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Four North AmerIcan cities interested in joining the RFL

deluded pom?

Coach
Messages
10,897
What is Ricky Wilby's nationality and business background?
From what I’ve heard and seen he’s a PE teacher from West Yorkshire. He’s a relation of Tim Wilby who used to play for Leeds and Hull FC in the 1980s. Tim Wilby was also involved in David Lloyd (former GB Davis Cup tennis player and brother of John Lloyd) taking over at Hull FC and Hull City.
 

deluded pom?

Coach
Messages
10,897
Wilby's involvement with Catalans was assisting the kitman during matches in England and writing a column in the matchday program, he was also a moderator of the Catalans forum at RLFans.com.
I didn’t think he had a serious involvement with Catalans or I’m sure I would have heard about it before now.
 

taste2taste

Juniors
Messages
2,495
If the players would play for only 5K and sit in cattle class ( like they do for domestic flights) that would knock about 500K off the bill.
 

siv

First Grade
Messages
6,762
Sounds like the RFL need to setup a North American conference, Western Europe conference and Eastern Europe conference and a English conference
 

The Great Dane

First Grade
Messages
7,960
Or, these other countries can create a competition, ala rugby union.

Lets just take the US and Canada, to start up the Wolfpack and support them until they are a sustainable business and are established in the community in Toronto as part of the RFL will cost them tens of millions of dollars in investment, maybe even into the hundreds of millions in the long term.

To set up an independent RL competition in the US and Canada of any reasonable size and getting it to the point where it's got any sort of significant market penetration and it's sustainable would cost billions of dollars of investment.

Look at soccer in the US, they started from a firmer base then RL will in the US and they've still spent what 50 or so years and pissed billions of dollars down a black-hole just to get to the point that they are at now, RL simply doesn't have the resources to pull something like that off, so the only way that RL is establishing it's self in the US is if it can use other markets as a crutch to help support it's self until it's cemented it's self into enough communities and has enough sustainable clubs to break away from those markets it was using as a crutch and support it's self independently.
 

deal.with.it

Juniors
Messages
2,086
Sure, but if there are individuals interested they can lobby sponsors and government. The RFL isn’t the saviour for all.
 

The Great Dane

First Grade
Messages
7,960
Sure, but if there are individuals interested they can lobby sponsors and government.

Which is never ever going to result in a mulity billion dollar investment...

The RFL isn’t the saviour for all.

They don't have to be...

At worst all they have to do is allow 6-8 independently funded clubs from North America to play in their competitions (they don't necessarily all need to be in the SL either) for a while until the prospect of an independent competition in North America is feasible, they wouldn't even need to harbour 6-8 clubs either if theoretical American clubs from the west coast could be convinced to look to join the NRL, NSWRL, and QRL instead of trying to join the RFL in the future, but we're getting way ahead of ourselves at that point.
 

deal.with.it

Juniors
Messages
2,086
Which is never ever going to result in a mulity billion dollar investment...



They don't have to be...

At worst all they have to do is allow 6-8 independently funded clubs from North America to play in their competitions (they don't necessarily all need to be in the SL either) for a while until the prospect of an independent competition in North America is feasible, they wouldn't even need to harbour 6-8 clubs either if theoretical American clubs from the west coast could be convinced to look to join the NRL, NSWRL, and QRL instead of trying to join the RFL in the future, but we're getting way ahead of ourselves at that point.

Or you coupd get all RFL pro clubs and NRL pro clubs to provide 3 players on loan to american clubs for free - as development. Then you only need a handful of local players, supported by a domestic USARL/CRL amateur competiton. Livestream all matches on Apple TV, Amazon, whatever. Get the on-loan players to do some community engagement to get crowds - free tickets to school kids etc.
All of a sudden you have a quality product sitting above the USARL. Then, lobby with your quality product for sponsors, broadcast fees, government funding etc.

You don’t have 6-8 self funded teams like the Wolfpack to enter the RFL pyramid. The costs are silly, too.
 

