Should TO, Catalan and Toronto breakaway & form their own league?

[Man of Kent]

9 minutes ago, GUBRATS said:

Pick out the ' cream ' and dump the ' dross ' , mmm , sounds like a spiffing idea 

Not going to happen with just three international clubs though, right?

[Hemel Stag]

2 minutes ago, Man of Kent said:

Not going to happen with just three international clubs though, right?

It has been reported that allegedly Mr. Elstone may be considering "pulling up the drawbridge" on Super League, with no more promotion and relegation.

So, where will the ambitious Championship Clubs go to? Maybe they would like to join up with the North American business people who have experience, money, tv deals, sponsors. Who knows, it might grow into a rival to SL ?

(I am not expressing an opinion or preference, just saying what "might" happen if top league is sealed off)

[GUBRATS]

2 minutes ago, Hemel Stag said:

It has been reported that allegedly Mr. Elstone may be considering "pulling up the drawbridge" on Super League, with no more promotion and relegation.

So, where will the ambitious Championship Clubs go to? Maybe they would like to join up with the North American business people who have experience, money, tv deals, sponsors. Who knows, it might grow into a rival to SL ?

(I am not expressing an opinion or preference, just saying what "might" happen if top league is sealed off)

If they deal off the top tier Toronto,Toulouse and OttAwa or NY will be in it 

[Hemel Stag]

34 minutes ago, GUBRATS said:

With regards broadcasting , I was chasing the clubs 10 years ago to get the RFL to buy them all a decent camera ( I was told £ 2K would do it ) to produce better disciplinary content , which could then with a small production team have put together a Lower Tier highlights show shown on the internet initially but chased a proper channel deal eventually , I fully understand the need for RL to be available to watch , although I'm not sure ' live ' is the way 

Thanks for sharing that, genuinely interesting.

The BT Sport RU coverage provides another model. They screen selected games live but these are also available via their website, to watch on catch up. They also do a highlights show from each weekend, edited down to three hours ! There are potted highlights per match on the website too.

BT Sport have partnered with Channel 5 to show a few games a year on the "normal telly" plus supplying footage for a one hour highlights show. I think Sky should do this with C4 or C5 to put a few matches out there, as a shop window to hook new customers. 

[Hemel Stag]

6 minutes ago, GUBRATS said:

If they deal off the top tier Toronto,Toulouse and OttAwa or NY will be in it 

If they do it at the end of this Season, either Toronto or Toulouse will rise and someone will fall (breaks my heart to say it but London not looking too safe at the moment, but Leeds are having a torrid time too #earlydays). If so, Ottawa, NY, either Toulouse or Toronto would be outside SL and maybe Leeds or London, plus a whole host of ambitious  teams like Bradford Bulls, Sheffield Eagles and York City Knights. beginning to sound like a hot league isn't it. If they are all being excluded, who could blame them for doing their own thing ?

[Big Picture]

5 hours ago, The Daddy said:

This is purely hypothetical but wondering what the impact on the sport would be if Toulouse, Catalan, Toronto and other potential international clubs decided to breakaway to form an international league. 

I'm thinking that might be the best option for them. For the small amount of time they've existed they've each become very stable and commercially viable clubs. Each of them have really strong brands. The interesting thing with the French and North American entities is that they're not bound by the traditional types of revenue streams English clubs are which is fairly limited, such as bums on seats and tv revenue.

In France the local and regional governments allocate funds to pro clubs whilst in America sports are quickly able to get corporate sponsorship. 

Absolutely there should be a transatlantic international league, the sport needs a game changer to halt and reverse its decline in the UK and such a league might be the one and only potential way to give it that.  In addition, the likes of Toronto and New York playing in the English RL structure alongside the traditional "northern village" teams (as another poster dubbed them the other week on one of these threads) is truly a mix of oil and water.

