World Cup venues announcement

[Derwent]

1 hour ago, Dave T said:

Yep, £10m for the tournament and £15m legacy pot. Could be the other way round.

Think it is the other way around, £15m direct government funding for the tournament itself and a further £10m via Sport England/UK Sport for the legacy infrastructure stuff.

[The Hallucinating Goose]

24 minutes ago, Lowdesert said:

Don’t do it!  Arsenal fans worried that players get injured just watching RL.

https://www.thesun.co.uk/sport/football/8305989/arsenal-fans-worried-player-injury-rugby-league-world-cup/

Why do football fans always say that rugby will wreck their pitches? Plenty of rugby games get played week in week out at plenty of football grounds and the pitches are just fine. 

[Dr Tim Whatley]

Just now, The Hallucinating Goose said:

Why do football fans always say that rugby will wreck their pitches? Plenty of rugby games get played week in week out at plenty of football grounds and the pitches are just fine. 

To be fair, that's just The Sun making a story out of nothing. It mostly comes down to not understanding the game though - football fans (of which I am one) generally equate rugby with the other code and all the scrums and rucks and mauls and fannying about on the floor therein.

More I think about it, the more I think having The Emirates instead of Wembley is great. Closer to the centre of town (five mins on the tube from King's X), a new ground many would want to visit, something fresh - and it has already garnered loads of media interest. Even if some of it just lazy journalists going on Twitter to get the opinions of Arsenal fans with 17 followers.

[gingerjon]

4 minutes ago, The Hallucinating Goose said:

Why do football fans always say that rugby will wreck their pitches? Plenty of rugby games get played week in week out at plenty of football grounds and the pitches are just fine. 

It’s because they forget what football pitches used to look like from November onwards until the introduction of decent tech.

[Hullfan]

Surprised hull kr's ground didn't get chosen

[Bleep1673]

7 minutes ago, The Hallucinating Goose said:

Why do football fans always say that rugby will wreck their pitches? Plenty of rugby games get played week in week out at plenty of football grounds and the pitches are just fine. 

a) Because most Rugby/Football Grounds are Union Shares, & 

b) Because their groundsman is rubbish. I have never seen a problem at Old Trafford the week after the GF

[Big Picture]

2 minutes ago, Hullfan said:

Surprised hull kr's ground didn't get chosen

Why?  It failed to sell out its small capacity for France vs. PNG in 2013.

[Bleep1673]

2 minutes ago, Hullfan said:

Surprised hull kr's ground didn't get chosen

I wasn't. I was more surprised Workington was chosen, despite not having a ground built

[NERugbyDad]

13 minutes ago, Bleep1673 said:

a) Because most Rugby/Football Grounds are Union Shares, & 

b) Because their groundsman is rubbish. I have never seen a problem at Old Trafford the week after the GF

I remember reading an article in the Newcastle Evening Chronicle with the head groundsman at St James, apparently after hosting 3 of the Rugby Union world cup games in 2015, including 2 in 2 days, there was only a week before Newcastle were due to play Norwich at home. On the day of the Norwich game a larger than normal press pack turned up and swarmed down to the pitch to get lots of pictures of the state of the playing surface only to be dumbfounded by the fact that it looked perfectly normal.

Arsenal fans get a life.

[Sir Kevin Sinfield]

5 hours ago, NWDuk said:

781,000 capacity just for the mens games.

Interesting venues for the womens and wheelchair games too. I'm super excited

The 750,000 target is clearly not going to happen and was unrealistic from the outset.

Beating the 2013 tournament total of 458,000 should be the aim. This was the highest attendance for a Rugby League World Cup ever so will take some beating. It was achieved through both selling tickets cheap and marketing the tournament, something that will need to be repeated.

[Bleep1673]

Still, disappointed France Spain or Wales weren't included.

& Lancashire (Preston) was only included as a "Training Base".

[Lowdesert]

1 minute ago, Bleep1673 said:

Still, disappointed France Spain or Wales weren't included.

In an England bid?

[Bleep1673]

1 minute ago, Lowdesert said:

In an England bid?

Very high concentration of East of Pennines venues

[Sir Kevin Sinfield]

It’s madness to play no games in France 

[Chamey]

2 minutes ago, Sir Kevin Sinfield said:

It’s madness to play no games in France 

 

7 minutes ago, Bleep1673 said:

Still, disappointed France Spain or Wales weren't included.

& Lancashire (Preston) was only included as a "Training Base".

The tournament had to be hosted solely in England, with 80% of the games in the 'northern powerhouse' in order to receive the £25m of government funding. That had been known for a while.

