Vancouver - the second Canadian team?

[Manxmanc]

It looks like there are rumours around that the Vancouver Canucks ice hockey club are looking at creating a multi-sports empire that would include a professional rugby team. 

The Province has the story, but there are message boards also taking up the discussion. Tantalisingly, it's not clear whether this could refer to RL or union, but the story is linked to Eric Perez's talk of a second Canadian team.

[deluded pom?]

I can't see it being viable when you look at flight times from Vancouver to the UK. 

[Krzzystuff]

Yeah I'm pretty sure that the whole story is based around a union team as the owner likes the game and it mentions how a Canadian team was overlooked twice in Union already. I'm doubtful anything is happening there, from a RL definitely not and RU it specifically mentions that the competitions have downsized and it's very unlikely.

In the future BC totally makes sense as it's the home of rugby for Canada, our very own Quinn Nagwati is from there afterall...the very first Canadian born pro RL player.

 

[ojx]

29 minutes ago, Krzzystuff said:

Yeah I'm pretty sure that the whole story is based around a union team as the owner likes the game and it mentions how a Canadian team was overlooked twice in Union already. I'm doubtful anything is happening there, from a RL definitely not and RU it specifically mentions that the competitions have downsized and it's very unlikely.

In the future BC totally makes sense as it's the home of rugby for Canada, our very own Quinn Nagwati is from there afterall...the very first Canadian born pro RL player.

 

If RL takes off further in the North East of the continent, RU might be more successful in the west with their warmer winters. 

[TheReaper]

I'm pretty sure it would be an MLR team... Super is contracting/collapsing, and Van is real ###### far from Europe. But Seattle in MLR sets up a rivalry with the neighbours. 

[londonrlfan]

Union probably. It's their strongest area and also it's too far from England, it'd be like having a SL team in Los Angeles. 

[Damien]

I think it makes more sense to concentrate on the Toronto, Montreal, New York, Boston area initially for fairly obviously reasons. 

[Harry Stottle]

Here we go again, Tinkerbell sprinkles some of her fairy dust and the followers jump up and down with euphoria, or some would say tedium.

[JonM]

13 minutes ago, scotchy1 said:

Vancouver is only 2 more hours from the UK than Toronto, does it make all that much of a difference?

Yes. It's 8 timezones away. You need significantly longer to deal with jetlag, in both directions.

The halfway point between London & Vancouver is in Quebec - that's how big Canada is.

[Anita Bath]

11 hours ago, ojx said:

If RL takes off further in the North East of the continent, RU might be more successful in the west with their warmer winters. 

Warmer winters?  I think you mean west coast as opposed to western Canada/US. Alberta is probably the snowiest part of Canada and one of the coldest.

[Bob8]

12 minutes ago, Harry Stottle said:

Here we go again, Tinkerbell sprinkles some of her fairy dust and the followers jump up and down with euphoria, or some would say tedium.

Almost every reply has been stating that it seems to be a non-story. 

[manu266]

Flight time and time zones between South African and Australia or NZ or Japan is creasier than between Vancouver and Europe.

If the Super Rugby guys can do it, no reason why any other league cannot do it.

[Harry Stottle]

9 minutes ago, scotchy1 said:

Don't worry, he's having a conversation with his other alias on another thread. Making things up on this one is something of an improvement.

Meow,

But thank you for mistaking me with my supposedly alter ego, one of the better and more eloquent writers on these pages, irrespective if you agree with his politics or otherwise.

[Harry Stottle]

1 minute ago, scotchy1 said:

Interesting that you thought you knew who i would be talking about without me even hinting at it. Not a particularly smart way of outing yourself.

Now don't be stupid it doesn't become you, I was waiting of that reply, of course I wpuld know I was having the conversation with him as you quite rightly pointed out.

[Harry Stottle]

2 minutes ago, scotchy1 said:

you are having conversations with many posters. You assume that people would think you were also one particular one. For obvious reasons.

Perhaps I should change the aninal call from Meow to HeHaw, you have accused me before of exactly the same crime, I categorically deny posting under two aliases.

[Big Picture]

1 hour ago, scotchy1 said:

Vancouver is only 2 more hours from the UK than Toronto, does it make all that much of a difference?

Wrong, it's 5 hours' more flying time from the UK than Toronto not including the stopover between flights.

[Big Picture]

2 minutes ago, scotchy1 said:

You can fly direct from Heathrow.

So you can, I didn't know that.  It's still an 8-hour time difference though, so jetlag would definitely be greater.

[Damien]

14 minutes ago, scotchy1 said:

You can fly direct from Heathrow.

And how many hours would every Super League team would have to travel to get to Heathrow? You'd be talking at least 4 hours and would probably have to give it at least 5-6 to be safe with accidents, traffic etc.

[Damien]

7 minutes ago, scotchy1 said:

2 or 3 hrs.

Come on, we're a professional sport. Getting to the airport isnt a high hurdle for us.

2-3 hours are you having a laugh?

Anyway the point is it if the only direct flight is from London then for every Super League team it does not mean it is a simple direct flight like you are making out. Indeed it is probably far worse than just flying from Manchester and having a stop.

[The Great Dane]

38 minutes ago, manu266 said:

Flight time and time zones between South African and Australia or NZ or Japan is creasier than between Vancouver and Europe.

If the Super Rugby guys can do it, no reason why any other league cannot do it.

