Clubs vote in favour of New York and Ottawa

[Kayakman]

33 minutes ago, SL17 said:

Then I suggest not replying in your repetitive, only I have the answer way.

You dare accuse him of that after your own posts....blindness, willful blindness!@SL 17wilfull blindness.org

[Oxford]

37 minutes ago, SL17 said:

Then I suggest not replying in your repetitive, only I have the answer way.

Fair enough, God speed!

[Oxford]

4 minutes ago, Kayakman said:

You dare accuse him of that after your own posts....blindness, willful blindness!@SL 17wilfull blindness.org

He simply doesn't want to explain and that's fine.

People getting the hump is part and parcel of forums.

 

[bbfaz]

14 hours ago, Oxford said:

 Sounding a bit Parky there bbfz and that's not an insult though I'm sure some will interpret it that way.

 He did deliver a Canadian Side which was the crucial and primary idea. There were a few other things which were well reported and well documented too. The point being that it would be easy to dismiss Eric Perez if you don't value what he actually did do and concentrate on the negatives. Our whole sport is crying out for people like Perez, people who really do believe it's wonderful, marketable and the best thing since sliced white. I listen to our chairmen, read our pundits and look at forums and I see and hear little sign of that real positivity and conviction about how good TGG is and what a great future it has. All I come across in this heartland is excuses about what we can't do, pretexts for what we shoudn't do, weak vindication about what we let go and lost and rationale for what we never did.

 A sport that spends all its time wallowing it was is impossible has no future just a nice set of sepia memories. It is as marketable as a hanky with four knots pretending to be a hat.

The irony of this is that I'm not from a heartland.  More the case, I have an idea of how expansion actually works.  You can't do pie in the sky.  If you mess it up from the start, you're unlikely to get another chance at it.  If North American expansion fails, the sport will be deemed a failure.  So the idea that you try, even if it's a half-baked idea, is not just wrong but dangerous.  Here, it has been called "the truth"!

I want this to work but it can't work if it's not done properly.  To sustain or improve the standard of the league, there needs to be widespread development in Toronto and, over the next however many years, the Quebec-Windsor Corridor (which is bigger than Britain and has a third of the people, most of whom want to play other sports).  Toronto don't have a development plan, which means we're collectively holding out for some sort of "Carter Effect", where a star will crossover and make kids turn up demanding to play.  That's not a plan, that's a fantasy.

[Oxford]

2 minutes ago, bbfaz said:

The irony of this is that I'm not from a heartland.  More the case, I have an idea of how expansion actually works.  You can't do pie in the sky. 

I don't know why you think it won't work. I think everyone has a theory about how to make it work and that's why we're all here.

 

5 minutes ago, bbfaz said:

Toronto don't have a development plan, which means we're collectively holding out for some sort of "Carter Effect", where a star will crossover and make kids turn up demanding to play.  That's not a plan, that's a fantasy.

I don't see this has being necessarily true but at least I can see where you're coming from now. There is no irony in you not being heartland as I don't see the game as limited to only being there.

[Tommygilf]

1 minute ago, SL17 said:

How are they giving more English players the ability to play professionally? Thats not expansion. A name is not expansion. Hemel to Ottowa not expansion. TWP not a Canadian player in sight, again not expansion.

Can you tell me what expansion should include?

They will be giving more opportunities to be full time professional RL players not part timers or NCL? For our national team that's fantastic - its no surprise that the countries that are strongest in any sport are those with the largest number of full time professionals driving up competition and standards. That point equally wasn't about expansion, it was about the RFL introducing quota restrictions on English players. 

The comp expanding its footprint is expansion. Crowds turning up in places outside the M62 is expansion. Interest growing outside of the traditional boundaries of the sport is expansion. There were several posts on the new Wakefield sponsor thread suggesting that whilst our game is relatively cheap to advertise in, its lack of geographic spread is a major detrimental factor. for companies not choosing to do so. 