[The Hallucinating Goose]

16 minutes ago, Sir Kevin Sinfield said:

The 750,000 target is clearly not going to happen and was unrealistic from the outset.

Beating the 2013 tournament total of 458,000 should be the aim. This was the highest attendance for a Rugby League World Cup ever so will take some beating. It was achieved through both selling tickets cheap and marketing the tournament, something that will need to be repeated.

I think a number that needs to be mentioned from 2013 is the 80% occupancy figure. Full stadiums is what we need. It creates the atmosphere and looks good on the tele. 80% of 782,000 is 625,000 so I personally think that is the figure to be beating. That would mean an average crowd of 20,200. It does seem quite ambitious but that is what we need to be aiming for if we want a good looking tournament. 

It should be mentioned as well that those figures I've suggested would mean the highest total stadium capacity ever beating the previous high in 2017 by 32,000. It would be the highest total attendance ever by about 167,000, would be the highest average attendance since 1968 and would have the highest occupancy ever. We've aimed big with this one! 

[bamfordsbeans]

If the the game to receive £25 million it is a "no brainer" to have the majority of games in the north as that was one of the requirements from the government.

Without doing the exact maths I don't know if we could have got another couple of games in the south.Bristol  was a success in 2013.

I don't like the idea of 3 games at a number of venues such as Leigh,Doncaster,Warrington and Saints.If their bids were so good ,so be it,but I think the competition will suffer by not spreading out to more communities.

[Bleep1673]

3 minutes ago, bamfordsbeans said:

If the the game to receive £25 million it is a "no brainer" to have the majority of games in the north as that was one of the requirements from the government.

Without doing the exact maths I don't know if we could have got another couple of games in the south.Bristol  was a success in 2013.

I don't like the idea of 3 games at a number of venues such as Leigh,Doncaster,Warrington and Saints.If their bids were so good ,so be it,but I think the competition will suffer by not spreading out to more communities.

Because they want to keep the game in the North (M62 corridor/ Northern "Powerhouse")

[The Hallucinating Goose]

4 minutes ago, bamfordsbeans said:

I don't like the idea of 3 games at a number of venues such as Leigh,Doncaster,Warrington and Saints.If there bids were so good ,so be it,but I think the competition will suffer by not spreading out to more communities.

I must say, something did just strike me, not thought til now but we've gone for Workington at 8,000 capacity with 3 games. Originally I had thought York was gonna be too small but Yorks ground is gonna be 8,000 as well so why couldn't there have been at least 1 of those 3 Workington games there?? 

[Bleep1673]

2 minutes ago, The Hallucinating Goose said:

I must say, something did just strike me, not thought til now but we've gone for Workington at 8,000 capacity with 3 games. Originally I had thought York was gonna be too small but Yorks ground is gonna be 8,000 as well so why couldn't there have been at least 1 of those 3 Workington games there?? 

Sorry, is this the Yorkshire World Cup? I've already been told off for suggesting outside England Games, why should East Pennines have the majority?

[Sir Kevin Sinfield]

10 minutes ago, bamfordsbeans said:

I don't like the idea of 3 games at a number of venues such as Leigh,Doncaster,Warrington and Saints.If their bids were so good ,so be it,but I think the competition will suffer by not spreading out to more communities.

The only advantage I can see in taking 3 games to the same venues in the group stages, is it narrows down the number of places money needs to spent on marketing, before the tournament.

Having said that selling 3 group games in Doncaster is going to be tough, what sort of crowds do Doncaster get?

[Bleep1673]

4 minutes ago, Sir Kevin Sinfield said:

Having said that selling 3 group games in Doncaster is going to be tough, what sort of crowds do Doncaster get?

Less than Salford?

[Ullman]

2 hours ago, Lowdesert said:

If they have a few more fires then that might come to fruition sooner rather than later.

Hope your ok mate.

Ask me at 10pm on Friday 

Hopefully bump into you before too long, mate.

[Bleep1673]

Oh, and how many changes will spectators have to make to get to Horwich (Bolton's nearest station)?

 

[Dave T]

What crowds Doncaster get is irrelevant really. They aren't being offered World Cup games each week.

My personal preference would have been no more than 2 games at any ground, but I suspect the likes of Wire, Saints, Leigh, Workington should sort themselves out with their organising committees doing the promo. Same with Leeds, Hull etc.

This allows the organising committee to focus resources and attention on the places like Liverpool, Newcastle, Coventry, Middlesborough, London.