which creates a target for so called 'lesser' clubs both on and off the field.

I think attempting to fast track teams under the current format would work, it would rock too many boats, and imo any expansion team needs time to bed in in one place, the one recent example we have where we followed this was Catalan. If I remember rightly they had exemption from relegation and I can't see a way that works in the 8's system.

Personally I've never been too bothered by promotion and relegation, I believe a competitive super league would create enough drama without that added. I also think with the exception of the couple of teams, their aren't many below SL capable of stepping up. For me it takes more than just being competitive on the field to prove that.

That seems crazy, but even if it were true, what would it matter? Casual fans wouldnt care, the potential fanbase of toulouse wouldnt care, who even are these 'rest' that may care and would be turned off the game?

Firstly. How many clubs do you think we have 'dropped into' our top flight.
Secondly, attendances were higher under Franchising. They dropped last year, and dropped again this year.

like now?

Leicester City are owned by a multi-billion pound company who has invested hundreds of millions of pounds in to them, breaking the football league financial regulations and making huge losses. Sounds a great way to run a sport.

This is entirely true.

And should this system 'work' and in two or three years the top 4 of the championship is made up of Toulouse, Toronto, London and Hemel, with Leigh, Halifax, Fev etc battling it out for the championship shield, that this system will suddenly be unfair.

PSG
London
Gateshead
Wales south / north
Catalan

So roughly 1 every 4 years of SL.

The only one to progress, surprise surprise a club from the Rl heartlands. By expansionist standards not really an expansion.

London were 16 years old at the time of Super League, played in the final top flight winter season and finished ahead of workington, whilst they did get promoted 'off the field as it were' lets not forget, they spent nearly 20 years in the top flight, finished 2nd in SL and reached a CC final.

Crusaders did exactly what you are proposing, they put them in the lowest league and they overspent on overseas players to gain promotion on the field. They were the 2nd best team in the 2nd division a year 2 were promoted.

So we are left with 3. PSG a bad idea poorly executed. Gateshead, did ok before being sacrificed to save a club promoted through P+R, and Les Catalans, unmitigated success.

Crusaders didn't overspend , they were funded by the Welsh RL development grant via Leighton Samuels company Decor , unfortunately nobody in Bridgend even knew they existed or cared

This thread so far shows why expansion is the shambles it is. Nothing coherent or consistent.

No it shows we have 2 trains of thought , those that want geographical expansion NOW at any cost to the game

And those that understand the benefits of ALL expansion but also that it needs the underlying support of local people for it to be sustainable ,

As I posted earlier and on other threads , we now have the beginnings of a ' second front ' a ' new heartlands ' in the area from Coventry down to the Skolars , across from south Wales to Oxford/Hemel , this area needs support at grass roots with juniors clubs , and eventually we will see some of these fledgling ' pro ' clubs grow

It will not be easy and we don't have a fortune to finance it , but the opportunity is there

Yeah, they did.

To be fair, its also shown those needing to hide behind straw men too.

The good thing about Toulouse is that it has grassroots supporters and players. It has a good junior system. It has sponsorship. The grassroots supporters and players will expand in numbers once the team is in Super League (as happened with Catalans).

The good thing about Toronto is that it has grassroots supporters (3,000 season tickets already) and a brilliant boss, with two competent coaches, and plenty of sponsorship. All it needs now is to build a good team with some Canadian or American NFL rejects involved, and to start serious junior development.

Toulouse and Toronto are examples of expansion done right.

Hopefully one of them will eventually replace Catalans, because they've one of the best teams but won't win nothing.

Toronto haven't actually played a game yet , you do realise that ?

I did realise that. However I thought that they were raring to roll through League One undefeated and rarely even challenged, just like the brave Frenchmen of Toulouse.