pahars

Forgive me Hector This tournament has got it ###### about face. International Rugby League is not mature enough to have the equivalent of football’s Brazil v Liechtenstein priced as it has been. The England prices were fine though we didn’t help by smashing the ‘close opening game’. The group games should have been priced so it’s about taking their Nan and your kids and building a must see event. The Quarter Finals onwards are priced exactly how they should be it’s just that the regular audience is skint and jaded and the event crowd now aren’t buying in.

That’s it! Thanks MRN. Yeah Brothers was a weird bid - basically we have clubs all over Australia so we are gonna be massive.

Same happened in Brisbane didn’t it? Dolphins, Brothers, Bombers and Firehawks … though some merged near the end.

Isn’t this all a bit unfair on middle Wales? Who are those villages going to cheer for? I have a genius plan! What place has lots of Welsh speakers and Whales? Patagonia- The Puerto Madryn Welsh Whales and -this is the genius bit- it will be the back door in for Rugby League to become absolutely mahusive in Argentina! Play the Welsh Superten grand final there it’s bloody gorgeous in October.

Well Dave as I said I was being something of a Devils advocate. I’m trying to understand how the organisers got themselves in their starting position and as you say all would have been mentioned. Maybe they analysed the info but went too far? With regard to point 4 those aren’t the grounds I’m referring to. There have been many moans over the years about money going to Dave Whelan, The Allams etc. that may have made them aim for too many games in Warrington and St Helens.

Having had a thought about it and being a bit of a Devil’s advocate. I reckon the major grumps of the 2013 attendance thread and indeed most of the international attendance threads dating back 20 years on this forum would have been: Crazy discounting with people who fully intend to go waiting for a last minute bargain. Too low ticket prices to start with for top quality events - particularly in London. Only part opening stadiums leading to a small time look for any event buyers looking in and people unable to buy the seats they want. Booking lots of football/union grounds leading to lots of ‘why isn’t the money going in to Rugby League?’ Comments. Now they have addressed all these ….it’s just when issues arrised relating to all of them they kept doubling down instead of being flexible.

Haven’t you seen the news about the soccer this week? It’s Dwyrain Cymru now

Brilliant idea …but you need a new snazzy format for this game… I got it! get rid of three players a side and call it Superten!

There was Pacific Treize, an attempt at a joint French former colonies team in the Queensland Cup. Haven’t tweeted this year though.

I get what you’re saying and I guess a lot of the new audience they are trying to reach would see Wales as a big ‘Rugby’ nation because of the 6 nations. They have got a few 10k crowds against them too even outside of World Cup hype…. though conversely that was pretty much the only international RL the French could watch those years. The concern is that RL has much fewer fans in France compared to any nation who has hosted before. It would be great to have an opening game that’s as close as you can get nailed on to be 30k+

What’s the opening game then? There is a good chance France will lose against a nation full of heritage players and if it happens with a so so crowd then it’s not good for the tournament. They managed to get 18k vs the Kiwis in Avignon in 2013 and if they play England there will be thousands of our fans there.

I would imagine the French tournament organisers would quite like a big opening game against NZ or England.

I agree in the main, we do however seem to get a good crowd in a new (for RL) ground so Everton’s new stadium (instead of Manchester) then back to this template.

Over the last ten years Adelaide 1.3m has 10% population growth, Sydney 5.3m has 15%, Melbourne 5m, Brisbane 2.3m and Perth 2m have 20%. Adelaide is losing ground on the other 4 of Australia’s traditional big 5 capitols. Additionally both the Gold Coast and the Hunter region around Newcastle are predicted to hit one million by 2050.

Well quite. I’m assuming that they thought they were going to sell all these £70 tickets so why waste recourses on £10 tickets. The fact is a relatively small uptick in attendance and we could be looking at both the biggest gate receipts and the best attended World Cup. On top of this I’m sure a lot of students would have been new to the game.

Fair enough. First time I’d seen it pushed.

So we have £10 student tickets for Sheffield and £25 last minute tickets for Bolton but they are absolutely sticking to the model and not discounting?

Yeah that’s true. I forgot about Scotland’s two 7k + games in Workington and I guess the almost accidental 7k in Bristol somewhat fits in. I think it was just overconfidence this time. The previous tournaments sub 10k crowds weren’t seen as important but a few of them would have boosted the average and not saturated the north west.

They did (kind of) do that in 2013, PNG had Craven park for two games and got two 7k ish crowds, Fiji highlighting local connections in Rochdale got nearly 9k.

I hope it is that. I’m worried part of the government funding is more of a loan then a donation.

So (and forgive me again for even later, being being thicker) why are the organisers so obsessed with ‘break even’ ? It’s almost like there was no real northern powerhouse funding and the whole thing is a massive contra deal.

Dave (and indeed Damien) I get that it is the Union model and I am not disapproving of it. My point is that it has not been mentioned til slap bang in the middle of the World Cup with nobody actually knowing what terms the next one is agreed on. I’m glad that we are moving from a kind of sale or return strategy to this is a quality product it costs this much. I might be being simple (it’s highly possible after the week I’ve had) but has the government paid this tournaments staging fee?

I hear you mate and I would hope that too. I just find it really weird that the first anything was reported about a staging fee for the World Cup was about a week ago and a long time after the French bid was accepted. Why not be more transparent if there is guaranteed money for International Rugby League?

Can’t we work it out? We know what the declared profit was for most previous tournaments. Has there been anything reported on how it used to be split?

OK I think we are talking at crossed purposes but fine you are saying that the French government is paying the staging fee. Who is paying the operational costs?