Your definition of expansion seems to be player production, which whilst vitally important is simultaneously the longest and hardest to achieve. Judging the first ever team of its kind after 2 and a half years seems a bit premature don't you think?

[Oxford]

1 minute ago, SL17 said:

The postman has spoken..

Thank you I'm available for weddings,  Bar Mitzvahs and other do's.

[Toby Chopra]

2 minutes ago, Tommygilf said:

They will be giving more opportunities to be full time professional RL players not part timers or NCL? For our national team that's fantastic - its no surprise that the countries that are strongest in any sport are those with the largest number of full time professionals driving up competition and standards. That point equally wasn't about expansion, it was about the RFL introducing quota restrictions on English players. 

The comp expanding its footprint is expansion. Crowds turning up in places outside the M62 is expansion. Interest growing outside of the traditional boundaries of the sport is expansion. There were several posts on the new Wakefield sponsor thread suggesting that whilst our game is relatively cheap to advertise in, its lack of geographic spread is a major detrimental factor. for companies not choosing to do so. 

Your definition of expansion seems to be player production, which whilst vitally important is simultaneously the longest and hardest to achieve. Judging the first ever team of its kind after 2 and a half years seems a bit premature don't you think?

Spot on

[Oxford]

Dreaming of failure, I'd like to say that was new, but unfortunately it's the history of TGG.

[ELBOWSEYE]

Whats all this obsession with having Canadian players in Toronto's side, nobody questions Melbourne about the amount of local players in their side.

[Oxford]

2 minutes ago, ELBOWSEYE said:

Whats all this obsession with having Canadian players in Toronto's side, nobody questions Melbourne about the amount of local players in their side.

Yeah funny that!

[GUBRATS]

57 minutes ago, North but south said:

But they did have 3 and 1 American when they were in league 1. 

That played a handful of games between them , before being  dumped 

[GUBRATS]

4 minutes ago, ELBOWSEYE said:

Whats all this obsession with having Canadian players in Toronto's side, nobody questions Melbourne about the amount of local players in their side.

We aren't asking for Torontoians in it , just NA players , there are Australians playing for Melbourne I assume 

[Oxford]

Let's all wait for it all to fail then, Oh Happy Days!

[Smudger06]

Let's be honest, Wigan, St Helens, Warrington don't belong in a League with Toronto, NYC, Ottawa, London, Toulouse......theres only Leeds that does. Those 3 SL clubs and others both in SL & the Championship are realising this truth. If backers with double the wealth of Caddicks £200m such as Argyle and / or major sponsors are also coming on board with these big city names then I'm afraid they will outspend the medium sized town teams massively, the writtings on the wall, in every single way except salary cap...and that includes outspending on marquee players. Today's big guns will be left behind in a matter of years. Hence the chairmen are having a rethink.......

[Oxford]

1 minute ago, SL17 said:

Some live in dreamland,others in reality. Which one are you in.

Let me guess both.

Answering your own questions?

[Damien]

20 minutes ago, GUBRATS said:

We aren't asking for Torontoians in it , just NA players , there are Australians playing for Melbourne I assume 

If the argument is that the only measure of expansion is expanding the playing base then Melbourne are not expanding the playing base in Australia any more than Toronto is in Canada.

[Smudger06]

Surely the most important measure of expansion would be more nations able to compete with the big 3 in test matches? And I'm not talking about tiny islands, but important and viable national markets.....France? Canada? South Africa? Even the US?........

[westside]

13 minutes ago, Smudger06 said:

Let's be honest, Wigan, St Helens, Warrington don't belong in a League with Toronto, NYC, Ottawa, London, Toulouse......theres only Leeds that does. Those 3 SL clubs and others both in SL & the Championship are realising this truth. If backers with double the wealth of Caddicks £200m such as Argyle and / or major sponsors are also coming on board with these big city names then I'm afraid they will outspend the medium sized town teams massively, the writtings on the wall, in every single way except salary cap...and that includes outspending on marquee players. Today's big guns will be left behind in a matter of years. Hence the chairmen are having a rethink.......

