What would it take for Newcastle thunder to get to super league?

[Tommygilf]

59 minutes ago, gingerjon said:

Apparently the average is £26k for the season.

Do the players play elsewhere too during the year?

[gingerjon]

41 minutes ago, Tommygilf said:

Do the players play elsewhere too during the year?

I genuinely don’t do but I‘d be surprised if playing for one British team was their only income - either training, teaching or playing elsewhere are all options

[up the robins]

Would it be more viable if they used a universal name like the the North east vipers for example, the cities in the north east are fierce rivals and might find it difficult to maybe get ppl to follow a team called Newcastle from Sunderland or the other way round.

The north east has a joint population of nearly 2 million ppl more than enough to support a top flight super league club amongst its other sporting clubs.

The Hull and east riding catchment area is only just short of 600,000 and has two super league clubs and a football club also a ice hockey team.

[EggFace]

2 hours ago, up the robins said:

Would it be more viable if they used a universal name like the the North east vipers for example, the cities in the north east are fierce rivals and might find it difficult to maybe get ppl to follow a team called Newcastle from Sunderland or the other way round.

The north east has a joint population of nearly 2 million ppl more than enough to support a top flight super league club amongst its other sporting clubs.

The Hull and east riding catchment area is only just short of 600,000 and has two super league clubs and a football club also a ice hockey team.

I wish more places were like Hull as in Newcastle

We have the variety outside Football with Rugby Union (Falcons), Rugby League (Thunder), Cricket ( Northumberland Minor Counties), Basketball (Eagles) and Ice Hockey (defunct) but just can not put bums on seats......it's very boring.

 

[Phil W]

16 hours ago, turn it in said:

Wasn’t that the original plan/model of sir John hall owning the football, rugby, basketball and ice hockey teams?

Yes and I honestly believe it could work. My belief is football isn't for everyone, having a variety of sport is good for people.

[rookie1234]

On 08/05/2025 at 15:08, up the robins said:

Would it be more viable if they used a universal name like the the North east vipers for example, the cities in the north east are fierce rivals and might find it difficult to maybe get ppl to follow a team called Newcastle from Sunderland or the other way round.

The north east has a joint population of nearly 2 million ppl more than enough to support a top flight super league club amongst its other sporting clubs.

The Hull and east riding catchment area is only just short of 600,000 and has two super league clubs and a football club also a ice hockey team.

THIS 100% !!

 

you have 1.1m people in the tyne & wear district but you are restricted to only half that because one side wont support the other. a city like durham would be perfect.

[turn it in]

On 08/05/2025 at 21:50, Phil W said:

Yes and I honestly believe it could work. My belief is football isn't for everyone, having a variety of sport is good for people.

Multi-sports clubs are most common on the European mainland like Barcelona, Bayern Munich, red star Belgrade and partizan Belgrade etc who run professional football, basketball and handball teams.

the problem we have here in the UK is that sports like basketball and ice hockey just aren’t very popular thus don’t make much if any money for potential owners.

[turn it in]

33 minutes ago, rookie1234 said:

THIS 100% !!

 

you have 1.1m people in the tyne & wear district but you are restricted to only half that because one side wont support the other. a city like durham would be perfect.

Placing a professional RL team in Durham for the purpose of trying to be neutral sounds like the scenario of trying to please everyone but actually ending up pleasing no one for me .

[OriginalMrC]

1 hour ago, rookie1234 said:

THIS 100% !!

 

you have 1.1m people in the tyne & wear district but you are restricted to only half that because one side wont support the other. a city like durham would be perfect.

They could move to somewhere like Gateshead and call themselves Gateshead Thunder. That is bound to be a success.

[Gooleboy]

1 hour ago, OriginalMrC said:

They could move to somewhere like Gateshead and call themselves Gateshead Thunder. That is bound to be a success.

Nah, they would only last one season and become Hull White Star!

[Eddie]

2 hours ago, OriginalMrC said:

They could move to somewhere like Gateshead and call themselves Gateshead Thunder. That is bound to be a success.

I’d merge them with Hull if they happened, what could go wrong. 

[Anita Bath]

3 hours ago, turn it in said:

Multi-sports clubs are most common on the European mainland like Barcelona, Bayern Munich, red star Belgrade and partizan Belgrade etc who run professional football, basketball and handball teams.

the problem we have here in the UK is that sports like basketball and ice hockey just aren’t very popular thus don’t make much if any money for potential owners.

which sporting organisations in the UK do make money? Basketball and ice hockey are hardly outsiders on this criteria and possibly lose far less money than some of the other sports.

[Hopie]

5 hours ago, rookie1234 said:

THIS 100% !!

 

you have 1.1m people in the tyne & wear district but you are restricted to only half that because one side wont support the other. a city like durham would be perfect.

This sounds like the London model, its very much an outsiders model of a team. Sports teams are built on local support, placing a team in a region and saying there you go its for all of you won't work. Its building on sand instead of a solid foundation.

