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Brian McDermott's Big City Team League


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Should be in pubs in Leeds city centre on Friday night  before a home Leeds United Game always groups of Scandinavian fans .I should think more so in Liverpool and Manchester. 

 Soon we will be dancing the fandango
FROM 2004,TO DO WHAT THIS CLUB HAS DONE,IF THATS NOT GREATNESSTHEN i DONT KNOW WHAT IS.

JAMIE PEACOCK

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56 minutes ago, Cowardly Fan said:

Leeds, Dresden, Essen are some of the biggest without a top flight football team. Believe NFL is pretty popular in Germany too. 

Novosibirsk in Siberia though is the obvious candidate - at 1.5m it's twice the size of the others!

They have a team in the Kontinental Hockey league ?

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4 minutes ago, Smudger06 said:

There is no place for medium to large sized northern English towns, nor small to medium sized northern English Cities in this kind of League. So folk should stop trying to justify the inclusion of Wigan, Warrington, St Helens, Salford, Huddersfield, Wakefield, Castleford, Hull or Hull. There's definitely not a place for Bradford or York either. As far as the North of England goes.....it's Manchester, Leeds, Sheffield and Newcastle and that's including their metro Counties. End of story. 

I think an exception could be made for York in Rugby League because of it being a tourist city. I heard that the top EPL clubs that although they get very big crowds they are now predominantly Tourist clubs  lost their old local fan atmosphere 

 Soon we will be dancing the fandango
FROM 2004,TO DO WHAT THIS CLUB HAS DONE,IF THATS NOT GREATNESSTHEN i DONT KNOW WHAT IS.

JAMIE PEACOCK

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10 minutes ago, Smudger06 said:

There is no place for medium to large sized northern English towns, nor small to medium sized northern English Cities in this kind of League. So folk should stop trying to justify the inclusion of Wigan, Warrington, St Helens, Salford, Huddersfield, Wakefield, Castleford, Hull or Hull. There's definitely not a place for Bradford or York either. As far as the North of England goes.....it's Manchester, Leeds, Sheffield and Newcastle and that's including their metro Counties. End of story. 

What about Liverpool? That’s bigger than Newcastle and much more recognised as a brand internationally. You’d probably want Glasgow in too, they’re crying out for a Rugby League team, and definitely Birmingham. 

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5 minutes ago, fieldofclothofgold said:

I think an exception could be made for York in Rugby League because of it being a tourist city. I heard that the top EPL clubs that although they get very big crowds they are now predominantly Tourist clubs  lost their old local fan atmosphere 

Not really, a few people have been priced out or have chosen to stop going because of the way it’s going, but generally I’d say the vast majority are what could be described as traditional fans or their descendants. 

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12 hours ago, League of XIII said:

Brian would approve of the big city expansion league I suggested in the topic below ?

 

https://www.totalrl.com/forums/index.php?/topic/343985-how-about-a-nh-expansion-league-separate-to-super-league/

Perth is too far. Surely? Especially for the North American Teams! 

Replace Perth with Lyon, Whom you mention you'd like in. 

Not sure if Perpignan & York are big enough for that League. 

Anyway, Bung em all £2m a year, see how it goes......

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Have to love how people take a few quotes (and not even the whole quote) from McDermott and use it to either be 'anti-Toronto' and 'big city teams' or use it the other way and suddenly call for existing teams to die / merge or what not.

It's not what he was saying, nor is it the path the game needs to take.  There is room for existing 'Northern Towns', however the game also, it order to grow, needs to have a presence in some larger centres to make it more appealing to sponsors and investors.  

That's not to say League needs to do things drastically differently...  We already have a pretty decent presence in areas like Bradford, Newcastle, York, Toulouse plus a foothold in say Sheffield, Coventry and so on, which if supported and tied with a serious plan over the next decade could do wonders to the marketability of the competition, especially if the likes of Ottawa, New York join the fold.   

There is also an opportunity, if a team wants it, to become more of a 'Manchester' team or 'Liverpool' team without needing to merge or rename....  I mean it's longer from the centre of London to Walton than it is from the centre of Liverpool to St Helens, yet it doesn't stop Everton being labelled as a 'London' team.  

PACIFIQUE TREIZE: Join the team by registering as a fan today at pacifique13.com

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12 hours ago, whatmichaelsays said:

Then you don't try and "sell" rugby. You try and sell an event and an experience that they're going to enjoy. You do your research and you change the messaging for the market. 

Yes, throwing money around putting a message that doesn't resonate is a bad approach. Instead, focus on what can resonate.

This doesn't just apply to RL in Liverpool (and in fairness, St Helens aren't massively under-capacity most weeks), but in any city and to any business. 

You could try to sell an "event" as you say but there is no getting around that it would be a rugby event. You could put as much marketing into something as you want but if people aren't interested than they aren't interested. 

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For Rugby League to survive,even prosper,we all know you have to have youngsters coming up through schools,amateur clubs,etc. The system in Australia,where all NRL clubs have tentacles reaching down to the street level ensures kids move up through the age groups,playing rep football and getting into State sides until they finally sign professional forms for one of the 16 NRL clubs. England,New Zealand and France would have similar structures,but what does Toronto or even Canada have? Next to nowt,so I`m sorry,to me it`s all a load of hype,no substance and in the end,doomed to fail..

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8 hours ago, Oliver Clothesoff said:

No they’re not. They’re all top flight sides. They’re small in comparison to the conglomerates of the top twenty or so clubs but by no means small domestically. 

Sports attendance is at top about 1-2%, far smaller than most cities. 

"You clearly have never met Bob8 then, he's like a veritable Bryan Ferry of RL." - Johnoco 19 Jul 2014

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Replying to a few points;

Scandinavian football league winners get champions league footy. Even if they don't get very far they earn a nice packet. FC Copenhagen must have earned millions from several group appearances in the CL. I really don't want to be cruel but they probably earn more per year than the SL clubs combined. There are a few European countries where soccer isn't number 1, Poland ( speedway), Finland ( athletics), Slovakia ( ice hockey), RL has a chance there but nowhere else in Europe.

Secondly, Leeds UTD average 27000 attendance, the best in the Championship , at the other end, Wigan Hull and Millwall about 10000, so if we say the average is 16000, 2000 " tourists", 2000 away fans, that leaves 12000 home fans, so championship clubs are definitely not tourist clubs, that sounded like a remark by someone who has never been to a game of Football.

Finally, and believe me I want RL to expand, if the game doubles in size in the next ten years, double the salaries, double the TV deals, double the international teams capable of glory, double attendance's etc , it would be a massive achievement, but IT WOULD STILL BE SMALLER THAN YAWNION  and a twentieth the size of football, and that's being generous. Dream by all means, the world needs its dreamers, but reality is really the place to be.

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SL Chairmen will be making moves to protect their interests. 

That means, no P&R. 

2 Clubs will be cut adrift, Castleford & Wakefield. The excuse will be stadia. 

4 Clubs will be allowed in, in the name of big city team expansion, Toulouse, London, Newcastle & Ottawa. 14 Team SL. 

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18 minutes ago, HawkMan said:

There are a few European countries where soccer isn't number 1, Poland ( speedway), Finland ( athletics), Slovakia ( ice hockey), RL has a chance there but nowhere else in Europe.

I think you will find that Soccer is easily the number 1 sport in Poland.

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6 hours ago, Liverpool Rover said:

You could try to sell an "event" as you say but there is no getting around that it would be a rugby event. You could put as much marketing into something as you want but if people aren't interested than they aren't interested. 

All of this "they're not interested" rhetoric  talks as if the people of Liverpool (or any city you care to think of) are some homogeneous mass of people who all think, like and dislike the same. They aren't.

Some will not be interested, some will be so averse to rugby that no type of event will appeal to them. But some won't think that way - some could be tempted by something new and those are the people you find and appeal to. 

Marketing isn't just about shouting about something (that's advertising) - it's about adapting what you have to the market you want to reach. I just can't believe that a club couldn't do that to appeal to some of the hundreds of thousands of people who live in the nearest big city. 

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When I watch a grame of any sort if I spend my time looking at the crowd n not the game its cos the game is bobbins. If its a good game who cares whos playing?

I saw 3 games on tv on Sunday, oz grand final, league 1 play-off, newc utd v Man utd.... I enjoyed the 2nd one far more than the other two

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10 minutes ago, whatmichaelsays said:

All of this "they're not interested" rhetoric  talks as if the people of Liverpool (or any city you care to think of) are some homogeneous mass of people who all think, like and dislike the same. They aren't.

