Toulouse struggling

[Hello]

11 hours ago, DEANO said:

Trying to grow the game over a hundred years after it was invented tells you something. 

Yep, the efforts to grow it have been shockingly bad.

[GUBRATS]

1 minute ago, Hello said:

Yep, the efforts to grow it have been shockingly bad.

Football brew because it is the simplest game 

Union grew because it was amateur

RL didn't grow because it was proffessional and the money went to the player's 

[The Rocket]

5 hours ago, ShropshireBull said:

Will say this and won´t respond because it always gets hijacked or someone from a club I mention takes it as a potshot or my personal favourite, they create more strawmen than a drunk farmer.

Toulouse, despite having to deal with restrictions making it impossible to promote fixtures at beginning of season to sponsors, despite having to lose two of their most key players on eve of season and restrictions making bringing in new players immensely hard. Oh and paying for Travel costs of every other team. 

And despite the immense stupidity (that´s the best description of it, otherwise you´d would have to conclude it was a Union fan looking to deliberately kneecap Toulouse) of playing what should have been their setpiece game on a Thursday night (whoever did that wants locking away), they still averaged pretty much 5000 (4967).

So, we can say that is their floor and at their absolute worst they still got more people in than Salford, Wakey and were 200 behind Giants, despite Giants having near enough 15 years to build a fanbase in SL and who were having a great season. 

Noone with any sense would think it wise for a sport desperate for growth to lock out a team in a completely different market with that. 

Second, if it isn´t clear to people right now, the idea of depending on NRL to give meaningful internationals is dead. Not building semi competitive european competition for England to play on FTA to attract new eyeballs and commercial sponsors is a longstanding failure that has now come home to roost. Australia aren´t coming, nor are Kiwis.. It´s not going to happen. So when we have two clubs in France who could provide a core of French players to have that game, the sport would be mad, literally mad, to turn its back on this.

It is all the more baffling as the sport has shown it can do it with expansion clubs as it did protect Catalan and catalan has grown to be one of the better run clubs in the comp. So the sport already knows it can work. 

But perhaps the best arguement of all is the ´alternative´ people suggest (more of the same loop fixtures, more of the same hostile attitude to new markets, more people saying I won´t watch England play France when it has been pointed out that they are not the target market for those games) has led the sport to a massive cut in money from Sky, declinging demographics and me being one of the younger fans of the sport even though I´m already 30. 

Having Toulouse scrabble around in a part time league, paying for flights, then putting their derby on a thursday evening is another act of Self Sabotage. 

The reality is it doesn´t even half to be either or. We´ve more than enough teams with a good solid fanbase and the infrastructure for a 14 team SL to give Toulouse a chance to grow and still have your Fev´s or Widnes (no laughing at the back) to get up. 

14 team league: Hull/KR, Pies/Saints Catalan/Toulouse then a Fev /Cas or Widnes / Wire. Local derbies, international market, growth and a big game every week for tv without loop fixtures. 

Stop making sense.

[DlEHARD]

Gee I still cringe hearing about the Perth Reds having to pay for rival teams travel in the mid 90s. But I'm reading how Toulouse are lumped with travel costs. Unbelievable. 

[The Future is League]

On 27/01/2023 at 17:41, Damien said:

Its not really surprising. Any other club paying travel costs would find themselves in a similar situation.

I don't know the answer to this, "But does the NZ Warriors in the NRL have to pay the expenses of visiting Australian NRL clubs?"

[The Future is League]

On 28/01/2023 at 05:55, DEANO said:

Tired of this London thing. They’ve had 41 years to make an impression with the help of rich benefactors and the rfl and still they just make up the numbers. They offer nothing to rl  unfortunately 

Remind me how long the likes of Salford, Oldham, Rochdale and Swinton have had Rugby League teams?

[The Future is League]

20 hours ago, Harry Stottle said:

Potentially the people of Toulouse can get behind and support their local Professional Rugby League team, the reality is they don't appear to want one, had they done so this thread would never have surfaced.

