US World Cup and next Denver test match in doubt

[Southerner80]

4 hours ago, Big Picture said:

You obviously don't know much about North America and how far down the sports pecking order RU is here.

Agree, as Union is pretty big in Japan..seriously its a established sport going back years and is THE Oval ball code out there.  And its next to Honkers, so all the Bankers will go.....

USA will be a tough one for RU. They will struggle to sell out any game without the All Blacks or Ireland in it. Football WC in 94 worked as football is the global game and had a huge fan base of immigrants into the USA at the time. Union would be able to at a push break even on a WC in the States, but not make 130m profit as they can in France and England.  For the States Union is at best what hockey is here, and Im being generous.

I think for all sports WCs will be thought of more pragmatically from now on for money reasons. 

[17 stone giant]

9 hours ago, Big Picture said:

You obviously don't know much about North America and how far down the sports pecking order RU is here.

Yes, I do, but I still think RU would make a success of a world cup in the US and Canada. I think it's you that is underestimating what a successful tournament the RU has now become and the extent to which people will travel to watch it. Rugby union international teams are incredibly well supported. Whether it would sell out games would depend on what stadiums were used and for what matches, but I have no doubt that it would be successful. Maybe it wouldn't produce the sort money that a tournament in England might, but even that I wouldn't be so sure about. The US and Canada are wealthy nations and the combined population is huge, so I actually think it would do very well financially. They got 62000 in Chicago to watch Ireland against the All Blacks. I noticed that you mentioned those teams as being the only ones that might ever sell out, presumably as an attempt to stop it being pointed out how big that crowd was for what was a nothing game really. Likewise you try to dismiss the attendances for USA 94 as being as a result of football loving immigrants. Sure, that might have helped, but you only have to look at the crowds to see that they were far from all being Mexican or south American football loving immigrants.

Obviously we won't know who is correct until the RU folk decide to give it a try. If I were you though, I wouldn't be holding my breath and hoping that it would be a flop, because I think you'd be very disappointed.

[bird]

Wasn't the Sevens World Cuo only a month ago in San Francisco a big loss maker?

[Yorkshire Knight]

11 hours ago, Big Picture said:

You obviously don't know much about North America and how far down the sports pecking order RU is here.

You seriously cannot imply that a union world cup in North America won't be successful because it's far down the pecking order then advocate for the rugby league world cup to be held there

[Chamey]

8 minutes ago, bird said:

Wasn't the Sevens World Cuo only a month ago in San Francisco a big loss maker?

USAR apparently barely broke even, but WR made a tidy little sum from the hosting fee. The USAR organisation was horrific though, I made a post with details about it in the CCF. Considering the ridiculous ticket prices, and the fact that the 7sRWC has zero prestige it was considered a decent success by the IRB.

[17 stone giant]

8 minutes ago, bird said:

Wasn't the Sevens World Cuo only a month ago in San Francisco a big loss maker?

I have no idea, but the Sevens World Cup is completely different to a 15-a-side World Cup. It's like comparing the FIFA confederations cup with the actual world cup. It's chalk and cheese. Plus I'd imagine any loss would be tiny in relation to the money available in RU. I imagine that making a profit was less important on this occasion than just hosting the event in the US.

[Southerner80]

6 hours ago, 17 stone giant said:

Yes, I do, but I still think RU would make a success of a world cup in the US and Canada. I think it's you that is underestimating what a successful tournament the RU has now become and the extent to which people will travel to watch it. Rugby union international teams are incredibly well supported. Whether it would sell out games would depend on what stadiums were used and for what matches, but I have no doubt that it would be successful. Maybe it wouldn't produce the sort money that a tournament in England might, but even that I wouldn't be so sure about. The US and Canada are wealthy nations and the combined population is huge, so I actually think it would do very well financially. They got 62000 in Chicago to watch Ireland against the All Blacks. I noticed that you mentioned those teams as being the only ones that might ever sell out, presumably as an attempt to stop it being pointed out how big that crowd was for what was a nothing game really. Likewise you try to dismiss the attendances for USA 94 as being as a result of football loving immigrants. Sure, that might have helped, but you only have to look at the crowds to see that they were far from all being Mexican or south American football loving immigrants.

Obviously we won't know who is correct until the RU folk decide to give it a try. If I were you though, I wouldn't be holding my breath and hoping that it would be a flop, because I think you'd be very disappointed.

For what its worth, I love RL and like union a lot too, so I would hope a RU World Cup would do well in the States. I just feel if someone is pragmatic and looks at it, its not going to work well, as a WC is a 6 week tournament, and will require a lot of fans to make it worthwhile. Im not convinced enough will travel. That the US and Canada are rich dosen;t change the fact that they have their dominant code of Oval ball football and aren't that interested in other codes of it.RL and RU to them may look like a inferior version of Gridiron. A bit like in the UK, it would be a tough sell to put on 60 NFL and CFL games in 6 weeks and expect great ticket sales and profits. 

Further with the immigrants comment and the USA, The Italian, Greek, Polish, German diaspora are all there, so this would have been a factor in 94. It can't be underestimated. 

Until the USA has a 8-12 team RU league set up getting average gates of 10,000 or more (Ive put the bar low) it would be mad to risk a WC there ...

