Stop confusing him with facts.

Yes, I do. 2008-2013 were the seasons with no relegation.10,525, 9,861, 9,812, 9,970, 10,699 and 9,639 were the average attendances.....the removal of London Broncos and Bradford Bulls from SL, 2 sides that had average gates less than that of the competition as a whole should have seen the overall average rise.......it hasn't. Jeopardy has resulted in the club going up, going straight back down with a 500k sweetener and we have a similar looking bottom of the SL table as last year.......the issue with licensing is that those who miss out whine and whinge and the RFL had to shop and change....the next change will have little to do with the RFL at all, but will be decided by the games owners...those top clubs who generate the most revenue...Saints, Wigan, Leeds, Wire and Hull deliver nearly 200k more paying fans the the combined total of the other 7 clubs....these are the guys making the decisions now such as your 500k sweetener........when they shut the door again and Leigh, London, Fev or Fax miss out it won't matter how much we whine.....we don't bring enough to the table.



In the terms of the conversation regarding constitutes a SL side, Wakefield over the last 5 seasons lost 60% of their games and have an average finishing position of 10th (9.

.....310,000 people have attended 59 league games with an average of just 5,250.........as for this season, Wakefield have played four of the weakest...in fact, THE weakest 4 sides in the comp....with an average attendance that starts with the number 4.....I said they were borderline SL and I stand by that assertion.

Jeez,, what have attendances got to do with the original OP.

Let's look at Salford then and see if they are worthy of their SL slot based on attendance

I know a good way for 1up and 1down don’t bother winning the comp just go on gates ie the 1 with the least gate goes down and the 1 with the best comes up sorted ha ha ha

Wakefield are a borderline SL club because they have few fans (like Salford, another borderline SL club) and because they play out of a rodent farm which we politely call Belle Vue.

The sooner that Wakefield, Salford and Widnes join Leigh in the Championship, and make way for the promotion of Toulouse, London and Toronto, the better off Super League will be.

As this last sentence shows, I do not wish Leigh to be in League 1, because its fan base size and stadium quality is at least worthy of a Championship place.

Thanks for that Jean. At the moment, we are a mid-Championship side, playing out of a Super league quality stadium. By the end of the season, who knows what we may be.

Based on the criteria of crowds and facilities, that you highlight, where would London fit in, with their current season average gate of 962, looking somewhat lost in their 3,000 (?) capacity stadium?

What would London bring that Wakefield, Salford, Widnes and Leigh don't, other than a very measly presence in the capital. Have you heard something we haven't? Have they got 40,000 RL converts in the pipeline and a deal to play at the Emirates Stadium?

Might be slightly more of a pull for a Long haul getaway for all the Aussies that want to come over and have a few years on holiday? Similar to Catalan and Toronto in that aspect really.

Fax don't have any real stars in the team, and need the whole team to be performing to do well against the better teams. They got on a roll at the end of last season, but got found out in the 8's. Too many mistakes gifting the ball to the opposition far too often and no real spark on attack at the moment. Bags of effort and commitment though, and it should be a good game against Leigh this weekend.

....with Leigh in front at half time, but Halifax enjoying a stirring second half comeback, nicking it with 2-3 tries in the last ten minutes!

London would bring national credibility to a national game that has its only professional teams in a narrow corridor running between and around Manchester, Leeds and Hull. We need the London brand name to attract fans in north America and France.

If London could find a rich suitor to help out David Hughes, and if it could also get use of a football stadium, like Brentford or Charlton, then it will become more established and powerful.

I would like to see Lachlan Murdoch take a partial or even majority interest in London. With his money and influence London might then find a great non-Premier League football stadium to use. That development is not inconceivable.

London spent 4 years at Craven Cottage (Fulham), 4 years (in two stints) at The Valley (Charlton Athletic) and 5 years at Griffin Park (Brentford). Whilst they enjoyed a measure of success, and are doing well in the Championship this season, history shows that ground-sharing with football clubs didn't exactly make them either established or powerful. As for finding a rich suitor, then that would help (but certainly not guarantee!) any club in their quest for success.

In its current state, London would bring very little to the SL competition other than a minimal presence in the capital and embarrassingly small crowds and whilst I have mentioned other sides that are borderline or not SL quality, I have never said replace them with London.

What is worth noting is that a great many fans of clubs like Leigh and Wakefield who quite rightly defend their clubs from criticism are the very same fans who bemoan the lack of media coverage, the size of the SKY TV deal and various other faults of the RFL, whilst totally ignoring the fact that as we are a local sport with very little reach outside of our heartlands, we will continue to be paid peanuts by SKY and ignored by the national media. I am not advocating London or Toronto as the solution, but insular thinking along the lines of protecting clubs with 120+ years of history who can't even attract 5k fans is only going to compound the issue.
Wigan, Saints, Wire, Hull, Leeds and to a certain extent Catalans and Castleford are clubs with (or close to) a 10k average and a 10K average is the break even attendance that means clubs don't need "director loans" to survive. It is the need for the other clubs to have a sugar-daddy that hamstrings them in terms of attracting bigger crowds, better sponsors and therefore they inevitably find themselves being "predominantly" mid to bottom table sides with one or two taking it in turns to scrap to avoid relegation. There are exceptions....Catalans last year is one, as is wakefield finishing "1 point of 4th", or as sane people call it, 5th......but if we want the game to earn more income and therefore employ more stars and be played in full stadiums with a high paying high volume TV audience that the Media can't ignore, then we need to realise that Huddersfield visiting Wakefield and watched by fewer than 5k spectators isn't going to do it......

