Don't get me wrong, i understand why the RFL wants rugby in London.Its good for corporate sponsorship, its good for Sky, and if it works, it is great for British Rugby League. But it doesn't work.
A shocking 1766, there lowest attendance since 2001, turned up to watch their first home game of the season. Its a shame considering a team like Widnes aren't in Super League with such great support.
Quins commercially is suicide, but one that is necessary. Plonking a rugby league team in the middle of London is crazy. The grass roots they put in place are great, and this has started to show with players like Louie McCarthy-Scarsbrooke, Tony Clubb and Will Sharpe, but as a business, there is no way they can steal fans from RU and the 30 or so football teams in the area surrounding the Stoop and make it financially viable. Put simply, you cant get customers in a market so saturated.
The RFL made a great move by moving the crusaders to Wrexham in my opinion. The great asset to Rugby League in North Wales, is that there are no other competing teams in the area to take away competition. All rugby league fans are passionate, but it is no coincidence Warrington, Hull and Wigan have got high crowds and no successful Football teams.
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| www.billsportsmaps.com Rugby teams UK Map |
Rugby League is growing. Attendances have almost doubled in ten years mainly thanks to Sky tv promotion, and we now show the Friday night game live in Norway, but to continue expansion the rfl have to be careful about which areas they go into. The map above shows the rugby clubs in the uk as of 2009. I think a far better expansion strategy would be to try and create a competitive team in Scotland next, followed by a Cumbrian based team. Whitehaven seems the best shout for the Cumbrian, with a strong RL background, and literally NO sports teams for miles. Scotland have a Four nations teams, and amateur teams, and i think geographically they would work better than more southern teams.
I hope we do see another expansion team in the next few years, but i don't know if it would have the desired effect if the team was put in the Championship rather than Super League. That's not to say i want some of the current teams out of the competition, but the bigger the catchment area is and the more Rugby League can be promoted to new players, the higher the quality of the game will be overall.
2 comments:
Cumbria would be a good home for a Super League team, there is a long history of rugby league in the area. It is pretty remote though.
I think a great bet for a SL expansion would be a joint Cumbrian team based somewhere accessible such as Kendal or Penrith, once you get past those travelling to Barrow or Whitehaven is a pain in the arse. The problem is these aren't the RL heartlands and Cumbria is big with sepread out population centres, so maybe taking games on the road to Barrow and Whitehaven might work - similar to how some Super Rugby teams such as the Chiefs work in NZ playing mostly in Hamilton but also playing home games in Rotorua.
You'd also be trying to tear away fans from their traditional support of clubs such as Whitehaven, Workington and Barrow. So it would be a struggle from within Cumbria but I just don't see any of the current Cumbrian teams providing enough in the eyes of the RFL for a Super League place.
Interesting to read that out of UK amateur teams, Coventry have a very large internet following. Possibilities ?
http://bit.ly/dZecAG
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