gingerjon

All in probably around three hours to three and a half. Those who go seem to also value the wrap around stuff like tailgate parties etc which will add on another couple of hours.

Odd that the NRL said that's how much it was going to cost them, then.

The new NRL fans don't currently have a TV station to watch the sport on.

For all the bluster about breaking America - and it is bluster - this, to me, shows the real positive. Boosting an already insanely popular and visible sport in Australia even further.

Because double headers are a terrible idea and triple headers worse.

So, remind me again, in detail, how much money is available to the NRL via this market, and how they are now accessing this money? Remember that this - to repeat: excellent multi day event - cost them $10m.

Like I say, if you want events to come to the north and generate jobs for Manchester - then you're going to need state investment. If you want to miss out because you hate soccer or hate Man United or whatever - maybe, like some on here, you believe state investment is somehow cheating - then go ahead.

And that, children, is why London and the south gets all of the - far, far too little - investment. "Oh no, none of that for us, thank you very much."

Is that like a baby Boeing?

I admire an 'approximately 732' far more than an 'approximately 730'.

I think the Australian figure must be too low on that one given the numbers they appear to have sold to Australian packages in early sales.

They should be properly embarrassed, TBH, regardless of how the scoreboard finished. Nobody should really even be in a close game at home against London this year.

The AFL opening round is deeply weird this year. It's one of those where I assume someone in a position of power came up with it and no one corrected them, and now they all have to pretend it's a real thing they really wanted to do.

London aren't a very good Super League side - and they will always find a way of making sure you know that.

Fair. Okay.

Yup. Not even close.

I accept that some of this may not be direct from the NRL - it may have come from the client journalists - and I'm not bothered to check. But here are a few things that they haven't (yet) done: Make money, sell betting rights, get regularly on Fox Sports 1 or equivalent, engage significant numbers of Americans. And, and this is the major problem if this is anything other than a really good event, there is now nothing else planned in the USA. And the only Aussie sport with a regular slot on Fox Sports 1 remains the AFL.

Have you seen the state of rugby union in the US - even with fawning articles on a regular basis?

Not sure the game will recover if he puts on a Bergerac repeat instead

I think it's in the sweet spot of being simultaneously both a bit disappointing but also really not bad. The event looks like it's been very well staged and a decent few days in Vegas. If that is all the NRL had said they were doing, I think you'd say a success. Given that that isn't what they said then I think it moves towards the, "Hmmmm... not really deserving of the gushing from journos on a jolly". Love to see them do it again. And absolutely no reason for Super League to be anywhere near it.

Going back over recent-ish winners, it's certainly both hard to spot a trend and hard to find one that really meets the criteria of 'humorous' and 'uplifting'. At least the UK appears to have moved on from "cheap but camp as Christmas" or "veteran with no staging budget" as its entries.

It goes back further than that and sometimes in slightly different ways. There was a documentary on Wimbledon's FA Cup win which said that the team would be briefed about the ref's personal situation - wife, kids etc, and than they would practice asking natural sounding questions to the ref when warming up and in the tunnel. Just so the ref would be their mate. They still got cautions and sendings off but far fewer - because they'd convinced the ref they were decent blokes.

So, and this is the bit no one really seems to be able to answer, what value to the NRL is there from that?

The Dutch entry is quite the thing

Allowing people to get away with hitting players in the head is not common sense and has always been something refs are not supposed to do.