But Toulouse and Toronto and perhaps Paris are going to do it.

Attracting "stars" to SL is a difficult one. Where are they going to come from? The best Aussies aren't going to play in SL unless salaries exceed what they can earn in the NRL. The alternative is to increase investment in academies, reserve teams and associated training facilities so that we can produce more of our own stars. This would need a lot of money for the infrastructure, and would probably mean that we'd need to start paying higher salaries to attract the best athletes to the game.

It's all a bit catch-22. We need a lot of money to build the game and then start making money from better TV deals etc., but the game doesn't have the money to make it all happen.

You're stating an opinion like it's a fact with that comment!

Perhaps. But there are grounds for that opinion.

Toronto was already attracting 7,000 fans while in lowly League One. I imagine that they will get bigger crowds in the Championship and much bigger crowds in Super League, such that they might have to move their home games to the soccer stadium in Toronto.

Toulouse is getting roughly the same crowds as Catalans got before their promotion to Super League. When Toulouse is promoted to Super League I am sure that their crowds will rise to the current Catalans 8,000 + mark initially, and if successful over the 10,000 mark because Toulouse has a much bigger population pool than Catalans.

If Paris joins Super League well after Toulouse is established there, I am sure that their clashes will attract the same massive crowds that the rugby union equivalent clashes attracted in both Paris and Toulouse. Why not?

I don't share your optimism, but let's see how things develop. The only real error in your response is saying "When Toulouse..." rather than "If Toulouse...".

well done chorley barry,you have finally managed to write a sentance with the word lowly in it,without tagging leigh on the end.

Brilliant! Another table we (Castleford) are top of that means nothing! Thanks for that!

The RL starved Toronto Public flocked in their 'tens" to a "Live game Event" at the 3 Brewers Bar at the weekend.....let's say 100 at most. 24,000+ followers on Facebook, but fewer than 100 people attending a Live game event and a Q&A with prize draw for players kit points to an awful lot of work before they attract the masses back to their Beer Tent/RL Jamborees......and that's taking the declared attendances with a fair pinch of salt, given no camera angle last year pointed towards a full stand, let alone a full stadium


Toulouse attract 1,400 or so to games.......that is it. Everything else is guesswork, supposition and an awful lot of finger crossing.


I'll tell you why not.....a game or even 2 games against sides from hundreds of miles away with no heritage or pedigree will attract the same level as the Visit of Salford did to Paris in SLII.......I'd steer well clear of Paris and concentrate on the South West where RL has a little traction.....and unless you're going to pack Toulouse and Paris with ANZACS, then fans won't get hooked watching "plucky French players" from Elite 1 getting smashed each week.....

Expansion has to be done from the bottom up......Toulouse are looking better this year but have only played the bottom 4 sides so far and have lost to Featherstone........to compare this to last season (replacing Leigh for HKR) the same set of 5 fixtures saw you unbeaten with 5 wins and a +82 difference.....early days yet and if they do get into the mix, they will be ripped apart by SL opposition.

Our average attendance in SL 2017 put us above Huddersfield, Wakefield, Widnes & of course Salford *in terms of attendances* !

Our fan base has consistently been the highest in Championship RL *bar K.R in 2017*

TW official attendances are less believable than Close Encounters of a Third Kind was.

Wigans away support is shocking for a so called "Big Club" & only Saints brought a support of any great note.

Leigh will once again be the highest grossing Club outside SL *discounting TW 10M fans* & will achieve a higher season average than Salford.

Leigh have one of the very best RL stadiums in all of the RFL & we don't get kicked out because of a F.A match either, whereas Wigan have to borrow our stadium that their generous tax payers kindly paid for !

London, Toulouse & TW are doing extremely well in terms of on pitch performance but I will be incredibly shocked if any of them can achieve the longevity or relative success of Leigh.

Deal with that Call me Dog !

Stability,success and a benefactor all contribute to attendance. Ask London.

When I watched Toronto Wolfpack on Premier Sports, the 9,600 capacity Lamport Stadium has always looked busy. Not that attendance figures can get you promoted or relegated anyway.

This is the game against Whitehaven last September. [urlhttps://beta.theglobeandmail.com/ece-images/eec/news/toronto/article36214641.ece/BINARY/w1100/wolfpack08to3948.JPG[/url

No doubt it's a decent showing, but the question mark has always been around the reported number of spectators compared to the actual number in the ground. Given the capacity of the ground is 9,600 and the reported attendance was 6,134 for that game, the amount of space on the terraces suggests that they had a lot of ST holders who didn't attend games.