Jim from Oz

Why were they playing mid-week?? Quite a thrashing of the team coming 2nd, I see !!

What is the capacity of the new stadium? Will it be exclusively for rugby league or for rugby union and soccer etc as well? Thanks

Okay, bad weather is probably keeping a few people away

Really? ,watching on TV right now, I can see a fair few empty seats….

"Tigers and Eels should be getting much more for that derby. It was almost a cross for me. Benefit of the doubt given." Considering it was an absolutely stinking hot day, 37 degrees C at the 4pm kick-off in western Sydney, and live on free-to-air on Ch 9, I thought it was a very good crowd…

Not sure how this compares to last year: https://www.tvcentral.com.au/ratings/sunday-2-march-2025-tv-ratings-australia/

Streaming stats are good BUT it could be deceptively good as we had 4 games this time, not two: https://tvblackbox.com.au/page/2025/03/03/fox-leagues-biggest-streaming-day-ever-as-nrl-lights-up-las-vegas/

I got the above figure from a news report somewhere…

The official crowd in Allegiant Stadium was 45,209

https://www.smh.com.au/sport/nrl/nrl-claims-no-1-sport-mantle-with-10-per-cent-more-viewers-than-afl-20250221-p5ldyw.html

What is the capacity now at Wakefield? cheers

This was in Sydney’s DAILY TERROR today:

Sorry, what game is this for ?? Vegas ? I thought they were beyond 40,000 now …

Pretty solid TV ratings: https://tvtonight.com.au/2024/11/sunday-10-november-2024.html

Great match to finish the season… Although of course there is still one more match to go, New Zealand versus Papua New Guinea! But as I said last week, how good is international rugby league!

A good metre forward, and the referee was right there! How does he miss it? And how do the commentators miss it?

Yep, this from the same mob who cancelled Australia’s participation in the 2021 rugby league World Cup with 10 minutes notice given to the organisers etc …. Grrrr Still, at least now they have recognised somewhat that the international game has value… And the Pacific Championships have certainly been much better organised and promoted this year than last year

Later on in the article it has RLPA Boss Clint Newton saying they are looking at a 22-game regular season… Which is a strange number of games to play when there are 20 teams. in the old days of the NSWRL and ARL, however, it was often a 22 game regular season, either with 12 teams or 16 teams

For those who can't see behind the pay wall: NRL chief Andrew Abdo says the prospect of Sydney’s strongest-selling Kangaroos Test in more than 30 years has reinforced the NRL’s expansion bids to create a shorter season and a permanent calendar window for international rugby league. A 30,000-strong, sold-out Commbank Stadium is on the cards for Sunday’s Pacific Championships final between Australia and Tonga, given strong ticket sales and an impressive fan turn-out for the island nation in recent years. The Kangaroos have rarely played in Sydney (their last Harbour City outing was a 2017 World Cup pool game against Lebanon at Allianz Stadium), partly due to fears of underwhelming crowds for late season internationals. Not since the 1992 Ashes, when 40,141 fans packed into the old Sydney Football Stadium and only a few hundred tickets went unsold, has a Kangaroos Test sold as well as this weekend’s four-game fixture. The Pacific Championships’ strong attendances have come despite the fact that numerous players missed the tournament through injury and burnout fears. The NRL and the RLPA are aligned in pursuing a shortened regular season. Abdo said ongoing expansion talks and a 20-team NRL competition would allow for a shorter season to be taken into the next broadcast negotiations for 2027 and beyond and that greater emphasis could be placed on the international game. “We sold five or six thousand tickets [for Sunday’s finals] on Saturday alone and that shows the fans are really keen on this format and the international footy,” Abdo told this masthead. “There’s Australia against Tonga but we’ve got four games next Sunday and we’ve sold around 20,000 tickets already. We’re expecting to get up into the high 20,000s and if all goes well, we could have a sell-out, which would be fantastic again for the international game. “If and when expansion is approved by the ARL Commission, quality over quantity is so important when thinking about the season structure. “Of course, additional teams in the premiership give us extra options when we think about the design of the year and how everything fits together. etc

https://www.smh.com.au/sport/nrl/why-sydney-s-first-test-sell-out-in-30-years-ramps-up-nrl-expansion-heat-20241103-p5kngr.html

A News Corpse report today says 6000 tickets were sold within hours of Tonga's win over New Zealand in Auckland on Saturday night …

The player who scored looked offside to me !