A bit like Salford then

[The Future is League]

18 hours ago, Hello said:

The NFL is watched by many millions of people outside of the states and London sells out Tottenham's stadium easily when they play a game there, usually more than once a season so I thinking if RL had the international popularity of the NFL then the IRL would be laughing all the way to the bank.  I agree with you to an extent that at times people expect the RFL to be miracle workers and blame them unfairly in some instances, but I think that nearly everyone on this forum is in agreement that they could do a damn sight better at supporting the existing game and promoting it to new areas, starting with not forcing Toulouse to pay travel if they get back to SL. The short term thinking by some is how they might lose part of their team budget in travelling whilst not seeing the bigger long-term benefits of having big name places in the sport to make it more attractive to potential new supporters and not be seen as "tin-pot" as so many say.

Its called marketing, and they are very good at it.

The next NFL club will be in London and most games will be sell outs when ever it happens because they know how to market their game even though it's an alien game to people in this country

[The Future is League]

16 hours ago, Harry Stottle said:

I can't see that will be a problem, the way Toulouse are approaching this season on the playing roster side, I think that they have given up already on any chance that they will be promoted this year.

Have possibly cut their cloth accordingly for the coming season

[AB90]

23 minutes ago, The Future is League said:

I don't know the answer to this, "But does the NZ Warriors in the NRL have to pay the expenses of visiting Australian NRL clubs?"

No as I would assume each club covers their own travel and accommodation costs. 

The NRL provide club grants (paid on top of the salary cap payments) to cover all operational expenses. As per the new CBA currently being negotiated the figure is reportedly $5m (paid on top the circa $12.4m salary) per club. I would assume travel and accommodation just comes from this.

[gingerjon]

1 minute ago, AB90 said:

No as I would assume each club covers their own travel and accommodation costs. 

The NRL provide club grants (paid on top of the salary cap payments) to cover all operational expenses. As per the new CBA currently being negotiated the figure is reportedly $5m (paid on top the circa $12.4m salary) per club. I would assume travel and accommodation just comes from this.

Yes, this is my memory from when it was asked before. Each club gets a standard amount which will cover all their travel and accommodation costs but if they want to spend more (say they want to stay in a Premier Inn rather than a Travelodge) then the travelling club pays the difference.

[Eddie]

19 hours ago, GUBRATS said:

How do you want these clubs to support that expansion ? 

Pay for their own travel to games away from the M62? 

[DEANO]

1 hour ago, The Future is League said:

Remind me how long the likes of Salford, Oldham, Rochdale and Swinton have had Rugby League teams?

Don’t think they’ve had Richard Branson and the rfl on board. Otherwise who knows where they migh be

[Forever Trinity]

On 27/01/2023 at 22:02, Hello said:

They managed about 8 or 9 thousand for their play off final against Fev in the championship.  The opportunity to build upon this for the greater good of the sport was, as usual, missed.  You can see as plain as day just from posts on these boards alone that many of the fans (not all by a long shot) are very happy that the sport is not expanding because they are desperate to keep their own small town club fighting to be king of nothing.  Outside of their club, however, the world keeps spinning and increasingly giving less of a flip about league.

A shame they failed average 5000 or over for a full SL season

[Mr Frisky]

6 minutes ago, Forever Trinity said:

A shame they failed average 5000 or over for a full SL season

Hard to attract fans when your getting hammered most weeks.

[Archie Gordon]

Let's not rewrite history.

TO put a pretty poor SL squad together even before losing Kheirallah and Ford (two Championship players anyway). 

Covid didn't scupper their season - though it impacted the off-field offering for some of their early home games.

They were very rarely hammered and nothing like "most weeks".

Edited January 29, 2023 by Archie Gordon

[kiggy]

5 minutes ago, Archie Gordon said:

 

They were very rarely hammered and nothing like "most weeks".

I believe, and so do others at the club, that with Ford on the pitch they wouldn't have lost those games when they were winning or close, and lost it in some stupid 20 minute second half period.  I've been asked to do some data analyses to see if we can use what we learnt from the SL experience for better game management. Although with a new group of players it's going to take a while to see how we can best use them. There were some SL games where they were just not in it, but some others, the fine margins made a difference. 

[Mr Frisky]

13 minutes ago, Archie Gordon said:

Let's not rewrite history.

TO put a pretty poor SL squad together even before losing Kheirallah and Ford (two Championship players anyway). 

Covid didn't scupper their season - though it impacted the off-field offering for some of their early home games.

They were very rarely hammered and nothing like "most weeks".

They had a points difference of something like -320 something- 2x worse then the next worse team.

So yes they did, unfortunately, get hammered most weeks. I wanted them to stay up by the way and I even won £900 on them when I backed them to beat Saints.

[Archie Gordon]

3 minutes ago, kiggy said:

I believe, and so do others at the club, that with Ford on the pitch they wouldn't have lost those games when they were winning or close, and lost it in some stupid 20 minute second half period.  I've been asked to do some data analyses to see if we can use what we learnt from the SL experience for better game management. Although with a new group of players it's going to take a while to see how we can best use them. There were some SL games where they were just not in it, but some others, the fine margins made a difference. 

I have some sympathy re. the loss of Ford, yes. The point I was making, however, was that with or without him TO put together a relegation-scrapping squad. Ford might have kept them up but they were always going to be in a battle for 10th-12th. The lack of recruitment after promotion was really odd. Recruitment isn't easy, of course, but TO seemed to believe the promotion squad would go OK in SL.

[kiggy]

4 minutes ago, Archie Gordon said:

I have some sympathy re. the loss of Ford, yes. The point I was making, however, was that with or without him TO put together a relegation-scrapping squad. Ford might have kept them up but they were always going to be in a battle for 10th-12th. The lack of recruitment after promotion was really odd. Recruitment isn't easy, of course, but TO seemed to believe the promotion squad would go OK in SL.

I agree for the most. They knew from the start it was going to be a bottom table struggle, 3 more wins and it would have made things very interesting. I also know how much of a problem it was, behind the scenes, trying to attract quality players when Catalans are the proven team in the area. It's not just the players mind you, 2 players have left this year because of family/partner pressure. 

[Davo5]

1 hour ago, Archie Gordon said:

Let's not rewrite history.

TO put a pretty poor SL squad together even before losing Kheirallah and Ford (two Championship players anyway). 

Covid didn't scupper their season - though it impacted the off-field offering for some of their early home games.

They were very rarely hammered and nothing like "most weeks".

They struggled in those opening fixtures but seemed to find their feet & were really competitive most weeks in the middle part of the season & were unfortunate with a few close losses,what was disappointing was the end of season fade out after those 3 wins put them within touching distance of safety.

 

[Davo5]

1 hour ago, kiggy said:

I believe, and so do others at the club, that with Ford on the pitch they wouldn't have lost those games when they were winning or close, and lost it in some stupid 20 minute second half period.  I've been asked to do some data analyses to see if we can use what we learnt from the SL experience for better game management. Although with a new group of players it's going to take a while to see how we can best use them. There were some SL games where they were just not in it, but some others, the fine margins made a difference. 

Well you’ve got rid of the Norman/Gigot combination in the halves so that should help with that although you are still carrying a number of veteran players which might not.

[Big Picture]

7 hours ago, DEANO said:

Don’t think they’ve had Richard Branson and the rfl on board. Otherwise who knows where they migh be

One has to wonder what Branson thought the first time he heard one of the other owners talking about "away fans" as something important in terms of revenue!

 

8 hours ago, The Future is League said:

Its called marketing, and they are very good at it.

The next NFL club will be in London and most games will be sell outs when ever it happens because they know how to market their game even though it's an alien game to people in this country

The NFL has built their audience in London up to the point where they think London can support two franchises, and reportedly they're trying to work out how to base a whole 4-team division in Europe to minimize the cost and burden of transatlantic travel.  As for how they make such a new division fit into their 53 year old structure of two Conferences each with the same numbers of divisions and franchises whose respective Champions play in the Super Bowl, that's a logistical migraine if ever there was one!

Edited January 29, 2023 by Big Picture

[Joe Aitcheson]

16 hours ago, GUBRATS said:

Football brew because it is the simplest game 

Union grew because it was amateur

RL didn't grow because it was proffessional and the money went to the player's 

When was rugger union ever amateur, ffs?

[GUBRATS]

30 minutes ago, Big Picture said:

One has to wonder what Branson thought the first time he heard one of the other owners talking about "away fans" as something important in terms of revenue!

 

The NFL has built their audience in London up to the point where they think London can support two franchises, and reportedly they're trying to work out how to base a whole 4-team division in Europe to minimize the cost and burden of transatlantic travel.  As for how they make such a new division fit into their 53 year old structure of two Conferences each with the same numbers of divisions and franchises whose respective Champions play in the Super Bowl, that's a logistical migraine if ever there was one!

In London's case it was probably bigger income than their home fans 

And the NFL has invested hundreds of millions of dollars into Europe , for essentially nothing tangible in return , hardly good business