fartown since 1961 wrote:In the trumpeting of SBW how many have noticed that Catalans TV deal has fallen by the wayside and not been replaced?
So no live games from France, no radio cover either, in essence their only appearances on TV will be away games where they bring no support and when on TV reduce the floating home gate!!
In a game funded by and relying on TV coverage this doesn’t seem to add up as now surely the Dragons should relinquish their share of the ‘Sky Pot’ now that Sky will not cover their home games without a TV partner?
Without TV coverage to the rest of France we are essentially doing no more than heavily subsidising RL in a small area of France with maybe an odd road game in Spain. Sound familiar substitute Featherstone/Leigh/York/Halifax and the reasons for growing the game in France. Without a TV deal what’s the point?
OK Bernard Guach will stay for now But essentially only because they are being subsidised by the RFL/Superleague without any exposure outside Perpignan.
Then up pops ‘Noble’ with the expected its unfair that Toronto need to stick to the same rules that everyone else has to. Yes, yes if it’s Canadians expanding the playing base.
I agree with his comments about the number of UK players they have to have but only if they are replaced with Canadians.
However the real purpose of his comments are that Toronto should not have a cap on money and be able to import more players from the NRL whilst the UK based teams can’t
Sadly there aren’t any Canadians or at least very few playing RL to replace the UK players so let’s essentially create an NRL team in Canada to play in the Superleague and expand into the USA too. Ain’t gonna happen unless there are rules for some and rules for others.
All this will do is create a golden era for Toronto similar to the Wigan domination of the game in the 80’s/90’s which turned droves of people away from the game as it became even more stereo typed and predictable than it is today.
Unlike Rugby Union RL is a game played mainly in Northern England and Sydney where the pool of players is created in schools and the amateur game in a fairly small catchment area.
Worldwide expansion never.
Call me parochial if you want but a team in France with no TV coverage and a team in Canada wanting to open the floodgates on the salary cap to the detriment of all the other clubs in the RFL is not the glorious expansion that’s been trumpeted but the death knell of our great game on the altar of a worldwide expansion that’s never gonna happen.
You are Parochial.
The game is owned and run by Sky and they want big city teams, That may take a long time but it is the only hope of survival leagues has got. The game is withering and dying away in Yorks and Lancs . It was once the second most watched sport in the country ( i read somewhere ) now it;s a minority sport in every sense of the word.
Since SL came into being only 4 teams have won the main prize , maybe Toronto will be the ones to break the deadlock, and i may have missed something here but can you expand on how Catalan are subsidised any more than Huddersfield, I thought all clubs got the same amount of Sky money ( except i thought i had read somewhere Toronto were funding themselves but not sure about that )
If Sky pull the plug the game will be gone faster than a Rat down a drainpipe, at least in a professional way so you might be wise to be careful what you wish for. The other thing is, Union is filling the hole League has got it'self into, faster that League can dig it out and if you are under the illusion that clubs along the M62 are going to keep the game afloat i think you are going to be a disappointed man,
Without expansion the already dire straight the game is in will just keep accelerating and before you know it , it will be back to the old 300 on the terrace days at Fartown.
