My Rugby Union side Wasps have stated publicly that they are keen to get a Super League franchise playing at the Ricoh Stadium
http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/rugby-league/39461193
http://www.coventrytelegraph.net/spo...ities-12836467
My Rugby Union side Wasps have stated publicly that they are keen to get a Super League franchise playing at the Ricoh Stadium
http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/rugby-league/39461193
http://www.coventrytelegraph.net/spo...ities-12836467
I stopped smoking and my brother called me a quitter
Toulouse has a cultural attachment to the game.
The French clubs have a historic and important cultural attachment to the game of RL, and some French players have a cultural attachment to English RL, but individual French clubs have no cultural attachment to English RL.
Catalans have been in Super League for some time yet have formed no rivalries with any English clubs. Their home crowd lacks any tribal intensity because the clubs they play week after week mean next to nothing to those fans historically, and the distance factor means that they bring next to no away fans to any games in England. They are a French club playing in an English league, and they feel out of place in it IMO.
When they made the Challenge Cup Final in 2007 against us they barely brought any fans to Wembley because the Challenge Cup wasn't that big of a deal for them. If they made the Grand Final do we assume they'd bring more than a thousand or two? There is a cultural divide between our game in England and the history and tradition of RL in the South West of France. All Catalans have really done is take the best players out of the Ligue Elite and stuck them in a team in a bigger comp that is primarily played in another country. The culture and tradition of French RL is not about playing teams from the industrial north of England. Much like the culture and tradition of English RL is not about playing a team from the South West of France.
Maybe if Toulouse get to SL we will see a real rivalry between them and Catalans, but the fact will remain that any rivalry will be because of what RL is in France and not because of Super League. Once we go beyond France and start adding sides like Toronto the divide will grow even further.
Good synopsis Gray. I would like to add this though, Maurice Lindsay sold SKY a vision that eventually our sport would have a European demographic. SKY didn't buy a game in the 62 corridor they saw Manchester playing Barcelona and the governing body of the sport have become more passive towards the SKY paymasters with Nige in charge to the point the game is utterly reliant on that broadcaster and certain clubs are creating a business model to live on Sky funding alone which is why the million pound gimmick was brought in to try and shake things up a bit. Proudly the game in this country is the north and rightly you all state London has been tried and invested in and tried again but it is not what the people want to pay to watch live.
Many moons ago there was the wild idea of a European Super League in football. Man United, Chelsea, Liverpool, Real Madrid, Barcelona, Bayern, Juventus et al would break away and form their own league. It looked exciting and we were told that if it ever happened it would provide elite football full of drama and top quality matches.
But once people stopped and gave it some thought the massive issues of culture and history cropped up. Would an Arsenal fan prefer a Saturday afternoon playing PSG or Milan to a Saturday afternoon playing Tottenham or West Ham. Would a Liverpool fan prefer a home game with Dortmund to a home game with Everton? The answer was usually no. Playing these big sides was something for the CL or EL, an extra bonus that was special because it was rare. The tribal culture and tradition of the game in England necessitates playing rivals, both local and national, and RL is no different. Drawing Catalans or Toronto in the Cup every five years would be interesting. But playing them twice every year becomes (and would become) stale because there is no rivalry, no cultural attachment and no sense that it feels normal.
This is why Saints v Wigan games get the highest ratings on Sky. Not because we are always 1 and 2 in the league, but because we are the greatest rivals with loads of history and tribal passion. Stick Catalans in the GF and I guarantee it would be the lowest rated GF on Sky ever. Because despite Sky telling us how much them doing well is great for the game, the underlying feeling is that hardly any of us care how Catalans do. There is a reason for that.
As has been said already, some teams will finish at the top others in the middle and some at the bottom. It is just how it is and should be.
Since the start of SL there has of course only been four teams winning it and only six teams that have contested the Grand Final and of those two who have contested the GF they have only appeared in it three times in 21 years.
As much as it would be amazing for Saints to still somehow win the GF this season, it would for the benefit of Rugby League as a whole to see a new name on the trophy. A new winner would inspire other teams in the SL to improve and that it is not impossible to develop a title winning team.
What I find somewhat frustrating is that in order to acheive a competitive league, standards have been reduced or diluted in order to acheive the aim of levelling out the competition rather than positively raising standards across the board.
Teams which are geographically close i.e Widnes, St Helens, Warrington Wigan, Leigh and Salford although rivals also perhaps should be doing more to raise the profile of the game between them to the local audiences. Surely, gtronger attendances across all the clubs is good for others too and the sport in general. Going forward, Catalans would I think benefit enormously in having a close rival and a second French club in the competition. Having a close competitior spurs you on to match and beat them. Equally, it is up to Widnes to improve and develop and narrow the gap between their closest geographical rivals too.
Great team, great successes, but making barely a ripple in Australia's 'sporting capital' despite all of those Premierships and all of those superstar players.
