Originally Posted by
DD
Is it “inward thinking” or is it more likely a simple dose of realism.
Optimism is fine, but when optimism is replaced by blind optimism despite the facts of 125 years flying in the face of it, then you’ve gone beyond the point of faith into delusion.
Rugby League is a regional sport with a niche audience. The sport is actually played out at a fraction of the entertainment level that it once was. It was much more watchable for a neutral in 1996, when broken play allowed exciting passages of play to make for a much more exciting watch for a neutrall than the current Super League mantra of running at each other as fast as possible in order to break a wall down. If we couldn’t sustain clubs out of the heartland when the sport was at its most exciting, then it’s got sod all chance now in an era that its no more entertaining to watch in this country than Union.
In Australia, they couldn’t make clubs last in Perth or Adelaide, despite their game being light years ahead of us on and off the pitch. Melbourne is a wonderful success in terms of its team, but even after twenty years at the top of the tree, they still have the feel of aliens in a city that still isn’t mad keen on the sport.
Toronto were never going to be sustainable. Certainly not in a British competition. That is not the fault of the RFL. There was no foundation. It was merely a British club planted on Canadian soil to give the game some credence. It was a fad and all fads fizzle out.
It doesn’t matter whether you think this attitude is all wrong. It’s simple logistics and mathematics. It’s a simple study of human behaviour. If the clubs hadn’t voted them out this time, they’d have very shortly gone bump of their own accord. Like every single attempt to expand Rugby League in the past, it was doomed to failure.
The problem with a lot of Rugby League supporters is that they have a vastly over-inflated opinion of the merits of their own sport. A lot cannot understand why it’s not universal. They quote the “greatest game” as if it’s a fact rather than an opinion. They believe that the only reason it’s not watched more than football or Union is purely down to poor marketing and sport leadership. However, in truth, the game before the 1970s was largely dull as ditch water and the game since 2005, in this country at least, has been little better. It had a window when it was a truly wonderful sport to watch, but that window has gone. That was the time for expansion.
I just don’t see for the life of me how this game is in a position to attract all those extra supporters, and let’s remember that Toronto’s crowds have been largely based around free tickets. Most of the crowd seemed to just stand around drinking, eating and chatting, whilst not even looking at the pitch. They treated it like a gala or village fete. The number of paying supporters they had was not increasing. What’s more, a likely 30 month gap between home games because of Covid, even if they had been allowed back into next year’s competition, would likely have lost many to the game anyway. And let’s not forget that Toronto couldn’t even play a home game for the first three months of the season anyway. The whole thing was just not practical.
If Rugby League wants to set up from grass roots level in Canada, then great, but I’ll ask you this now. If Toronto has played its last game, will any of their supporters be rushing to set up the amateur game there, to start their own league, or will they more likely find another gala to go to on a Saturday night instead?
Rugby League in another major country might be the way forward, but the whole methodology of this meant that it was always doomed to failure. It was just too far away. You could do it in Western Europe, because its on our doorstep, but our sport is way too small to sustain Trans-Atlantic competitions and it always will be. Not because of “inward thinkers” like me, but because that’s what the sport is and it quite simply is no longer entertaining enough to appeal to anyone bar its own existing fans. It’s on the field where the game has p’ssed on its future chips, not off it.