Quote ="MorePlaymakersNeeded"But to whom - people already interested in RL in Australia, or people who have never heard of the game?
Also, will this exposure help to encourage people to play, watch on TV or turn up to a live game, that have never done so before?'"
Sorry your being duped here.
The TV exposure point is of course important, and of course here we get exposure on sports pay TV, plus we also get exposure on Terrestrial TV because we play out the Challenge cup and major internationals on that. TV exposure is so important that both TWP and Catalans/TO were specifically asked to chase TV deals.
TWP have admitted it needs 5-6 Superleague level American clubs for them to even be listened to by broadcasters,
[uSo this means that English clubs would have to make way for these clubs to play,[/u not League one. That will never happen
TWP have admitted that they cant develop Pro-RL players anyway and very few from here will go play there unless you double their wages or pay them as Marquees. Perez is still pretending Ottawa, Hamilton and Montreal are on their way, but he tempers this now by saying they will develop their own players. That's fine - the only problem is there are no such players unless they sign players from the USARL who are amateurs but some good enough to play League One.
Perez piles absurdities on absurdities as the only reason TWP exist is a mad keen Australian NRL fan is a $$Billionaire and can throw eye watering anounts of money away at a dream. Perez talks about "consortiums" at the other clubs and doesn't identify who exactly is stupid enough in America to throw $$Millions at a foreign game.
The whole thing is absurd and has been since it's inception, but instead of being an "honest game" the RL press and the RFL can't stop pretending North American expansion is happening. At some point all this will collapse (probably the 2022 TV deal that will be English clubs only). Then we will need some damage limitation.
Superleague are hoping this will blow over by TWP being relegated ASAP. This they do them no favours. If there are investors in North America thinking they will take the project forward they will be looking carefully at how Superleague won't accommodate them. But I don't think they exist.