However, for such a league to succeed it would have to follow all of the practices of major North American pro leagues, because those have been proven to work over many decades of experience in at least five sports, experience which has seen the values of franchises in those leagues rise steadily year after year.  Major League Soccer succeeded precisely because it left the old world way behind and did everything the North American way instead.

That being the case, a transatlantic international league couldn't include any of the small away fan-dependent traditional clubs for the simple reason that they can't operate according to those practices.  They have been embedded in very different practices for 100+ years and they're simply not able to adapt to operate in the way needed for such a league to succeed.  They also aren't located in the sort of markets which one would look to in order to give a new league the appeal needed to line up the type of TV and sponsorship contracts needed to make it viable.

Instead it would need to establish franchises in strategically important cities either side of the Atlantic in order to create that appeal for broadcasters and sponsors and also to create a buzz among the sports followers of those conurbations and generate demand for tickets, merchandise and the like.  For that, all the franchise owners would have to be strongly motivated to take all necessary steps to succeed and therefore they would need to have paid a significant fee for their franchise to give them that motivation.

That isn't the kind of thing which can be built just by taking some existing clubs and putting them in a breakaway situation, that wouldn't work.

[Wellsy4HullFC]

6 hours ago, TboneFromTO said:

Baseball is not rounders!  doesnt even compare!

Batter, bowler, fielders, people stood on bases, people running round bases...

Nope, no comparison whatsoever...

[Yakstorm]

5 hours ago, Hemel Stag said:

If they do it at the end of this Season, either Toronto or Toulouse will rise and someone will fall (breaks my heart to say it but London not looking too safe at the moment, but Leeds are having a torrid time too #earlydays). If so, Ottawa, NY, either Toulouse or Toronto would be outside SL and maybe Leeds or London, plus a whole host of ambitious  teams like Bradford Bulls, Sheffield Eagles and York City Knights. beginning to sound like a hot league isn't it. If they are all being excluded, who could blame them for doing their own thing ?

From a marketability point of view, there would be brands and broadcasters interested in something like that, especially if you throw in the likes of a Newcastle Thunder (who's owner only invested in the club due to Promotion / Relegation being re-opened) and Coventry, plus the likes of Leigh & Widnes who I imagine would not appreciate being locked out of SL.

Whilst SL would be the premiere product in the short term, it would be dangerous for the code to potentially create a scenario where some form of a competition (or any sense).  Which a scenario where Ottawa, New York, Toulouse/Toronto, Leeds/London, Bradford, Sheffield, Newcastle, York, Leigh, Widnes could be if the right people were running it (ie. Perez).  

If SL wants to be a closed shop, they have to be careful who they leave out... and whether their current clubs are the right ones moving forward.  

[oiseau]

9 hours ago, GUBRATS said:

What audiences in New York ? , Or Boston for that matter ?

...or London....

[North but south]

10 hours ago, TboneFromTO said:

Baseball is not rounders!  doesnt even compare! 

Baseball. First referenced in 1744 in a little pretty pocket book. First recorded game in 1749 in Surrey. In the 2005 book "search for the roots of the game" it is suggested that it originated in England and was a regional variant of rounders.

Anyway it's rounders made easier, just like netball is a harder version of basketball.

[bazzzz65]

10 hours ago, Copa said:

And each team plays 162 games per season!

And that is just to reach the play offs!!

[dredgie]

12 hours ago, GUBRATS said:

Indeed , most of them are rubbish though 

Strange then that a team like the SF Giants get 30k + for their 81 home games, imagine a regular super league game getting that many let alone every single game, still its just rounders isn't it

[Pulga]

If they do break away with their own tournament I think SL is going to have some real problems.

I think they would get the pick of players if they have a salary cap comparable to SL. 

[Big Picture]

19 minutes ago, TheConductor said:

Agree and that it more strange that people in Toronto and Vancouver prefer NFL than their own Canadian Football League, maybe the 2 cities should be in the USA.

It isn't really.  Decades of gradual importation of rules from the US game turned the Canadian game into a variant of that sport, played by players who aren't good enough for the NFL complete with an annual parade of players cut as NFL training camps wrap up into the CFL, some of whom become top players in the Canadian league.  That created the perception that the NFL product is better and pulled the CFL inexorably into its shadow, making it minor league in the eyes of many Canadians.

[southwalesrabbitoh]

How about Perpignan/Dragons play in a French based league and Toronto play in a N American league.

[Damien]

1 hour ago, southwalesrabbitoh said:

How about Perpignan/Dragons play in a French based league and Toronto play in a N American league.

How about no. It should be obvious why this can't be the case, yet anyway or for the foreseeable future.

[southwalesrabbitoh]

33 minutes ago, Damien said:

How about no. It should be obvious why this can't be the case, yet anyway or for the foreseeable future.

If ppl there don't want to watch RL, then that's their problem, we shouldn't be trying to thrust RL onto ppl. How about selling out British grounds first by converting football supporters. 

[Damien]

5 minutes ago, southwalesrabbitoh said:

If ppl there don't want to watch RL, then that's their problem, we shouldn't be trying to thrust RL onto ppl. How about selling out British grounds first by converting football supporters. 

How about stop talking nonsense. People do want to watch RL in Toronto and Perpignan and are doing so in big numbers and indeed bigger numbers than the majority of English clubs. They came to us, not the other way round, so no one is thrusting anything on anyone.

[southwalesrabbitoh]

10 minutes ago, Damien said:

How about stop talking nonsense. People do want to watch RL in Toronto and Perpignan and are doing so in big numbers and indeed bigger numbers than the majority of English clubs. They came to us, not the other way round, so no one is thrusting anything on anyone.

I'm not talking nonsense, i'd say i was talking more sense than you. If big numbers wanted to watch RL over there, they would then have their own league. If lots of ppl wanted to watch RL in Perth they would have their own teams. 

[Damien]

11 minutes ago, southwalesrabbitoh said:

I'm not talking nonsense, i'd say i was talking more sense than you. If big numbers wanted to watch RL over there, they would then have their own league. If lots of ppl wanted to watch RL in Perth they would have their own teams. 

Enough numbers watch Catalans and Toronto so we are not thrusting anything on them. That was your point. They are in the English system as there are not enough clubs of that standard in their respective countries. My primary school children understand that.

As an aside you seem do not seem to like anything about Rugby League and it's obvious you are not a Rugby League fan. 

[The Hallucinating Goose]

16 hours ago, Hemel Stag said:

I have already lost interest.... 162 games ? ? Brings a whole new meeting to loop fixtures. Never mind loops, it would drive me round the bend !

But, lucky for the players, at least it isn't very physically demanding.

Don't you mean, "drive me bat-ty!"? 

[TBone]

If Toronto get promoted will they be given a standard share of the SL TV money?

[Smudger06]

1 hour ago, TBone said:

If Toronto get promoted will they be given a standard share of the SL TV money?

Either that, or if not they will stop paying for visiting teams to travel. 

[Big Picture]

9 minutes ago, Smudger06 said:

Either that, or if not they will stop paying for visiting teams to travel. 

Or by rights, both.  In serious, big time leagues everyone shares in the TV money and everyone pays for their own travel.

Of course, deep down we all know that SL isn't truly a big time league.

[TBone]

21 minutes ago, Smudger06 said:

Either that, or if not they will stop paying for visiting teams to travel. 

I think I found the answer in an older BBC article:

Quote

But promotion to the Super League would bring a huge financial boost in terms of TV rights money from Sky, and more and bigger sponsorship deals.

The free travel for visiting sides seems to be time limited and also numbers limited - the same article states

Quote

Principal sponsor Air Transat, signed on a three-year deal, provides 540 airline seats a year, which sees the club fly with 35 people when it visits Europe, and opposition clubs offered 25 free transatlantic return flights.

As the article was written in 2018 that would mean it runs out at the end of this season or next. (unless there's been a change)