I haven’t underestimated anything. It would be great to have a discussion based on objectivity rather than emotion.
I'm the one talking out of emotion!
You're the one talking about idyllic scenarios where a national RL competition can be set up in the US without it costing a cent (comparably to previous instances where similar things have been attempted) and overnight Americans will suddenly become massive fans of a sport they've never heard of and all will be well...
I’m sure your points come from a good place, and I honestly don’t know your experiences, but I know that I have almost 10 years of events and sport development experience. So my thoughts aren’t just popping up from a place of ignorance, naivety or stupidity.
BS you do!
You completely skip the most important step in trying to crack a new market to a sport/competition (or any product for that matter), creating a fan (consumer) base big enough and with enough interest to support the growth of the company!
But to clarify:
- It’ll be decades before there is Canadian players in Wolfpack, due to the RFLs current rules on quota players and DR
That's not necessarily bad thing... Just cause it's not as quick a process as you'd like doesn't mean that it's a bad way to do things.
Nor should the target of growing into NA be solely to attain a new playing pool anyway, so it's completely redundant. The players are a bonus, it's the fans and money that you are really after.
- MLR have published their costings and per team costings. My proposal would be far lower than that
That may be, but your league will face the exact same problem that MLR face and PRO Rugby before it faced: apathy.
That's where a Wolfpack style approach is better, cause it is a story that sells it's self to journalists and lends it's self well to free publicity...
- I’m well aware of soccer. You’ll also note the disorder of the governing body prior to the revamp into MLS. There was never a shortage of youth or adult players.
Again the focus on players!
Players are great, really they are, but they aren't what supports a competition, fans (patrons, paying customers, etc) are!
Soccer in the US, similar to here in Australia, had plenty of players, but most of those players were either A. kids playing the sport cause their parents (mum if we are being honest) thought it was safer but never really converted into fans of the product (the classic kid who is an AFL/NRL fan that plays soccer on the weekends cause mum won't let him play "dangerous" sports), or B. were fans of soccer, just not soccer in the US so they weren't patrons of the local team but their favorite team aboard, so the local MLS team or A-league team as the case may be never really sees their patronage.
Half of the US could be playing RL, that doesn't necessarily equate to them supporting local RL though...
- I didn’t suggest a pro comp of 4-6 teams would have the same reach as the wolfpack. But tbh a lot of wolfpack’s strategies could be applied to gain engagement, particularly with the beer garden. Nonetheless, you could start a pro comp with 4-6 teams with less costs than all those teams entering the RFL system
I'm sure you could, but it'll never take off because they'll never get the exposure necessary to be able to compete with established local products, i.e. they'll never attract enough fans to be sustainable.
That's where a Wolfpack style system excels, cause of the narrative they get tons of exposure (relatively to other similar projects) for free, where as a new national competition in the US wouldn't, they'd have to pay/work for that exposure and that is expensive, extremely expensive, especially in a market like the US where there's so much competition.
- Perez’s proposal of 4-6 NA teams bolstered his proposal to have Wolfpack enter. This has not materialised and Perez has been punted from the Wolfpack.
Except as I understand it that isn't true...
Perez wasn't "punted" from the WP, he stepped down to focus on helping other potential consortium's interested in joining the RFL...
What'd you expect a ton of clubs to join all within 2 and half years, give it some time...
- The NY bid is fake. It is run by a PE teacher who’s wife is more active on social media than she should be. They sure have conducted some “market research” in NY, but they do not have the connections or capital needed. They will NOT be entering a team in the RFL. Wilby was the f**king kit man for Catalans on the weekends and a PE teacher suring the week in the north of england. His “team” are just as useless!
Again that doesn't make them fake, it makes them misguided and a poor choice to invest into, but not fake.
They're still a bid, they'd still take a license if it was offered to them, etc, etc.
- My comment about La Liga was that if you have 4-6 billionaires, start the comp in NA and broadcast free on Facebook for year 1. Based on your analytics, hit up sponsors as La Liga is doing. This disruption in the traditional broadcast industry. RL did exactly that back in 1895 and should be doing so today. Why the hell are we letting traditional sporting nations be more innovative than us?!
I'm not really sure how this is really that applicable to what we are currently talking about...
If we were talking about e.g. the NRL trying to crack the US market then i'd see you're point and agree with it, but we aren't and it isn't really analogous to trying to set up a brand new professional competition in a new market playing a new sport with basically zero market penetration is it...
BTW, I've been saying for years that the NRL should upload all their games to Youtube (or wherever) so that they can be watched for free in lets say non-traditional markets...
- I want to see the game grow and want to see more international teams in the RFL system. The problem is the SL powers don’t want that. They have told Red Star Belgrade exactly that. It’s absolutely mental! But what do you do? Would you spend $500k per year in League 1 if there was no chance of promotion?
Again a big YET or ATM needs to be added on here.
Show them the potential for profit and they'll slowly change their minds, ATM the smaller clubs are threatened and the bigger clubs don't see the value (cause they haven't given the market time to grow), but as it does the money involved will slowly see the people in power change their minds.
Basically you're whole thing is that you are impatient... It's effectively been three years since this attempt to crack the NA market really started, and cause there hasn't been big growth in that time you're like 'holy shit it's failed, tear it down and try something new' when realistically the whole project is going to take decades and decades, the mere fact that the WP haven't fallen over and are still seeing slow but consistent growth is something to celebrate.
As for your idea, just like everybody else in the history of trying to crack the American sports market, form soccer, or bloody Disney and their Mighty Ducks of Anaheim, to the f**king LA Kiss (look it up it was real...), even the Wolfpack, you underestimate how much it'll cost, you're overly optimistic how many fans you'll attract from the get go, and you don't understand how long it'll actually take to establish yourself all the while you'll be at best treading water and bleeding money like somebody has cut all your arteries at once...
Anyway this is taking too long to respond to now, so I can't really be buggered anymore...
