John WP Fan

Replaced by Martin Vickers on the UK company's board of directors, but still active as an employee. This is the difference between being a Director of the Company (board of directors) and his day to day role of Director of Rugby. It gets confusing when one word (e.g. rugby, league, director) can have more than one meaning.

Hopefully we will soon see. I agree the novelty will wear off. I think Parky was denying that they even helped crowds already. I hope the WP become a contender soon (I don’t expect that in our first year in SL), and perhaps also they’ll be a team fans love to hate! But the local support for the team is definitely growing, and the nearly 200 who came out to support them at Bradford was impressive, I think.

Oh dear, I just cannot help myself. This is so ridiculous I must respond. Help me! Yes, much of the above may be true, but it just does not matter. I am an avid sports fan, now 61 years old. I follow several sports and I played rugby (union of course) in high school. I had never heard of RL until I visited Australia and went to a game there, clueless that there was a different code. For 3 years I have been spreading the gospel to friends and family, and maybe 2 of them (friends from Wales and England) had even heard of rugby league. It doesn't matter at all if Union has "won the battle of the codes in Canada", because almost no one here has heard of League, or any battle between the two. And Rugby Union is itself a fringe sport. The greater presence of Union here only helps RL by making people aware that any form of rugby even exists. That opens the door to show them what a great game we have. The sporting culture in North America is really different. There is no class-based barrier to RL succeeding across the board here. These are opportunities for a new sport to prosper.

also, https://www.kaplaninternational.com/blog/your-vs-youre-grammar-comics-2 might help you.

OK, I am now done trying with you. You dismiss my points without really listening to them, and then ask me to answer your 2 questions yet again, which I have already answered several times (the answers, again, are "in 10-20 years" and "when the sport has a substantial following in North America, which would require a few more teams here"). You really are not listening. I have tried, despite being warned by others with more experience here that it was a waste of my time. You have long made up your mind that immediate player development and immediate TV revenue are the only things that matter, which makes it simple for you to decide that TWP are a failure in your mind. I cannot have an intelligent discussion with someone who is not willing to even consider other viewpoints. Under your conditions, the sport is doomed to a quiet death somewhere along the M62. That would be a shame, as the game really is great, and deserves a much wider audience.

OK, here are some references supporting my claim that the WP have helped UK attendances: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2018_RFL_Championship_season_results https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2019_RFL_Championship_season_results (you need to compare the Toronto games against others to see the trend)

I wish there were more transparency around issues like this. The League 1 and Championship clubs ought to have benefited directly from the WP passing on central funding and prize money. And every club in the RFL should have received a portion of the expansion fee. To me that is a key driver for expansion: money in the pockets of the existing teams, that they can use to attract more/better talent or otherwise improve their teams.

Yes, I remember you coming over to introduce yourself! Can you help me estimate the benefit to the existing teams so far?: fee paid to enter the RFL = ? central funding declined = ? prize money declined = ? hundreds or perhaps a few thousand pounds per team for whom the WP have brought more fans? I would expect that New York and Ottawa will pay a higher entry fee to join, and that any subsequent teams would pay even more. And what is the down side? In what way are the Wolfpack hurting any existing team?

The income to existing teams is small but not negligible so far, IMHO. I believe the WP have increased attendance some, and their fee to join the RFL, along with their passing on prize money and central funding has been a benefit. If they have increased interest for other new teams to be added, those new teams should pay a larger entry fee. Over time I expect that to make the broadcast rights worth more, in multiple regions. I again point to the example of the NHL's growth from 6 teams in the northeast in 1967 to 32 teams spanning North America in 2020-21, with a huge growth in overall attendance, revenue and salary cap, generating a larger pool of top-flight players worldwide. The new Seattle franchise paid $US 650,000,000 to join! My hopes for RL are more modest, but along a similar path. As a personal example, I traveled to England last spring to attend both Magic Weekend and the Summer Bash, buying tickets, food and drink, and contributing to the local economies of Newcastle and Blackpool. I also bought a Salford Red Devils jersey (the yellow one with the bee on it). Over time more fans will make similar trips. For now it's in the low dozens of people coming each year, but that can grow to hundreds and thousands over time.

I know. I'm finding it difficult to allow false statements to go uncontested.

Re: Rugby Union Yes, it's bigger here than League, but the vast, vast majority (I'd say more than 95%) of people here have no idea that there are two codes of rugby. So any presence by Union only makes RL more credible, and when you establish a professional team, some people will show up to see them and then later learn about the differences. And in my opinion, the differences make for a much better, more exciting game. I have seen no evidence of Union being an obstacle to RL here, though I am well aware of the dark history elsewhere. Re: supply of players See my discussion of how a modest dilution of talent is worth accepting as a league grows. Allowing several new teams in at once would be a real problem. Letting one in at a time and spacing them out as the game grows will help the sport. Re: relations between the team and Canada RL I just messaged Bob Jowett about this. His response (which he agreed to let me quote): Hi John, Wolfpack support of CRLA has been much better of late. TWP have given some great support to the Georgina Griffins and Haldimand Wolfcubs and have supported a high school game in BC. Haven’t seen the social media post but I have no issue at all with David Argyle. Re Wolfpack boosting attendance in the UK I have seen several posts supporting this claim. It would be tedious to dig them up but I will if necessary. I am certainly not making anything up (and it's "you're", not "your"). If you have records handy that contradict this, please produce them.

