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Toronto Gone?

titoelcolombiano

First Grade
Messages
5,276
Michael Carbone of Chasing Kangaroos Podcast said it best on Toronto (and I'm paraphrasing)...

It would be such a shame if Toronto folds and we look back in 10 or 20 years time at that time that RL used to draw 8 - 10k crowds to matches in Canada like we look back on Russia now.
 
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The Great Dane

First Grade
Messages
7,723
Built on a pack of cards by an owner with bigger ambitions than wallet whose logistical difficulties were always going to prove challenging. Should sum it up lol.
You should listen to it.

Lets put it this way, if an expansion club in the NRL was treated the way the Wolfpack has been treated then you'd be furious.

In fact pretty much all the poms that rag on the Wolfpack would be the first to scream that the NRL is holding the game back internationally if they were treating the Warriors, or other overseas clubs, the way the RFL and English clubs have treated the Wolfpack.

Considering their situation it was inevitable that covid was going to hit Toronto the hardest as well.
 

Pommy

Coach
Messages
14,657
Built on a pack of cards by an owner with bigger ambitions than wallet whose logistical difficulties were always going to prove challenging. Should sum it up lol.

Should have factored in a 1 in a 100 Year pandemic like every other business does and getting zero help from the league.
The more I think about them getting no central funding the more it annoys me actually. How is that anyway to run anything?
 

Perth Red

Post Whore
Messages
65,407
Should have factored in a 1 in a 100 Year pandemic like every other business does and getting zero help from the league.
The more I think about them getting no central funding the more it annoys me actually. How is that anyway to run anything?

it was a stupid decision and another sign of argyles poor management and arrogance that he thought they could survive without it.

they weren’t paying their bills last year, covid has just sped up the inevitable by the sounds of things.
 

Warriors Fever

Juniors
Messages
1,667
I think it would be a shame to lose a club that has already garnered such support from non league fans. There average crowds would probably beat many in the super league. Salford, Huddersfield, Wakefield etc.
if they are to be replaced surely Toulouse is the only club in championship with an actual city behind them that can replace them.
 

Pommy

Coach
Messages
14,657
it was a stupid decision and another sign of argyles poor management and arrogance that he thought they could survive without it.

they weren’t paying their bills last year, covid has just sped up the inevitable by the sounds of things.

What choice did they have, they weren’t going to admit them to SL otherwise.
 

Perth Red

Post Whore
Messages
65,407
What choice did they have, they weren’t going to admit them to SL otherwise.

They could have worked out travel and accommodation costs and offered to pay them instead. The clubs would have had no reason to deny them the SL grant then.
They should have refused to join without the payment and the RFL/SL should never have admitted them into the sport without that scenario already agreed to. Problem in UK is you have RFL AND SL clubs wanting to run the game. Its a recipe for disaster and this is just the latest example.
End of day Toronto had hardly any revenue other than what was coming out of Argyles pocket. Their only sponsors were Argyle companies and with no SL grant how exactly did they think they were going to survive. Argyle alleges he spent 18mill in just 3 years on them! How was that sustainable? Then to sign SBW on the most outrageous contract ever seen in RL at the same time they werent paying bills just showed how far from reality this guy is.
If COVID hadnt happened there was a good chance they would have been relegated end of this season, how would they have survived back in the lower division?
Argyle makes Nathan Tinkler look like Nick Politis in sports club administration!
 

Perth Red

Post Whore
Messages
65,407
I think it would be a shame to lose a club that has already garnered such support from non league fans. There average crowds would probably beat many in the super league. Salford, Huddersfield, Wakefield etc.
if they are to be replaced surely Toulouse is the only club in championship with an actual city behind them that can replace them.

It is another blow for RL expansion and they had generated a great fanbase in a short period of time. It is a shame for them fans who were just waking up to RL (out of interest I see AFL has a comp in Toronto but there is no RL one!). Hopefully Toulouse can build to be as sustaibale in the top flight as Perpignan. Id also like to see another crack at getting a Welsh club into SL, done right next time.
 