St Helens is basically Liverpool... if they can’t develop a bigger base there that’s on them.

[Oxford]

13 minutes ago, Damien said:

If the argument is that the only measure of expansion is expanding the playing base then Melbourne are not expanding the playing base in Australia any more than Toronto is in Canada.

I hope you got that, it's not about that!

Making a point on a forum, whatever next?

[Oxford]

Just now, SL17 said:

One day you'll actually make a point, instead of picking up on others. I await the day with entrigue.

Nah! Don't be silly!

Making a point is for losers!

Meanwhile, NY, Ottowa and TWP will probably go away because we make them much like we did with Richard Branson.

 

[North but south]

50 minutes ago, GUBRATS said:

That played a handful of games between them , before being  dumped 

Which is still more than none.

[bbfaz]

42 minutes ago, Tommygilf said:

They will be giving more opportunities to be full time professional RL players not part timers or NCL? For our national team that's fantastic - its no surprise that the countries that are strongest in any sport are those with the largest number of full time professionals driving up competition and standards. That point equally wasn't about expansion, it was about the RFL introducing quota restrictions on English players. 

The comp expanding its footprint is expansion. Crowds turning up in places outside the M62 is expansion. Interest growing outside of the traditional boundaries of the sport is expansion. There were several posts on the new Wakefield sponsor thread suggesting that whilst our game is relatively cheap to advertise in, its lack of geographic spread is a major detrimental factor. for companies not choosing to do so. 

Your definition of expansion seems to be player production, which whilst vitally important is simultaneously the longest and hardest to achieve. Judging the first ever team of its kind after 2 and a half years seems a bit premature don't you think?

Thing is, we had 14 teams before.  Back then, we had a larger playing pool with a lot more grant money going into junior sections, decent chunks of the country with development officer resources and more facilities.  The £ was stronger against the AU$ and the NRL salary cap was much lower, so it was easier to sign Australians and New Zealanders.  Even then, we didn't get the best players from over there and haven't done since pokies made their way into RL clubs across New South Wales.  You're not going to create more opportunities for untapped talent, you'll turn people who don't have the talent for professional Rugby League into professionals and drag the standard down overall.   It has been shown pretty conclusively that the only way we can have a bigger competition is to produce a lot more serviceable professionals.

If sponsors turned up due to being in big cities, Super League would get more sponsors with London in the competition.  As it stands, the Broncos once stole a sponsor from a London junior club because they couldn't generate decent quality sponsors on their own.  Would I like to see the game more widely played?  Of course and, unlike many here, I walk that walk as well as talk that talk.  If we want a stronger competition, we need to find a way to bridge the massive revenue gap between us and the NRL, which is not only due to TV revenue but their reliance on clubhouses acting as casinos and the majority of their teams playing in two global cities.  If expanding the footprint was the only key to that. we'd still be talking about the Celtic Crusaders.  If getting into big cities was the silver bullet, the Broncos would be leading the league in turnover.  It wasn't always like this, the Broncos had a much higher profile in the late 90's.

The idea that a rising tide lifts all boats assumes that anybody caught in that tide floats.  Some people take the attitude that if you can't float, you deserve to die.  I just want to know that this supposed rising tide is actually real and not based on fantasy and unsustainable sponsorship.  If the tide goes out, I don't want to find the RL equivalent of the Morecambe Bay cockling tragedy lying on the silt and sand.  One way they could perhaps mitigate my fears is that they're out there looking to develop even a small amount of the extra players you'd need to sustain any number of extra clubs but they aren't.  I don't understand why my fear makes me wrong and your ignorance makes you right?

[bbfaz]

Double post - board still on the blink.

[GUBRATS]

1 hour ago, Damien said:

If the argument is that the only measure of expansion is expanding the playing base then Melbourne are not expanding the playing base in Australia any more than Toronto is in Canada.

No it isn't the ONLY measure , NOBODY is saying it is , it is preferable , and preferable if some effort is made to , so no don't try to turn it into something it isn't