The Great Dane

First Grade
Messages
7,960
Or you coupd get all RFL pro clubs and NRL pro clubs to provide 3 players on loan to american clubs for free - as development. Then you only need a handful of local players, supported by a domestic USARL/CRL amateur competiton. Livestream all matches on Apple TV, Amazon, whatever. Get the on-loan players to do some community engagement to get crowds - free tickets to school kids etc.
All of a sudden you have a quality product sitting above the USARL. Then, lobby with your quality product for sponsors, broadcast fees, government funding etc.

You don’t have 6-8 self funded teams like the Wolfpack to enter the RFL pyramid. The costs are silly, too.

After all that you're still going to be out billions of dollars spent in promoting the sport and getting the necessary infrastructure in place cause you ain't going to get anywhere near the necessary amount of investment in the form of sponsorship money, government funding, etc, cause there's basically no market for RL in the US so there's no value to them in dropping big amounts into propping it up, and even if they were interested in putting the amount of money necessary into lunching a new national competition they'd invest it in an off season American football comp and not a totally new sport (even then they've been nervous to do that after the fiascoes that the USFL and especially the XFL were).

You also aren't going to get Apple, Amazon, or any streaming platforms or the broadcasters to pay to much for the TV rights (if they'll pay for them at all) either cause it's not a proven product that rates.... And the loaned players aren't going to "get crowds" in the US (they often struggle to do that over here if we are honest), they are nobodies over there not celebrities.

So yeah unless you've got a bunch of billionaires hidden away somewhere that are willing to throw truly stupid amounts of money away for no return, or you know of a crazy American billionaire entrepreneur with the connections necessary to pull something like that off who's taken a liking to RL (keeping in mind that plenty of crazy American billionaire entrepreneurs who've attempted similar things still fail spectacularly most of the time) then it ain't happening...

The only way that RL can afford to crack the North American market is if the North American clubs can use the pre-existing structures in Eng and Aus as a crutch to prop themselves up until they've built a fan base big enough to support themselves independently.

You don’t have 6-8 self funded teams like the Wolfpack to enter the RFL pyramid. The costs are silly, too.

Your right, their aren't 6-8 self funded clubs in North America... Yet!

If the Wolfpack are successful then others will follow given time, hell there are/were already parties interested in following Toronto's lead and you couldn't say whether or not the WP have been a successful venture yet.
 
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Hello, I'm The Doctor

First Grade
Messages
9,124
Or you coupd get all RFL pro clubs and NRL pro clubs to provide 3 players on loan to american clubs for free - as development. Then you only need a handful of local players, supported by a domestic USARL/CRL amateur competiton. Livestream all matches on Apple TV, Amazon, whatever. Get the on-loan players to do some community engagement to get crowds - free tickets to school kids etc.
All of a sudden you have a quality product sitting above the USARL. Then, lobby with your quality product for sponsors, broadcast fees, government funding etc.

You don’t have 6-8 self funded teams like the Wolfpack to enter the RFL pyramid. The costs are silly, too.

Why would it be any different to the USARL?

Super League offers an established standard which the US teams can compare themselves against to prove their legitimacy at pro teams.

If we followed your plan, we would just have the USARL again under a different name.
 

Hello, I'm The Doctor

First Grade
Messages
9,124
Which is never ever going to result in a mulity billion dollar investment...



They don't have to be...

At worst all they have to do is allow 6-8 independently funded clubs from North America to play in their competitions (they don't necessarily all need to be in the SL either) for a while until the prospect of an independent competition in North America is feasible, they wouldn't even need to harbour 6-8 clubs either if theoretical American clubs from the west coast could be convinced to look to join the NRL, NSWRL, and QRL instead of trying to join the RFL in the future, but we're getting way ahead of ourselves at that point
.

I think the different hemispheres would be a problem.

I would love to see a South American team have a look though
 

deal.with.it

Juniors
Messages
2,086
Why would it be any different to the USARL?

Super League offers an established standard which the US teams can compare themselves against to prove their legitimacy at pro teams.

If we followed your plan, we would just have the USARL again under a different name.

Sure but the reason why clubs want to enter the RFL pyramid is access to a higher quality competition. I suggested a way to create that in the NH. We just had Ontario play Chicago.
You could have Ontario, Mid West, North East and Florida based teams, taking the best from the local USARL/CRL teams and supported by a few Aus/NZ/Eng players for free. The local USARL teams only have to travel short distances, and the regiona pro club has reduced costs.
 

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