'Rugby's LeBron James': Toronto confirm SBW signing

Excuses excuses clipper. Gridiron has successfully grown in Canada out of America. While AFL has had zero success growing their sport anywhere outside Australia. Your sport is a joke internationally. Clipper how does it feel knowing you talked down Toronto Wolfpack for years and now they are paying bigger contacts for players than AFL ever has? Egg on your face bro. Rugby League, Rugby Union, Gridiron, Soccer are all smashing AFL with global growth. And guess what mate, 2 more professional Rugby League clubs are planned for North America. :laughing:

with that logic, technically league falls under the Rugby banner and is played in many countries, but most would consider them separate sports like American Football and Canadian Football

Well Canada has their own professional Gridiron competition too called the CFL just like America has with the NFL. So technically Gridiron is played professionally in 2 countries bigger than Australia. AFL or Aussie Rules is only in Australia at that level. AFL just isn’t an internationally marketable sport. Time and time again this has been proven with AFL being an older sport than Rugby League but much smaller globally.

UKRL - don't think the AFL is at all interested in having a competition in another country. The NFL doesn't and it seems to do alright. I think it would be too hard - they would have to fill their team with ex AFL players who couldn't speak the language or never been to that country, and it would make the scenario farcical.

I guess we’ll see in a few years if AFL can get a following in another country like Rugby League has hey Clipper. Because AFL cancelled exhibition matches in NZ due to such low support from locals. Looks like the same is happening in China with AFLs efforts too. Maybe one day AFL can get support in more than one small country hey mate :laughing: Where’s AFLs Canadian team? We have Toronto Wolfpack. Where’s AFLs NZ team? We have the Auckland Warriors. Where’s AFLs French team? We have Catalan Dragons. Where AFLs UK team? We have a whole professional competition there.

Nzmate.It probably won't in other countries, but it will lift the ESL and has ensured the Wolfpack will have full houses at home(already many games there already sold out).According to the Wolfpack and the ESL,they have had a number of unsolicited enquiries from businesses, about involvement.So it's not all bad news. None one suggested rl has that intnl pull.If it did they would have signed Billy Slater. Remember SBW was a rl player as a kid,all he is doing is returning to his first code.

Wouldn’t $6m for 2 years still be the biggest package in RL history? Wouldn’t this have been enough to get it done? What’s the benefit in paying $10m?

I don't think that's fair crosscoder - the story isn't really about SBW moving to the TW, it's about a sportsman in his twilight sport years getting paid way above the odds, mainly for the publicity. Good for him, but it's interesting to discuss the viability of this move. There are many examples where this has succeeded or failed. Buddy Franklin in the AFL, albeit in the same code, was very much a publicity boost. Falou was initially a publicity boost, but ultimately a disaster. We will have to see how it pans out - if it will result in increased attendance, like Buddy or make virtually no difference, like Falou.

Yet mama you were the one in your prior( lost count of the aliases),that said :- @ it would never get off the ground. b)it would never get a crowd: it does. c)media would take no interest : it has and the signing has now reached the NY Times. d) It wouldn’t last:Well it’s been in the English lower divisions for a couple of years now the ESL. d)It’s full of imports ,so no one there would care:apparently another fail.In Canada many of their comps have stacks of overseas imports.And Canadian locals don’t give a stuff where they come from as the Wolfpack crowds have shown. e) You said Perez the original owner would be a fly by night, now he is involved in starting up an Ottawa franchise for lower English division rl. Seriously mate sometime it’s better ,if you don’t lead with your chin time after time, just because you hate rugby league. It comes back to bite ye. Your envy and insecurity on anything that happens with rugby league , more so now with the SBW signing is embarrassing.Clipper would be proud of you though. Comparing Cooper Cronk (who I admire )with the wide media appeal of SBW, seriously ,are you serious?

Mama. Just imagine if the subject matter was actually about SBW and the Toronto Wolfpack(oh wait it is),and not about the AFL ,introduced via the league hating exponents such as yourself and clipper, this thread would be a far better place.So mate, using your x number of aliases ,grow up. If it's about a RL test then we'll debate it.It's not ,so please go and find another alias ,and then form rings of three and surround yourself.

Have to agree with max on this - the PI diaspora has strong links to their home and those nations do have a strong RL culture. Lebanon etc are the exact opposite and it's farcical when they cobble together a team and then knock out France in the WC, who should be getting a level playing field to try and stop their terminal decline.

clippers = strawman

Many sports leagues have a marquee exemption for a salary cap. In Oz soccer's A League has it. The NRL should have it too, but the poorer clubs with less means of third party deals have cruelled the idea.

Read up on the Pacific diaspora and you may see things differently. Being born in Australia or NZ does not mean you are not a member of your Pacific nation.

Its getting a lot of coverage because of who he has just played for... I doubt that interest will continue when he is playing for Toronto. RL just doesnt have that pull internationally.

The Storm cheated the salary cap. What the Wolfpack are doing is perfectly within the rules - you can spend as much as you want on a single marquee player.

Congrats to SBW - its a steal but hasn't SBW been injured for the last 3 years and is he not 34? Imagine if the Perth Quokkas enter the NRL and all their players are from eastern Australia/NZ/UK and somehow they sign a 34 year old Cooper Cronk for a sum bigger than the entire salary cap of any other team but only 1/20th of it appears in their salary cap how do you think the other clubs would feel? This Wolfpack thing is beyond bizarre but then again the Storm had 3 players on marquee signings even after they fiddled the salary cap and were found out just years before when they had 9 internationals and 2 SOO on the books.

On cue Clipper brings in his usual AFL hype.Insecure what?Can we please concentrate on the subject, or is posting on your own code's threads too boring? This is a guy who played in code with a large international presence (ru)and has a reasonably high profile.He is getting a fortune to play rl in a new area.You find that unsettling. You're still bringing up the same old childish mine's bigger argument.If you have noting to contribute, by continually doing so, you're better off back on AFL threads.Just boring mate.

how is a league club affording this? and in Canada of all places

I have always been very interested in the ESL (basically interested in anything RL) but I have to admit, the interest has shot up several levels in the last couple of weeks. I really do think we are about to witness something special. I might even buy a Wolfpack shirt.