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@JonoMarshall
The ongoing problem with growth is that scenes only seem to be able to reach a certain size (typically 15 to 30 players).
Whilst it's true that the number of cities playing is becoming more and more impressive (over 400 now), the key will be how many cities make the jump to a London-sized polo scene as time goes on.
For more cities to become London-sized it perhaps requires more courts to be available (public funding?), more organisation within communities and the proper encouragement/support of newer players. Bike polo in schools is the most exciting thing to happen to the sport since it's conception in my opinion (in terms of growth), but few people have a passion for it. Some scenes actively discourage newer players from ruining the level of their throw-ins which seems particularly short-sighted/selfish..!
Also, many cities/scenes have now died but the stats do not change as you cannot unregister your scene on LOBP. The new number-of-tournaments skewed map is a truer reflection of bike polo activity (Kev's "number of tournaments" over time stats are arguably better than simply counting the "number of cities/players" until we have less redundant data for the latter).
I think bike polo's still growing but it will never be a global phenomenon (more of a fringe cycle-sport), the projections expressed to the dragons were incredibly optimistic, but stranger things have happened.
(I'd be interested to hear how many tournaments were organised in 2012 compared to 2011 and the number of competitors that played in them, etc.)