Yakstorm

I'm sure that was a driver in them recategorising a number of bays / venues. Even being able to announce a sellout or two in the near future will provide a significant halo effect.

So for the opener we know that Cat A & B are over 70% allocated, the lower bowl is over 90% and the East Stand is full. Definitely sounds like it's on track for a capacity or near capacity crowd. With the Final also selling well, it's providing some good bookends for the tournament.

They don't but it is encouraging how many games have now moved to 'low' availability and that in the first weekend of their six week advertising blitz, it produced such a big uptick. Following games now have 'low' availability in the Men'stournament: England v Samoa, Scotland v Italy, Jamaica v Ireland, NZ v Lebanon, England v France, NZ v Jamaica, NZ v Ireland, England v Greece, Fiji v Scotland, Samoa v France, Wigan QF, Leeds SF, London SF, Tournament Final We know as well that some of the other games, like Australia v Fiji have been selling solidly as well with most Cat C & D tickets sold out.

Guess it depends on what the opposition kit looked like. For the original England RLWC kit, the predominantly blue kit would provide enough contrast, whilst the predominantly white kit would contrast enough against Samoa and if they were to face the likes of France at any stage.

Men's and Women's PM XIII Challenge to be hosted at Suncorp Stadium and will be grouped with the NRLW Semi Finals. https://asiapacificrl.com/2022/08/26/suncorp-stadium-to-host-mens-and-womens-australia-prime-ministers-xiii-v-png-prime-ministers-xiii/

https://europeanrugbyleague.com/articles/2179/scotland-confirm-england-knights-fixture Scotland to play their first match in Scotland since 2019

Do we know why these nations don't draw crowds anymore? In 2012 France drew 11,278 against Wales in Lens, whilst the year before it drew 10,313 against Scotland in Perpignan. They also drew 10,413 against Wales in Albi in 2010 and 14,522 against Ireland in Avignon. For French Test crowds, they are some of the best the Les Chanticleers have played in front of over the past 15 years (for reference, England games in that window drew 6K, 14.2K and 16.8K)

Good point, I had forgotten the exact number that was originally stated, but did feel like it was higher than 500K. Honestly with a 250K base, getting up to 700K+ I would say is realistic, provided there is enough capacity at the games being marketed. 1 million is highly unlikely, although does anyone know what would be the maximum number of tickets we can sell for the event?

Firstly, I'd love to see Women's Challenge Cup Final played as a standalone event at a premier stadium somewhere in the UK, with nationwide coverage on the BBC and a strong crowd behind it. Unfortunately, as we all know however the RFL doesn't have the budgets, confidence or capabilities to make something like that happen, as such this progression from being the curtain-raiser for the Men's Semi Final Double Header to one of the key games at Wembley is still a significant step forward and can add a lot of value to the Wembley event as a whole if marketed right. I just hope the RFL, IMG, BBC and any other stakeholders actually put some renewed effort into promoting the Wembley Finals Day and selling it to the wider sporting public in London (rather than just club members). Arguably an event at Wembley featuring some of the best men's and women's Rugby players at one ground, for one ticket, playing for a trophy which still holds a lot of value, should be one of the easier things to sell.

250K more than 9 weeks out is very solid, especially when the target is 500K. It's ahead of where any previous World Cup in the 2000s has been this far out and considering so many games are being played 'close to home' of RL's heartlands, there is one less lever forcing people to plan ahead and pre purchase a long way out for a number of games. England matches are supposedly selling well, which really are the matches that need near sell out crowds and as others have mentioned, the organisers are targeting the last six weeks for their marketing blitz. I know selling in Australia/NZ & UK are different, but generally for any event I've been involved in selling in the Southern Hemisphere (where there isn't so much demand that you move 80%+ of the tickets on day one) usually most of your sales will happen in the month leading up to the event. We still have things like the naming of squads, PR launches, public training events, warm up matched, general uptick in media coverage and even the NRL & SL Finals Series to trigger selling spikes. Off this base I'd surprised if the organisers only got to around 500K.

I'm surprised by the complete lack of Red.

They did, they used a group called Fluid Creative Media for it, they also did the SL and IRL websites back then. Issue was, and in typical RL style, is they paid for the build and hosting, but of course didn't want to pay or have a retainer for adhoc requests, support or anything outside of the basic build warranty. Fluid had a proprietary CMS, which was solid enough for most part, although you could unintentionally break an entire page if you weren't careful.

Betfred signed for two years, so it will be them: https://www.sportspromedia.com/news/england-betfred-principal-partnership-2022-rugby-league-world-cup/#:~:text=UK-based gambling brand Betfred,wheelchair national rugby league teams. Isn't the more important question, will there be new mugs to compliment the new jersey?

As others have said, Victor isn't like other heritage players who have put their hand for England, where they have realised their chances of playing for NZ or Australia are over, he is a very talented 24 year old who is in the top 3 of his position in the NRL. If he hadn't made this declaration, I would have been surprised not to see him play a few Tests for the Kangaroos across his career. The fact he was picked for Australia U23s and has been in extended squads for NSW shows that the likes of Fittler & Meninga saw a big future for him. The statement of desire to play for England will see his future rep chances in Australia become limited, and they'll go all together if he takes the field wearing the St George Cross. That's a big call for him and IMO shows that the opportunity to play for England means a lot to him and his family. If I'm England, I'd be finding him a spot. From a cynical side, even if he just plays in a pre-tournanment Test, it means Australia can never pick him, on a positive side, you can never have too much depth. Radley can fill multiple positions, so why not keep him in the mix?

Very true, it's such a mess at the moment that even if their strategy was nothing more than no more discounting for the next X years just to kill off the game of ticket chicken, the hit from a revenue or crowd perspective would be minimal.

Crowd was announced as 9,393

France jersey for World Cup (and mid year Test against Wales)

Tonga kit

I'm reasonably confident, up until early 2020 I was still doing volunteer work for the IRL, so saw plenty of the nations submissions as part of their annual membership process. The FMRXIII had no shortage of match sheets, player stats, photos and videos to support their claims. Now that's not to say that proves 100% that they ran competitions, but if they were faking it, they certainly went to a lot of effort. Content like this on social, I feel indicates there is / has been some sort of decent activity in the nation. https://fb.watch/drFOdunbVD/

Morocco has a domestic competition. Whilst they didn't play much in 2021 due to COVID, the FMRXIII did run full competitions in 2019 & 2020. Teams confirmed for their 2022 Morocco Men's competition are: Nador Arkman, Nador Mouette, Sale Silverbacks, Guelmim, South Lions and Afgarich Tantan Not sure what has happened to the Black Eagles of Casablanca, who have been one of the stronger teams of recent years.

Fiji World Cup kit.

Coverage in the Les Nouvelles Calédoniennes.

The weekly sessions in Noumea have continued for the past 12 months, with exception to the period New Caledonia was in lockdown. Now, thanks to New Caledonia finally opening its borders to Australia, Pacifique Treize has been able to get Dane Campbell (North Queensland Cowboys) and Laurent Gardner (Brisbane Tigers) to help kick start the High Performance Academy and build on the corporate & government relationships which unfortunately were on hold when NC was closed to everywhere but France. https://m.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=376510194509036&id=100064501757901 https://m.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=972789190239407&id=100025250053013