bender said:
The interesting thing and in many ways the judgement of these successes will come next year when we see if playing numbers across france actually increase.
Obviously the media coverage in Perpignan seems to be great. Does this extend to other areas of France?
Media coverage does not extend beyond the French Catalan region (Perpignan and surrounding areas), except for Sports Plus TV coverage. Unfortunately the national papers do not cover it. Having Toulouse in Super League will help a bit, but I am not sure how much. For now professional rugby league will be perceived as a purely Catalan affair. Toulouse will be only the second professional club. Contrast with rugby union which has 14 professional clubs in its domestic competition, including Paris (
Stade Francais, now running first). That is why I regard the admission of Toulouse as merely a necessary second step. There has to be a third step before rugby league will enter French national consciousness.
The French national media will only start to pay attention to rugby league when there is a Super League team from Paris and at least one other big city outside the southwest. Lyon (centre) and Marseille (southeast) are the two obvious candidates. It will take many years for that to happen. Meanwhile Paris and Marseille need to get serious semi professional teams in the French Elite competition ASAP.
If the numbers of people starting to play the game increase next year and continue to grow, then we can look forward to a player pool that will accommodate the needs of a Super League club in Toulouse in 2009. And if Toulouse's inception in 2009 accelerates the attraction of the game and hence player recruitment even further, we can think about working towards Paris and perhaps another big city club joining Super League in 2014, when the next Super League TV deal after the 2009 contract will likely come into operation. Only at that point of geographical dispersion of the game will rugby league attract serious national media coverage --- which includes the chance of national terrestrial TV coverage as well as regular national newspaper reports.
Being part of Super League with English clubs will make up for the lack of a domestic professional competition such as rugby union has, in terms of prestige of and public interest in the small number of French professional clubs we can foresee.
There are a lot of "ifs" involved. But if French rugby league continues the upward spiral that Les Catalans has begun, such expansionist plans are not pure fantasies.
