We've heard about an idea for a pro league over there for a long time. Always big plans that haven't progressed beyond some pie in the sky thinking. I hope this time it's for real. But I won't be holding my breath. It's very much a watch this space situation.
I remember back around the time of the USRL, around 2000, there was a plan to sell eight franchises and run a league of two conferences with each team playing the teams in their conference twice and the other teams once, plus finals. Or something like that. The idea was to have a salary cap type deal where each club was allowed to sign X number of marquee players who would be paid the top salary (something like $100k) with Y number of players getting the next rate and so on. Basically the best three or four players were going to be on good money, a few more would be semi -pro but earning good match fees and the rest would be semi-pro but wouldn't get much. THey were going to target NRL players for the top spots and pretty much make up the rest with union players, American footballers, athletes and USRL players. The whole thing was estimated to cost $15m per franchise, which seems like a lot, and they budgeted for crowds of 10k plus. The whole thing was going to be bankrolled by a TV deal and the club owners. They even had eight names for the franchises, Crusaders was one but I can't remember the rest. Anyway, needless to say it never happened and any talk of a pro league since has gone the same way.
It'd be bloody good though. We really need more pro leagues, even semi-pro, around the world. Sure, the best players would still be Aussies and Kiwis but it would be bound to produce some good American players and a stronger Tomahawks team overall.