Some will not be interested, some will be so averse to rugby that no type of event will appeal to them. But some won't think that way - some could be tempted by something new and those are the people you find and appeal to. 

Marketing isn't just about shouting about something (that's advertising) - it's about adapting what you have to the market you want to reach. I just can't believe that a club couldn't do that to appeal to some of the hundreds of thousands of people who live in the nearest big city. 

Actually you’d be surprised how homogeneous they are, much more so than anywhere else I’ve been. It’s the most parochial city in England by far. I have admitted you might find a few new people to be interested but they would be so few it wouldn’t be worth the massive outlay to do it. 

If anyone who posts on here and is from that area or the wider North West disagrees then maybe I’m wrong, but I doubt it  

 

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19 minutes ago, Damien said:

I think you will find that Soccer is easily the number 1 sport in Poland.

Absolutely, that's what I thought, but apparently Speedway gets bigger crowds and aren't Poland past world champs ?

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2 minutes ago, HawkMan said:

Absolutely, that's what I thought, but apparently Speedway gets bigger crowds and aren't Poland past world champs ?

Well you originally thought right. I don't know if Speedway are world champs or not but there is no way it's bigger than football.

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29 minutes ago, Damien said:

There are a few European countries where soccer isn't number 1, Poland ( speedway), Finland ( athletics), Slovakia ( ice hockey), RL has a chance there but nowhere else in Europe.

Is athletics really the #1 sport in Finland? I’m not saying it isn’t, am just really surprised. I’d have thought ice hockey and cross country skiing. I know football isn’t very big there at all though. 

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2 hours ago, DiddyDave said:

For Rugby League to survive,even prosper,we all know you have to have youngsters coming up through schools,amateur clubs,etc. The system in Australia,where all NRL clubs have tentacles reaching down to the street level ensures kids move up through the age groups,playing rep football and getting into State sides until they finally sign professional forms for one of the 16 NRL clubs. England,New Zealand and France would have similar structures,but what does Toronto or even Canada have? Next to nowt,so I`m sorry,to me it`s all a load of hype,no substance and in the end,doomed to fail..

got to give them time on that one... i agree that is what is needed but it isnt going to happen in 3 years.

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12 hours ago, Bob8 said:

Oslo, Stockholm, Vienna and Copenhagen are all very wealthy cities without top class sport. The team sport they have is in rather small time parochial leagues without any international aspect. Basel could be thrown in the mix too!

Leeds is pretty competitive in sports terms, with Leeds United and Rhinos. But, a good call. Also, Essen (I have doubts about the Novosibirisk economy).

I'd guess that if you picked a major city in Germany that wasnt Munich, Dortmund or Berlin you would probably get a very good strong NFL franchise... The Germans are big into their NFL (on the whole) and recon they could get a good franchise going. city wise they have a few nice sized cities that dont have really big big football clubs.. football will dominate but they would have a good crack at a big NFL team. Used to go to Cologne every year for business and always used to be around the Super Bowl.. sunday evening (late) and most bars showed it and loads of people wandering around in shirts of different teams.. was impressive. 

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12 hours ago, Bob8 said:

Oslo, Stockholm, Vienna and Copenhagen are all very wealthy cities without top class sport. The team sport they have is in rather small time parochial leagues without any international aspect. Basel could be thrown in the mix too!

Leeds is pretty competitive in sports terms, with Leeds United and Rhinos. But, a good call. Also, Essen (I have doubts about the Novosibirisk economy).

To be honest.. i know this isnt an NFL topic but... I can see the NFL long term plan being having a European division of some sort.. Get a London franchise, maybe then look at Germany and 2 other places.. basically what NFL Europe was but as full scale NFL rather than an off season "reserve league"... your looking way down the line (20 years) and not sure how it would fit into the current 8 divisions in 2 conferences but I can see it being what they want.. but you start with a few games in London.. building from 1 to 4 see how the crowds build and sustain over the years. Then look at a Franchise coming over full time. Look then at the demographic of travelling fans, are there people flying in from europe for the matches.. maybe replace the "london games" they have now with a game in say Munich or Berlin and start building again.. slowly slowly.. 

We can do the same with the likes of Toronto, then another maybe down the line and it starts to fit into a different structure.

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