The Great Dane

First Grade
Messages
7,723
They could have worked out travel and accommodation costs and offered to pay them instead. The clubs would have had no reason to deny them the SL grant then.
They should have refused to join without the payment and the RFL/SL should never have admitted them into the sport without that scenario already agreed to. Problem in UK is you have RFL AND SL clubs wanting to run the game. Its a recipe for disaster and this is just the latest example.
End of day Toronto had hardly any revenue other than what was coming out of Argyles pocket. Their only sponsors were Argyle companies and with no SL grant how exactly did they think they were going to survive. Argyle alleges he spent 18mill in just 3 years on them! How was that sustainable? Then to sign SBW on the most outrageous contract ever seen in RL at the same time they werent paying bills just showed how far from reality this guy is.
If COVID hadnt happened there was a good chance they would have been relegated end of this season, how would they have survived back in the lower division?
Argyle makes Nathan Tinkler look like Nick Politis in sports club administration!
Firstly they were already paying travel and accommodation costs for their opposition (including organising f**king visas for what are supposedly pro organisations), and have been since day dot, so obviously that wasn't enough to change the Super League club's minds about giving them the grant.
They were also sponsored by multiple businesses that David Argyle didn't own, like Air Transat and Maple Leaf Diamonds.

You can't blame the Wolfpack for continuing on in the league after being denied central funding that should have been theirs just as a given, especially after they had already invested millions getting to where they were. It's a bit like those that blame the Western Reds for going ahead with their spot in the ARL and then jumping to SL after the NSWRL had pulled their shenanigans!

The RFL and SL shouldn't have offered them entry into the league in the first place if they planned to string them along and f**k them around as they have. The fact of the matter is that the Super League clubs tried to have their cake and eat it too, and it looks like they've undermined another opportunity for expansion as a result.

It's ludicrous to point out that the Wolfpack weren't independently sustainable in the short term as well, because of course they weren't!
They were trying to launch an almost totally new sport to a premium market from scratch. That was always going to need to be propped up in the short term and be incredibly expensive as a result, but that's the only way you are ever going to set the sport up in markets like Toronto.
Honestly you sound like GROTD's complaining about x millions of dollars being spent on the Storm.
 
Messages
593
It is another blow for RL expansion and they had generated a great fanbase in a short period of time. It is a shame for them fans who were just waking up to RL (out of interest I see AFL has a comp in Toronto but there is no RL one!). Hopefully Toulouse can build to be as sustaibale in the top flight as Perpignan. Id also like to see another crack at getting a Welsh club into SL, done right next time.
there is a toronto comp look under orl. there are even some junior clubs set up now with some good numbers. This isnt just a argyle stuff up, perez believed in a top down system, there were a lot of people that tried to get him involved in a junior system but he wasnt interested
 

The Great Dane

First Grade
Messages
7,723
there is a toronto comp look under orl. there are even some junior clubs set up now with some good numbers. This isnt just a argyle stuff up, perez believed in a top down system, there were a lot of people that tried to get him involved in a junior system but he wasnt interested
A bottom up approach simply isn't possible in new markets, because there effectively is no bottom to build up from.

In other words there was no way for the Wolfpack to build up the grassroots or boost junior development in Toronto until some foundations grew into place organically, that organic growth would have taken years in of it's self and if the Wolfpack had tried to force it just would have been an expensive waste of time and energy.
 

Warriors Fever

Juniors
Messages
1,667
It is another blow for RL expansion and they had generated a great fanbase in a short period of time. It is a shame for them fans who were just waking up to RL (out of interest I see AFL has a comp in Toronto but there is no RL one!). Hopefully Toulouse can build to be as sustaibale in the top flight as Perpignan. Id also like to see another crack at getting a Welsh club into SL, done right next time.
The key would be getting a city with a population and not Wrexham
 
Messages
593
A bottom up approach simply isn't possible in new markets, because there effectively is no bottom to build up from.

In other words there was no way for the Wolfpack to build up the grassroots or boost junior development in Toronto until some foundations grew into place organically, that organic growth would have taken years in of it's self and if the Wolfpack had tried to force it just would have been an expensive waste of time and energy.


no its not easy but the groundwork still needed to be laid. There are some lower level quality players over there and they had the issue of the rugby clubs banning first 15 palyers from playing league. If they had of started a system the 10-12 years ago when perez first got involved it would have been a start to go with the top down approach
 

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