[Father Gascoigne]

10 hours ago, turn it in said:

Multi-sports clubs are most common on the European mainland like Barcelona, Bayern Munich, red star Belgrade and partizan Belgrade etc who run professional football, basketball and handball teams.

the problem we have here in the UK is that sports like basketball and ice hockey just aren’t very popular thus don’t make much if any money for potential owners.

The key difference is that sporting clubs don't exist in the UK. Those continental clubs were founded upon the ideal of offering sports to its members to participate in. The professionalism then grew out of that. 

Force-feeding the idea of multi-sport clubs isn't going to work in the UK, and I don't think it benefits anyone trying to do so.  

In Europe where you have a strong football and basketball club, you'll find that fans are generally very familiar with both sports, having grown up playing both to some extent. The only comparable crossover in the UK would be with a football code and cricket. 

[turn it in]

10 hours ago, Anita Bath said:

which sporting organisations in the UK do make money? Basketball and ice hockey are hardly outsiders on this criteria and possibly lose far less money than some of the other sports.

True but at least football is popular unlike basketball and ice hockey.

[Anita Bath]

Depends how you define popular….I suspect ice hockey in sheffield for example gets crowds similar to the rugby league team….but I might be way off mark on that.

 

[muckymunksy]

No interest in RL in Newcastle 

People just need to deal with the fact the games never going grow in big city's. 

[Fevrover]

42 minutes ago, Anita Bath said:

Depends how you define popular….I suspect ice hockey in sheffield for example gets crowds similar to the rugby league team….but I might be way off mark on that.

 

Football,Ice Hockey then RL in Sheffield, sports mad City.

[iffleyox]

7 hours ago, Father Gascoigne said:

The key difference is that sporting clubs don't exist in the UK. Those continental clubs were founded upon the ideal of offering sports to its members to participate in. The professionalism then grew out of that. 

Force-feeding the idea of multi-sport clubs isn't going to work in the UK, and I don't think it benefits anyone trying to do so.  

In Europe where you have a strong football and basketball club, you'll find that fans are generally very familiar with both sports, having grown up playing both to some extent. The only comparable crossover in the UK would be with a football code and cricket. 

Except Bristol Sport - Bristol City, Bristol RU and Bristol Highfliers basketball.

admittedly that’s only been going as a group since 2012 so there’s maybe one generation there that thinks it’s normal now, but the idea was to explicitly copy Barcelona.

Edited May 20 by iffleyox

[gingerjon]

45 minutes ago, iffleyox said:

Except Bristol Sport - Bristol City, Bristol RU and Bristol Highfliers basketball.

admittedly that’s only been going as a group since 2012 so there’s maybe one generation there that thinks it’s normal now, but the idea was to explicitly copy Barcelona.

We did have some multi sport clubs in the UK, traditionally cricket plus one other (either rugby or soccer), but, over time, these have completely separated even where there are still shared facilities.

The model throws up some oddities. Thanks to my long standing support of Werder Bremen, I get a lot of links on the YouTube algorithm to the German table tennis league in which they enter a team.

[Wiltshire Warrior Dragon]

3 hours ago, Anita Bath said:

Depends how you define popular….I suspect ice hockey in sheffield for example gets crowds similar to the rugby league team….but I might be way off mark on that.

 

You are way off the mark, Anita.  Sheffield Steelers ice hockey team in the recently ended season, had an average gate of 7,938.  At least two other sides in the same competiton, the UK's Elite IHL, averaged over 6,000, namely Nottingham Panthers and Belfast Giants.

[Click]

1 hour ago, gingerjon said:

We did have some multi sport clubs in the UK, traditionally cricket plus one other (either rugby or soccer), but, over time, these have completely separated even where there are still shared facilities.

The model throws up some oddities. Thanks to my long standing support of Werder Bremen, I get a lot of links on the YouTube algorithm to the German table tennis league in which they enter a team.

Leeds has RL and Netball, not sure on any others of the top of my head though.

[Blind side johnny]

16 hours ago, Hopie said:

This sounds like the London model, its very much an outsiders model of a team. Sports teams are built on local support, placing a team in a region and saying there you go its for all of you won't work. Its building on sand instead of a solid foundation.

See Midlands Hurricanes as an example.

[Blind side johnny]

1 hour ago, Click said:

Leeds has RL and Netball, not sure on any others of the top of my head though.

Not forgetting their RU team, now languishing in the lower reaches. They also "share" a stadium with YCCC.

[Blind side johnny]

22 hours ago, turn it in said:

Multi-sports clubs are most common on the European mainland like Barcelona, Bayern Munich, red star Belgrade and partizan Belgrade etc who run professional football, basketball and handball teams.

the problem we have here in the UK is that sports like basketball and ice hockey just aren’t very popular thus don’t make much if any money for potential owners.

Many RL clubs were part of multi-sports organisations. Fartown Batley and Halifax are examples that come easily to mind and I am sure there are others.