Yeah Super Rugby achieved it, however to achieve it they had to more then halve the value of the competitions broadcasting rights value in Australia and severely effect it's value in NZ as well (though to nowhere near the extent that has been felt in Australia, largely due to the Kiwis success in SR I'd wager), and effectively doom Australian RU to a slow painful death, but yeah they achieved it. 

There're two lessons to be learned from the rise and fall of Super Rugby- don't split control of a competition between a bunch of different powerful factions all with different agendas and don't extend your competition over too many different disparate time zones.

The main thing that caused RU in Australia to fall into it's current steep decline is having to many games in time zones to far apart from each other, what ended up happening was that Australian clubs were spending half their seasons outside of Australia and those games were being played at all times of the day, this made the SR broadcasting rights worthless to free to air channels as more then half the content they were paying for couldn't be played live at a reasonable hour (let alone in prime time) and because people weren't staying up to watch all the game live they were finding out the score before they watched the games and eventually this lead them to stop watching most SR games apart from the Aussie derbies and Aussie clashes against the more popular Kiwi teams, which naturally because of the very low ratings for most of the SR content murdered the value of the rights to pay TV and now streaming services as well, which in the case of the ARU killed one of their main sources of income which is bankrupting them and led directly to a steep decline in interest in RU in Australia.

Long story short, having to many clubs in non-beneficial time zones is a terrible idea as SR shows, a few is workable, but as soon as it starts to become a significant number (anything more then five or six) it starts to have a serious effect on ratings and subsequently broadcasting rights values.  

[Harry Stottle]

48 minutes ago, scotchy1 said:

No i havent. You're making things up again.

You did, when I first stated posting, you had the feeling then that I was this other person you refer to, in fact another poster replied to you and said that he too felt the same so he was just humouring me.

Anyway not bothered either way, you can speak to me and my 6'-00" white rabbit whenever you wish to.

[Damien]

4 minutes ago, scotchy1 said:

mate I've done it plenty of times, train from Leeds and im in Heathrow in 3 and a bit hours. Can fly it in an hour from Leeds Bradford. These arent really problems.

 

But your initial argument is that it is only 2 hours more from the UK. Whilst this may be true from Heathrow I am simply illustrating that to achieve that it just means a lot more traveling within the UK so its a bit of a false representation. You said Big Picture was wrong by saying it is 5 hours more and was only 2. However as you said yourself to achieve that you are talking over 3 hours on a train, an internal flight or over 4 hours by road.

[Damien]

16 minutes ago, The Great Dane said:

Yeah Super Rugby achieved it, however to achieve it they had to more then halve the value of the competitions broadcasting rights value in Australia and severely effect it's value in NZ as well (though to nowhere near the extent that has been felt in Australia, largely due to the Kiwis success in SR I'd wager), and effectively doom Australian RU to a slow painful death, but yeah they achieved it. 

There're two lessons to be learned from the rise and fall of Super Rugby- don't split control of a competition between a bunch of different powerful factions all with different agendas and don't extend your competition over too many different disparate time zones.

The main thing that caused RU in Australia to fall into it's current steep decline is having to many games in time zones to far apart from each other, what ended up happening was that Australian clubs were spending half their seasons outside of Australia and those games were being played at all times of the day, this made the SR broadcasting rights worthless to free to air channels as more then half the content they were paying for couldn't be played live at a reasonable hour (let alone in prime time) and because people weren't staying up to watch all the game live they were finding out the score before they watched the games and eventually this lead them to stop watching most SR games apart from the Aussie derbies and Aussie clashes against the more popular Kiwi teams, which naturally because of the very low ratings for most of the SR content murdered the value of the rights to pay TV and now streaming services as well, which in the case of the ARU killed one of their main sources of income which is bankrupting them and led directly to a steep decline in interest in RU in Australia.

Long story short, having to many clubs in non-beneficial time zones is a terrible idea as SR shows, a few is workable, but as soon as it starts to become a significant number (anything more then five or six) it starts to have a serious effect on ratings and subsequently broadcasting rights values.  

Exactly, Super Rugby Union should be a lesson to everyone of how greed and over expansion can kill a competition.

Vancouver just does not make sense to me when there are more suitable alternatives far closer and in better time zones. If we ever get to a position where we have a cluster of clubs on the East Coast in the Toronto, Montreal, New York, Boston area then demand from the likes of Vancouver and more West Coast clubs then that is the time for the USA/Canada to go it alone with their own domestic league.

[JonM]

Transat flies to Vancouver from Gatwick, not Heathrow, in any case, and not that often. Or are we assuming some other airline is going to sponsor the fictional new team in BC?

[DoubleD]

You clearly wouldn't drive or get the train to Heathrow from the north unless you're a madman. I'm flying to Vancouver tomorrow funnily enough, Leeds Bradford-Heathrow-Vancouver. Total flight time of 13hr 5 minutes. Half an hour longer on the return a week later. The fewer flight options mean the airline route is generally a  lot more expensive than to Toronto or East cost of USA. I was meant to fly on Monday but the cost was over £1600 so I was persuaded to spend the weekend in Vancouver, I put up a hell of a fight I can tell you :). So my flight in end was only £600.

However, I can't see Vancouver being a likely option for expansion to League 1/Championship/SL. You can get to the East Coast of America and Toronto with A321s and B737s. Vancouver you need much bigger and costlier aircraft. Time difference is also an added factor.

It's been a while since I was last there, but I remember seeing a load of union players training in a park last time, it certainly has a decent presence there - so I would imagine that would be the story.