Yeah, I do see that. I just wanted to make it clear that the claim that we are ignoring his arguments is completely untrue. But this will probably be the last time to try to engage, unless he suddenly starts discussing in earnest instead of merely repeating the same tired lines.

You know full well those "two points" were the reason for supporting the American dream and they were Perez's points he made to justify that dream in terms of exactly what he offered and meant by expansion. 1. More Pro players 2. More TV money. There I have said it again and I estimate I have now said it 1,000 times exactly. ... Now I have asked the 20 of you 1,000 times to admit these two pillars of expansion have not been achieved and probably never will and the 20 of you refuse to admit it by ignoring the question. OK it's tiresome asking something 1,000 times, but you guys are far more tiresome ignoring the fact it's all a failure 20,000 times. It's some sort of mass denial?? So go on John...admit it TWP did not achieve their stated goals?? ... None of them want to allay my fears by actually explaining how going Transatlantic will actually work if there's nothing of substance on offer in North America? Please someone, help me understand this? You are like an artist who paints with only two colours on their palette. I think there are many more aspects of expansion that are as important as the only 2 things you are willing to discuss. As I said, I have tried before to engage with you (and others), but you ignore everything else that I say. I will not repeat myself, but I will refer you to my previous points (the two in bold being the most comprehensive): https://www.totalrl.com/forums/index.php?/topic/341451-should-to-catalan-and-toronto-breakaway-form-their-own-league/page/3/&tab=comments#comment-4086160 https://www.totalrl.com/forums/index.php?/topic/340957-clubs-vote-in-favour-of-new-york-and-ottawa/page/22/&tab=comments#comment-4074448 https://www.totalrl.com/forums/index.php?/topic/340957-clubs-vote-in-favour-of-new-york-and-ottawa/page/22/&tab=comments#comment-4074447 https://www.totalrl.com/forums/index.php?/topic/338858-boston/page/3/&tab=comments#comment-4040084 https://www.totalrl.com/forums/index.php?/topic/338684-eric-perez-buys-hemel’s-licence-with-plans-to-create-second-canadian-club-merged-threads/page/11/&tab=comments#comment-4038907 https://www.totalrl.com/forums/index.php?/topic/338684-eric-perez-buys-hemel’s-licence-with-plans-to-create-second-canadian-club-merged-threads/page/11/&tab=comments#comment-4036965 https://www.totalrl.com/forums/index.php?/topic/336195-toronto/page/4/&tab=comments#comment-3994765 https://www.totalrl.com/forums/index.php?/topic/334846-toronto/page/23/&tab=comments#comment-3977513 https://www.totalrl.com/forums/index.php?/topic/334550-brian-mcdermott-new-toronto-wolfpack-coach/page/3/&tab=comments#comment-3964299 And to directly respond to your 2 issues: it will take many years to develop SL calibre players in Canada. The WP have done a little to get this going, and could do more. I think they believe they need to establish the sport as something to aspire to first. I also think there needs to be more money in the game so that RL contracts appeal to players from other sports. I see nothing wrong with temporarily modestly diluting the pool of players as new teams are carefully added. The NHL went from 6 to 12 teams in 1967. The new teams were mostly terrible and not competitive at first. In 1973 one of them (the Philadelphia Flyers) won the Stanley Cup. I would not expand that quickly, but this extreme example makes my point. More teams will grow the sport, bring in more money, and that will - over time - grow the player pool. Like domestic production, a large NA TV contract will follow the growth of a few successful teams. My fundamental disagreement with you though is that expansion means expanding the league, adding teams, not replacing heartland teams as new teams are added. No supporter of the Wolfpack wants to hurt existing teams.

I was very impressed with the Bulls' first half, and they fully deserved that lead. Their defense was impressive, and ours was not up to our usual standard. We were nervous watching most of the game. It's good to get tough matches like that so we're not overconfident heading to the playoffs. Even a defeat might be good for us, though we want to win them all.

Pot/kettle. I too have tried to engage with you, conceding that some of your points are valid, looking to understand the wider landscape, and sharing other ways that sport can grow, based on the experience of other sports reaching beyond their heartlands. Like others, my attempts to really engage in a wider debate have been ignored, and you returned to the only two points you are willing to consider. The repetition of those two lines (just about every day, at length, exactly the same argument) gets very tiresome. To many of us there are other issues that also count in the debate, and matter more. That makes me feel that you are the one who can't discuss the realities.