Re: Toronto : Sun Sep 30, 2018 4:10 pm  

northernbloke wrote:

Geoff, not sure what your point is with your link!

I dont understand the logic in having a professional team based 3500 miles from the UK,if you read the link you can see how many UK towns & cities haven't got a professional rugby league team yet the RFL keeping telling everybody what a great product they have but they seem unable to market & sell the product to the majority of the UK.

Re: Toronto : Sun Sep 30, 2018 5:17 pm  

The logic is pretty simple, someone in Toronto with the money the vision and the drive put a team together and applied to play in the English league.
Unless you have someone who is willing to do that, makes not a jot what the size of a town is, the RFL don’t set the teams up.
The advantage they have in Toronto, it’s something new, try to set up the same thing in lots of UK towns you already have life long prejudices ingrained.
The logic is they made the effort, same at Bernard gauche in Perpignan, then put the money in to make it happen.
Don’t think anyone in here wouldn’t love to see the game boom in london, Bristol, Birmingham, Newcastle but it does not happen by magic

Re: Toronto : Sun Sep 30, 2018 5:23 pm  

Richard Branson had the money & the vision what went wrong?

Re: Toronto : Sun Sep 30, 2018 5:45 pm  

I think the whole idea is actually bonkers, but it s what it is, they are here and they have earned there place in the MPG. Will it achieve anything? Who knows. Could the game take off in N America? Be good if it did! Would that result in an improvement of the game in UK? Not sure it will. Should the priority be the game at home? Certainly, but expansion in England is not really working in its current guise, look at Wales, Oxford, Coventry, Nottingham, even London to an extent, so why not embrace something like the Toronto experiment and see if it reaps rewards here.
Pretty sure al, those years ago when a pro team in london emerged there were lots of folk asking similar questions but on a smaller scale, ie what’s the point of a team 200 miles away.

Re: Toronto : Sun Sep 30, 2018 5:49 pm  

Branson was a sponsor, he didn’t give a hoot about the sport, all he was interested in was exposure of his brand!
That’s not vision or ambition. It’s will this make my company money. He quickly went away when it didn’t.

Re: Toronto : Sun Sep 30, 2018 6:22 pm  

northernbloke wrote:

I think the whole idea is actually bonkers, but it s what it is, they are here and they have earned there place in the MPG. Will it achieve anything? Who knows. Could the game take off in N America? Be good if it did! Would that result in an improvement of the game in UK? Not sure it will. Should the priority be the game at home? Certainly, but expansion in England is not really working in its current guise, look at Wales, Oxford, Coventry, Nottingham, even London to an extent, so why not embrace something like the Toronto experiment and see if it reaps rewards here.
Pretty sure al, those years ago when a pro team in london emerged there were lots of folk asking similar questions but on a smaller scale, ie what’s the point of a team 200 miles away.

Doncaster to Whitehaven is 166 miles a round trip of 332 miles
Doncaster to Toronto is 3453 miles a round trip of 6906 miles

Re: Toronto : Sun Sep 30, 2018 6:52 pm  

Was Branson any good for the Broncos? It is questionable. He got involved for his son and as in all things he does. To promote himself and Virgin as a brand.
He did spend a few bob and bought in some good players. In truth the club also got some good publicity from it. I do not think he could believe his luck that we made the cup final. He milked that for all he could.
But remember that we sold thousands of tickets to the final, but got no data for further marketing. Nobody thought to gather that information, how poor was that?
What did for Bransons involvement was 9/11, His main business at that time, Virgin Atlantic suffered terribly and he looked to rid himself of London Broncos to save money. Up stepped David Hughes who had refused to sell his stake in the club to Virgin when they took over. David saved the club at that time.
Branson only ever attended games when cameras were present. We sat in the directors box in those days at Charlton and whenever he attended a flock of virgin Atlantic stewardesses attended, they sat near us, which was very nice.
To be honest. If it was down to a choice between Richard Branson or David Hughes as owner of the club, give me David every time. However I would choose former owner Barry Maranta over both of them.

Re: Toronto : Sun Sep 30, 2018 7:40 pm  

Branson was a business man that’s it.
Geoff not sure what your getting at, using haven and donny as success in RL is a bit of a laugh.

Toronto are here, they have money and they have fans, something donny and haven have very little of.
Nobody in here is going to argue with you, on what expansion should look like but so far in the south, in wales it’s not worked, so do you deny someone like Toronto the chance? So far they have done more as a team expansion wise than any club in wales.
Every team has the opportunity to do do what Toronto have done, Toulouse have gone a similar path, do you think they are a waste of energy as well.
It is what it is Geoff, will they be around in 10-15-20 years that’s the test.
As for other expansion, Bristol? Given the opening, what’s happened?

Re: Toronto : Sun Sep 30, 2018 7:55 pm  

Branson only ever attended games when cameras were present. We sat in the directors box in those days at Charlton and whenever he attended a flock of virgin Atlantic stewardesses attended, they sat near us, which was very nice.
To be honest. If it was down to a choice between Richard Branson or David Hughes as owner of the club, give me David every time. However I would choose former owner Barry Maranta over both of them.

I'm not sure about that. I sat in-front of him in the main stand at The Stop one Sunday afternoon. He was there with his son. Saw him in Richmond afterwards.

I remember a Virgin plane flying over the Stoop and wondering what his thoughts were.

Re: Toronto : Sun Sep 30, 2018 8:26 pm  

[quote="northernbloke"]Branson was a business man that’s it.
Geoff not sure what your getting at, using haven and donny as success in RL is a bit of a laugh.

Toronto are here, they have money and they have fans, something donny and haven have very little of.
Nobody in here is going to argue with you, on what expansion should look like but so far in the south, in wales it’s not worked, so do you deny someone like Toronto the chance? So far they have done more as a team expansion wise than any club in wales.
Every team has the opportunity to do do what Toronto have done, Toulouse have gone a similar path, do you think they are a waste of energy as well.
It is what it is Geoff, will they be around in 10-15-20 years that’s the test.
As for other expansion, Bristol? Given the opening, what’s happened?[/quote

I was using the distance from Whitehaven to Doncaster as a comparison to the distance to Toronto. In the recent past how many teams in the UK have the RFL let die, regarding Bristol the only thing I know about Bristol is Adge Cutler
If people dont turn up in numbers to the game in the UK maybe the product needs altering.