Gambass

It's a good video, but the argument that RL was forced to use a different name so it couldn't claim its assets back is wrong on so many levels. The game restarted in 1944 as the Ligue Française de Rugby à XIII, and kept that name until 1947. So, for at least three years, it operated under its original name. There was nothing preventing it from claiming any assets back during that period. As far as we know, nothing was done. From 1947 onward, only the federation was forced to use the name "jeu à XIII". Rugby league itself could still use whatever name it wanted for communication purposes. Besides, even after 1947, there was still a Ligue Française de Rugby à XIII running the "pro" division. It would have been the easiest job in the world to convince any court that the FFR XIII was the actual heir of the pre-war LFR XIII. Only the LFR XIII's assets were seized, not the clubs' assets. After the game was de facto banned in autumn 1940, RL clubs did not simply cease to exist. They moved to RU and were integrated into FFR competitions, taking with them whatever assets they had. Later, many merged with other clubs from their town or city — Vichy loved its mergers, for some reason — which makes tracking each club's assets quite difficult. In an English newspaper article I found, Marcel Laborde, the first president of the LFR XIII in 1944, was quoted as saying that 1.2 million francs had been taken, half of which was used to pay off some creditors. No assets "were given away to RU". At best, that is a terrible shortcut; at worst, it is pure BS. The assets were handed over to the Comité National des Sports — basically a de facto umbrella governing body for sport in France at the time — which then did whatever it wanted with them. One of the few material assets owned by the Ligue that I managed to track down were the stands at Arnauné Stadium, the former TO ground in Toulouse, which were ultimately given for free to the Toulouse municipality by the CNS. The LFR XIII accepted the name "jeu à XIII" for one reason and one reason only: to be recognised by the Comité National des Sports as an official governing body. Right from 1944, the FFR was back to its old pre-war tricks, banning RL players and stadiums left and right, and asking other officially recognised federations — football, athletics, etc. — to follow its lead. It was a necessary compromise to finally get official recognition. An old Laborde basically said so on a radio program a couple of decades ago. None of this means that RL did not suffer from the period. Of course it did. But this whole assets thing is almost entirely bogus. Hope it helps.

If (double huge if) this french only SL magic thing is here to stay, AND Super XIII is moving to summer, you might combine both and make something out of it. We should look at a middle-sized (15-20,000) stadium in a large enough non-RL city. Unfortunately, there are not many options available outside of the Montpellier and Béziers RU grounds. Obviously, this would need planing and long term commitment...

I fail to understand how the two french clubs are supposed to make an event out of what is in fact a simple extra regular season game...

I'm not british, but I feel hard to believe that more people are attending boxing than RU, RL or Tennis in the UK. I believe for total attendance numbers, these guys are a lot closer to the true (RL is ranked 4th there behind soccer, cricket and RU, and also horse racing, but who cares) https://twocircles.com/gb/articles/2024-sports-attendance-review-uk-edition/ Same with Australia where RL is ranked 2nd https://twocircles.com/gb/articles/turnstiles-spin-as-sports-fans-pack-australia-venues-with-record-growth/

No, it's far from it.

Defintly not great, mostly terrible. Albi must have the best support these days. We don't have datas, so hard to say for sure.

Pics of the (new and old) stands at the Albi–Carcassonne game.

It's fantastic, miles better the the new one IMO, which still seems stuck in the 00's. I've searched a bit everywhere and can't find when it was used. It doesn't seem the club was ever nicknamed 'Les Béliers' (Rams) neither.

It's something to build over the years obviously, not to create out of thin air. Something to aspire to if you prefer.

Albi would be a perfect fit for a 'french championship' below SL, if there is one day such a league Albi Avignon Carcassonne Lézignan Limoux Pia St-Gaudens Villeneuve Villefranche Lyon(revival) Roanne (revival) Gironde (maybe Bègles) Salon-de-Provence Arriège (Pamiers) No reserve sides, minimum budget of 1 M€,average crowds of 1 to 3k, every clubs linked to either french SL teams. Doable IMO.

In my centre-ouest local french super market. A father and his two sons all in Hull FC shirts.

About that, I've seen figures of €450/500K a season quoted for accommodating the travel of engish teams. So at best, revenues from the RFL will cover the travel costs of Toulouse next year.

Between the cost for traveling teams and the higher cost of wage in France, they likely will. This year budget was around 2.5 million.

AND TV production for home games.

I'm sorry to ask that, but how is it possible for Wigan to have such a low turnover ? I'm genuily shocked how small it is. Catalans turnover is around 12 or 13 M€ with a commercial income of about €6M. By any measure, Wigan should be a much larger club than Catalans (more history, bigger stadium, larger fan base, much more RL awareness in England than in France, etc.)