Why expansion is good for ESL

[ancientnloyal]

Just been reading an article on Fox sports Australia http://www.foxsports.com.au/story/0,865 ... 14,00.html concerning the locality of NRL clubs within close proximity to each other around Sydney losing money.

Its seems that as time has gone on and fans settle down, local clubs start to lose money because of the close competition to attract a limited fan base.

I believe the likes of st helens, wigan, warrington, leeds bradford are safe... you just need to adapt the linked article to clubs over here such as Wakefield, Huddersfield and Castleford. The first 5 years of the franchise may be good, but eventually those teams already struggling financially may fold.

We need expansion in birmingham, cumbria and the south, imo. Maybe Wakefield will relocate to Nottingham or birmingham? lets hope so

[GeoffN]

Just been reading an article on Fox sports Australia http://www.foxsports.com.au/story/0,865 ... 14,00.html concerning the locality of NRL clubs within close proximity to each other around Sydney losing money.

Its seems that as time has gone on and fans settle down, local clubs start to lose money because of the close competition to attract a limited fan base.

I believe the likes of st helens, wigan, warrington, leeds bradford are safe... you just need to adapt the linked article to clubs over here such as Wakefield, Huddersfield and Castleford. The first 5 years of the franchise may be good, but eventually those teams already struggling financially may fold.

We need expansion in birmingham, cumbria and the south, imo. Maybe Wakefield will relocate to Nottingham or birmingham? lets hope so

Interesting article, and a good analysis, a'n'l.

[ancientnloyal]

But of course... proximity is just 1 of 10 things the RFL are looking into... we could easily have 20 criteria concering a franchise yes or no. The problem with Australia though is Perth and NZ. Although league isnt big in Perth it wouldn't harm a team with a gate of 10,000 to play there. Clubs earning $40mAUS can easily afford plane fairs or the league could help.

Be nice if there was another NZ-based team

[cyberpieman]

so what we need is a proactive RFL board with a good set of marketing minds to go out and promote the sport south of the M62

oh...shit ! :conf: