Bostwick wrote:
I see 2020 as being make or break for Toronto. I always thought that bringing a Canadian team into a European based RL competition was madness. A lot of smoke and mirrors TWP, I believe.
We will see next season if there is any substance to the club. If they continue to pay costs of teams to play in Toronto. Costs of playing home games away, until the weather allows games to be played in Canada will be significant. It will need real commitment from David Argyle. In the long run, I cannot see it as being sustainable.
Canadians love winners. In 2020 wins will become harder to come by. Although financially the income from home fans may not matter too much to the club. The momentum that has built from knocking teams over on a regular basis will be lost and I fear interest in this novel sport will wane.
I stand ready to be proved wrong.
Really? The Leafs haven't won a trophy in 52 and are still the biggest sports club in the country. The Argos went 30 years without winning a trophy at one stage. Raptors took 25 years to win anything. TFC were horrific for their first decade. All of these clubs still draw support - crowds, sponsors, investors, media, etc - and the latter 2 were also 'imported' sports.
What TWP are doing is different to clubs in this country, they are entertaining people. Everyone I've heard from who has visited has said what a great day out it is. That's how they're hooking people, by entertaining them with an array of activities. Becoming ardent RL fans will come with time.
But, in a more general point, the game as a whole had better hope that TWP works because if not we're just set for more of the 'managed decline' we've seen over the past decade. There is a generation of fans, administrators and owners who see nothing more than RL sticking rigidly to 'tradition' (whatever that actually means) and allowing the rest of the sports world to move on to bigger and better things. Those who see the game as theirs, as being played between local towns and villages, and are distrustful of outsiders, have held sway of a decade now and they've damaged the game enormously. They've turned English RL into a feeder for the NRL and rugby union. We need TWP - and Toulouse, and others - to work or else the sport is in trouble.
