Gambass

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.)

Yes. Anyway, that's only a small set up in an aera where RL hasn't been played in decades. Still a good news, but nothing to get overexited there and just like Toulon it's still deep in RU territory. Something that should question french RL is why, one could play AFL in Strasbourg or gaelic football in Lille, bur not RL.