I say try to develop a Pro league first, and a mini tournament before a WC is risked.

[Southerner80]

5 hours ago, 17 stone giant said:

I have no idea, but the Sevens World Cup is completely different to a 15-a-side World Cup. It's like comparing the FIFA confederations cup with the actual world cup. It's chalk and cheese. Plus I'd imagine any loss would be tiny in relation to the money available in RU. I imagine that making a profit was less important on this occasion than just hosting the event in the US.

Actually given 7s is a Olympic sport and one of the NE Patriots got time off from the NFL Nate Ebner to play in it , its a warning of the limited appeal of Rugby in the States. 7s still struggles for money. RL and RU would do better to make a Anglo French WC huge than chase Rainbows in the States.  

[eal]

RL has a tiny presence in the USA even compared to RU, let alone of the major sports. The idea of holding a RLWC here was a poor idea to begin with. You don't take gambles with the biggest event in the game. A disastrous RLWC that loses millions would set the game back a decade. Just look how long it took to recover from the 2000 debacle.

[Chamey]

1 hour ago, Southerner80 said:

Actually given 7s is a Olympic sport and one of the NE Patriots got time off from the NFL Nate Ebner to play in it , its a warning of the limited appeal of Rugby in the States. 7s still struggles for money. RL and RU would do better to make a Anglo French WC huge than chase Rainbows in the States.  

They as good as sold out a 42,000 seater three days in a row, with insane $150+ a day tickets for the vast majority of seats, for what is effectively the inaugural edition of an event. In terms of TV ratings it (the final day) rated almost 50% higher than the Mets/Yankees game, or roughly equal to the Tour de France, German Grand Prix, and Cardinals/Cubs game combined, or equal to the USA/Costa Rica Semi Final and Man U/Real Madrid games combined from the year before. The sole measure of the success of an event should not be revenue raised.

It was a great example of how with good fore-planning and good work with local promoters it's possible to stage a roughly revenue neutral event that raises the profile of the sport in an expansion area. There is no reason why a 9sRWC couldn't do the same in say BMO field, Toronto. The Canadian NT has already drawn some very strong crowds, add in a few other teams and 30-40k could be achieved, assuming that the NRL doesn't threaten to pull the rug at every opportunity. Plus it'd be a good measure of what crowds the RLWC could expect to achieve in 2025. Great riches await whoever cracks the USA first, but the trick is to not go broke doing it.

More generally RL's biggest enemy is itself. If one side doesn't like what the other is proposing they tend to go into a flounce and cause a bit of chaos (see: NRL's international plan, the SL v the rest debacle, Denver test etc). Then if an initiative doesn't hit all possible goals the side against it goes into propaganda overdrive to try and kill off any future editions.

[TheReaper]

I wouldn't read too much into how 7s did as an indication of 15s. They're almost separate sports, most of my rugby friends don't pay it much attention as spectators, and not much more as players. Whereas I think the RU world cup would probably do pretty well. Not sure it would be worth including Canada or not,  the USA is more than capable of hosting on it's own.  Might be diluting it at that point.  Hopefully Canada would still be making it by then, we're on the last ditch repechage to make 2019.

Unfortunately I don't think a RL would go well at all. I was skeptical when they announced with the "conditional" status, but thought Moore Sports had as good or better a chance than anyone in RL. But now with articles about the Denver game about whether people have been paid or not, and seeming like they'll chicken out on the three year deal makes doubt if they can pull it off either.

 

[Kayakman]

39 minutes ago, TheReaper said:

I wouldn't read too much into how 7s did as an indication of 15s. They're almost separate sports, most of my rugby friends don't pay it much attention as spectators, and not much more as players. Whereas I think the RU world cup would probably do pretty well. Not sure it would be worth including Canada or not,  the USA is more than capable of hosting on it's own.  Might be diluting it at that point.  Hopefully Canada would still be making it by then, we're on the last ditch repechage to make 2019.

Unfortunately I don't think a RL would go well at all. I was skeptical when they announced with the "conditional" status, but thought Moore Sports had as good or better a chance than anyone in RL. But now with articles about the Denver game about whether people have been paid or not, and seeming like they'll chicken out on the three year deal makes doubt if they can pull it off either.

 

The RU World Cup would do pretty well.  But there has to be some logical thinking behind both the RU and RL planning, for example, Ireland playing the majority of their games in Boston, etc.  RL has got to learn things from the Denver test...things it can do better.  An example would be to have the game somewhere  where RL is currently played eg.Jacksonville or Toronto.   I would have England play the majority of their games in Vancouver since many, many ex pats live there; Victoria is the most English city in NA and many would just hop on the ferry to come across for the game.

Los Angeles and Seattle have high Pacific Islander populations and they would come out; have Tonga and Fiji play there.  Atlanta has great possibilities if it is presented properly..There has got to be some logic behind the planning, not just throw a dart near the middle of the continent.

And I know people want to go big time but there is no need to book these giant tombs of stadiums for games that are realistically going to draw no more than 25-30 thousand at the most..silly.

Moore Sports not footing their bills is the most troubling, even if its not true it is not good to have such talk.  If it is true..well that is a whole different matter and very, very bad.