In a city region with 9 AFL teams with at least 40,000 members each the Storm membership sits below 20,000. They kind of remind me of when John Hall bought Newcastle RU and made them into Newcastle Falcons. They had Wilkinson, Andrew, Tuigamala etc and did really well. But the crowds were poor in a city that obviously loves its sport, and you sensed it was always a bit strange. The Storm give that same vibe, like they are a team that isn't really loved or valued in its home town.
But if you do that, you go head to head with the region's many football teams for most of the season. Given the expense of tickets at Liverpool, Everton, United, City etc, you're onto a loser if you have a season ticket at both which plenty do. If I had to choose between going to Liverpool or Saints I am going to choose Liverpool because I have already shelled out £47 for that ticket.
That being said I see we have a Sunday game later this season against Catalans - is this testing the water for a move to weekends or a one off?
WON'T SOMEONE PLEASE THINK OF POOR BEN FLOWER?!
I get what you are saying and maybe saints have done their research and decided that this would have a significant bearing on attendance and if so then brilliant.
However the odd Sunday and Saturday games we have had seem to generate larger crowds.
I do miss attending in person as Fridays are impossible for me, but if they are right for the majority then that is the right choice.
I think a mixture of both would be preferable. Friday nights generate more hospitality income for the clubs, with businesses and clients preferring to go to games and using the stadium straight from work. Sunday afternoons wouldn't work as well as it eats into weekend family time, people don't want to drink as much and people generally don't want to do 'business' type events that day. So, for the bigger games Fridays have made sense. Plus a lot of people like going to games, having a few beers either side of it and then still having their weekend free. But, for some games against smaller opponents in the Summer months I think Sunday would work. You get better weather, away fans will be happier travelling and families will come out in higher numbers.
I'd like to know what Thursday nights do for the club though. Does anyone know if hospitality suffers if a big game like Wigan is scheduled for a work night as opposed to Friday?
I have listened to Wasps's CEO, he sounds quite sensible and realistic about it. It sounds like he wants to test his market first before jumping in and shelling out for a club. Which is encouraging that he wants to make sure it is a success rather than just dropping a team in and hoping for the best.
So we could be looking at Coventry down the line but not essentially now. Obviously the media want to ask the question about a team and then report it as a bigger story than it is.
I could agree with you but then we would both be wrong.
I had considered the talk about relocating teams a ploy by Wakefield to get a stadium out of the council. If Wakefield were serious there are a number of good stadiums around they could move into, Doncaster and Barnsley being the obvious ones. However I do think they want to stay in Wakefield and are just saber rattling.
However as Widnes have a ground this sounds more serious (if indeed this is a true story). If the alternative is Widnes having the plug pulled and have the team fall down into the championship then we may as well keep the team and have them play elsewhere.
Toronto and Toulouse have already put a lot of money into working their way up the ladder so there is little point in them paying twice.
I could agree with you but then we would both be wrong.
I believe all matchday revenue at Widnes goes directly to the council so the club are surviving solely on the sky tv money. As somebody mentioned earlier this is not sustainable.
I think this could be an attempt to squeeze the council into handing over a percentage of matchday revenue. A sort of, "help us out with some cash or we are off" sort of ultimatum.
If, however, selling the franchise is a serious option I can see Newcastle being the favoured destination.
Magic weekend has given the geordies a tatste of RL for the last 3 years and with that being out dor tender they may miss out next year. Imagine a super league team playing up there week in and week out, especially a team that have played up there for the last two years in black and white horizontal stripes.
I wonder if maybe this has been in the minds of the owners dor a couple of years.
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Widnes should move to Runcorn and then they could really stink the place out.
Learned comment from The Don
If what you say is true and Widnes are just relying on TV money then they should fold. You can't run a pro team like that, regardless how sad it might be for fans. Plus I hear nothing about Widnes trying to get fans in. At least MK at Salford is constantly looking at ways to get fans interested. But if getting more fans does not give them more money then maybe they don't care.
Humans are more concerned with having than being.
If they get no money from fans turning up on the day then why would it matter if they got 100,000 rather than the current 5000?
The plea was for more fans to turn up or they may have to move, not to renegotiate the deal with the council.
You would have to think they must get some of the gate receipts, it may just be that at current levels of fans all those receipts are paying for the rent leaving nothing on top to bolster the squad.
With a peak of 8k for the Warrington game and Wigan and Saints only just pushing over the 6k level, it's not very sustainable as it is. But who can turn a profit at those levels. Someone said Newcastle, but they would face similar issues to all expansion clubs i.e. growing the game.
Just looking back it's not like attendances at Widnes have fallen away, but they have not grown particularly well and the big draws are not pulling in what they used to. Which may say more about the performance of Wigan, Saints, Warrington this year than Widnes itself.
It's hard to compare against other clubs as SL have not been putting out attendances on their website on a regular basis this year, but Widnes' attendances seem to be similar to Leigh, Salford, Wakefield....
So the question for me would be if Widnes are feeling the strain, how long before these other clubs also start to buckle if c5-6k fans cannot maintain a club.
Probably worth adding Huddersfield to that list of clubs too...