MidlandsJohn

So basically, something like an RL version of the African Nations Championship in football? With the possible handicap of an "England" squad picking only from Championship and below, and Australia picking from their second-tier comps to avoid total blowouts.

Ice hockey knows it will never be a top UK sport, but teams do their best with what they have and try to have a (marketing cliche alert) unique seling point. In the case of Nottingham, there's a dedicated ice hockey show on BBC Radio Nottingham, I think occasional live matches are broadcast as well. For Belfast, the club is strictly non-sectarian - the only gear you'll see in the stands is Belfast kit and merchandise. Anyone attempting to bring in UK or Irish flags, or wearing certain teams' football tops, don't get in. This goes so far as when playing in the Champions League, where tradition is to play the national anthem of each team's country, Belfast purposely request no anthems are played at all, so ROI or Catholic N.I. fans don't have to sit through "God Save The King".

They should just rename it Northern Conference League so they can still keep the NCL branding.

Something else to add about the issue of "perception". Firstly, internationals (again) - a major brand would love to get involved with the England RU team (current form notwithstanding) because they can proclaim "Company X - proud sponsor of England" and know they are getting double-figure televised matches every year, many on free-to-air, to show their logo. That same company sponsoring the England RL team that goes completely AWOL for 2 years? Or when they do appear, instead of major markets like France, Australia, Italy etc. you instead are faced with convincing corporate hospitality to watch PNG and Samoa (after you've shown them where they are on a map). Secondly, I remember the thread about Sport 24 (the cruise ship/airline sports channel) and people moaning about how the NRL was covered while Super League wasn't and how much of an injustice it all was. Again, to a casual watcher who knows little or nothing about RL, which sounds more "glamorous" - Wakefield v. Castleford or Melbourne v. Sydney?

Internationals are THE big stumbling block, not just because of the lack of them - RU whether you love or detest it has the World Cup, Six Nations and Autumn Internationals, where you know the dates, teams, format and good idea of who will be covering it fairly early. Then you have RL with a World Cup where you're unsure about the teams, unsure about how much mainstream media attention it will get and possibly unsure whether it will actually happen at all. Then you have the international scene outside the WC where it appears the Wheelchair teams are working harder to play more matches than the Men's do. But also, the issue for me with RL is look WHO the nations being targeted are. RU's World Cup gets coverage in lots of rich or at least middling markets - UK, Australasia, North America, Japan, I'm sure mainland Europe is covered too. What does RL have instead? Cook Islands with a worldwide community of roughly 120,000, Fiji Samoa and Tonga who are less than a million combined and Lebanon which is an economic basket case. Why is a blue-chip company going to want to invest in sponsorship for exposure in Rarotonga and Beirut when they can punp money into the other code and get viewers in L.A. and Tokyo?

If somehow Georgia could get going in RL again, it could be a huge opportunity seeing as RU seemingly won't relegate from the 6N even if Georgia won the World Cup. (Obviously in RL the issue is whether there will actually be a World Cup, but moving on...) If a team was formed you'd assume Balkan Super League would be the target?

Remember the Smith & Jones darts sketch making a mockery of the sport? If they did one for RL then "Baz & Tez" would be hired as the commentary team. What do they honestly provide (apart from ammunition for people to deride RL as an insular Northern game)?

Going back a little bit, but full-back Henry Hynosky a.k.a the "Hynoceros". Need a prop to plow in for a try and nobody can stop him? You have your man.

You would be correct. https://kennylogansrwcchallenge.com/

Lebanon are the outstanding outlier of a "heritage" team that has genuinely created a domestic game. The fact that they keep plugging away despite economic crisis, regional political crisis and (seemingly constant) domestic political crisis is amazing. Yet the IRL in their infinite wisdom (or is that infinitesimally small wisdom?) continue to push the likes of Scotland and South Africa as "full members" when they are more like "zombie members" - the corpse suddenly re-animates and comes shambling back into life when World Cup qualification rolls around but then disappears into the netherworld for the next few years. Actually thinking about it like that, it would make for a good H.P. Lovecraft story - "The Rugby League Horror".

I never fully understood what happened with Russia. Was it Rugby Sevens gaining Olympic status that killed RL in that country or was the sport in gradual decline anyway and the much bigger exposure that Union got (such as Russia qualifying for the World Cup) meant everyone jumped over to playing RU?

But when this is meant to be the top level domestic league it makes the sport it represents look a shambles.

If they had folded would that have made them Newcastle 6 Feet Thunder?

Not an avid follower of basketball by any means, but as far as I'm aware the British league for years has offered semi-pro level salaries as it attracts players who will need to make their pro career overseas by being the "shop window" in which they can grab the attention of teams in the bigger European leagues. I'd assume cultural similarities and no language barrier must also factor in for North American players. The sheer number of players churned out by the American college system means that if someone has an amazing season and you lose them to somewhere bigger, somebody else is always willing to come over for their shot. However, things seem to be trending upwards as Sky are back involved in broadcasting the league to a limited extent and Newcastle are actually pulling "double duty" this season by competing in the North European league as well as the British domestic competition. Having their own arena is crucial for this as many British clubs were effectively frozen out of European competitions for many years because they lacked their own stadiums and playing in council gyms/leisure centres wasn't deemed good enough.

The additional problem is the packing of squads with heritage players makes things that much harder for nations like Jamaica and Serbia to break through - for anyone from the IRL reading this, these are countries that are genuinely trying to develop the sport and building a domestic scene. Scotland seems to exist on paper as a genuine team but are actually England C when you see them in the flesh and as for Russia...even without their current pariah status, who the hell is actually playing RL in the country for them to compete anyway? Remember Challenge Cup participants Strela Kazan? Want to know how they're getting on? They're playing in the Russian Premier League...of Rugby Union.