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Rugby League World Cup 2021 (Merged Threads)


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31 minutes ago, Toby Chopra said:

Sorry to be a downer, but isn't that... worryingly low? 

We've only sold 55% of 2013 sales with 9 weeks to go. 

I know they're planning on a late push, but I didn't realise it was coming from that far back. 

Or was this the same level as at this time in 2013?

Do the maths lets say already 60000 the final 30000 Newcastle 20000 at each of then other England matches say 150000 all up then divide the remaining 100000 by 26 = less than 4000 per  match (Not even including women's and wheelchair) 

 

 

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41 minutes ago, Toby Chopra said:

Or was this the same level as at this time in 2013?

They were a touch short of 100K in mid-April, and none of the games had sold out at that point. There was a tv advert in October during the England v Poland football international to promote the double-header later that month, which suggests that a pretty significant chunk of sales happened during the tournament itself.

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32 minutes ago, JonM said:

They were a touch short of 100K in mid-April, and none of the games had sold out at that point. There was a tv advert in October during the England v Poland football international to promote the double-header later that month, which suggests that a pretty significant chunk of sales happened during the tournament itself.

Ok, 100k to 450k in the last 6 months is a good precedent. 

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1 hour ago, ATLANTISMAN said:

Do the maths lets say already 60000 the final 30000 Newcastle 20000 at each of then other England matches say 150000 all up then divide the remaining 100000 by 26 = less than 4000 per  match (Not even including women's and wheelchair) 

 

 

I'd be surprised if we've sold those numbers for those games. 

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3 hours ago, Damien said:

Well they've held back 75% of their marketing budget for the last 6 weeks so you'd expect sales should rise rapidly then.

I also remember some prime time TV adverts on ITV ( Coronation Street or Emmerdale i think) last year before the WC was delayed - those had to eat into the budget with no return.

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15 hours ago, Man of Kent said:

Sounds low to me. The opener and final could be half of that 250k.

50k Newcastle

28k Bolton

32k Sheffield 

25k Wigan

60k Arsenal 

75k final

England's guaranteed and potential games come to 270k potential ticket sales alone.

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250K more than 9 weeks out is very solid, especially when the target is 500K.

It's ahead of where any previous World Cup in the 2000s has been this far out and considering so many games are being played 'close to home' of RL's heartlands, there is one less lever forcing people to plan ahead and pre purchase a long way out for a number of games.

England matches are supposedly selling well, which really are the matches that need near sell out crowds and as others have mentioned, the organisers are targeting the last six weeks for their marketing blitz.

I know selling in Australia/NZ & UK are different, but generally for any event I've been involved in selling in the Southern Hemisphere (where there isn't so much demand that you move 80%+ of the tickets on day one) usually most of your sales will happen in the month leading up to the event.

We still have things like the naming of squads, PR launches, public training events, warm up matched, general uptick in media coverage and even the NRL & SL Finals Series to trigger selling spikes.  Off this base I'd surprised if the organisers only got to around 500K.

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4 minutes ago, Yakstorm said:

250K more than 9 weeks out is very solid, especially when the target is 500K.

It's ahead of where any previous World Cup in the 2000s has been this far out and considering so many games are being played 'close to home' of RL's heartlands, there is one less lever forcing people to plan ahead and pre purchase a long way out for a number of games.

England matches are supposedly selling well, which really are the matches that need near sell out crowds and as others have mentioned, the organisers are targeting the last six weeks for their marketing blitz.

I know selling in Australia/NZ & UK are different, but generally for any event I've been involved in selling in the Southern Hemisphere (where there isn't so much demand that you move 80%+ of the tickets on day one) usually most of your sales will happen in the month leading up to the event.

We still have things like the naming of squads, PR launches, public training events, warm up matched, general uptick in media coverage and even the NRL & SL Finals Series to trigger selling spikes.  Off this base I'd surprised if the organisers only got to around 500K.

500k is still sadly only half of what the stated aim was in 2016 when the bid was launched. https://www.therhinos.co.uk/2016/06/30/england-to-bid-for-2021-rugby-league-world-cup/

 

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1 hour ago, Yakstorm said:

250K more than 9 weeks out is very solid, especially when the target is 500K.

It's ahead of where any previous World Cup in the 2000s has been this far out and considering so many games are being played 'close to home' of RL's heartlands, there is one less lever forcing people to plan ahead and pre purchase a long way out for a number of games.

England matches are supposedly selling well, which really are the matches that need near sell out crowds and as others have mentioned, the organisers are targeting the last six weeks for their marketing blitz.

I know selling in Australia/NZ & UK are different, but generally for any event I've been involved in selling in the Southern Hemisphere (where there isn't so much demand that you move 80%+ of the tickets on day one) usually most of your sales will happen in the month leading up to the event.

We still have things like the naming of squads, PR launches, public training events, warm up matched, general uptick in media coverage and even the NRL & SL Finals Series to trigger selling spikes.  Off this base I'd surprised if the organisers only got to around 500K.

The target isn't 500k, that BBC article is the first time it has been mentioned. 

The 2013 edition attracted 458k over 26 events (2 double headers). 

If we isolate the men's tournament, it has 31 events this time - to match the average of 2013 we need 546k. 

We then add on the women's and wheelchair and we should be smashing 600k. And if we really are looking for growth of the men's tournament then we should be substantially beating that 546k.

And it is possible. The semis and openers should exceed 2013 by a decent amount for example. 

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4 minutes ago, Tommygilf said:

As will trebling the ticket prices and concentrating the venues.

The former would (possibly) be okay if since 2013 there was any obvious growth in the number and diversity of our ticket buyers.

The latter ... well, we've done that one. It could be a lot better even within the terms of the Northern Powerhouse funding.

With the prices though, we should get a lot more ticket income than in 2013. Sponsorship looks to be more or less okay for the tournament as well.

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10 minutes ago, Tommygilf said:

As will trebling the ticket prices and concentrating the venues.

RL fans are going to have to get used to paying what the game is worth. With all of the discounting that goes on it will become a discount brand. It is very difficult to become a lifestyle (or dare I say, a premium) brand once the place in the market has been set.

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16 minutes ago, Mark S said:

RL fans are going to have to get used to paying what the game is worth. With all of the discounting that goes on it will become a discount brand. It is very difficult to become a lifestyle (or dare I say, a premium) brand once the place in the market has been set.

I don't have an issue paying what the game is worth. However setting a target of 1 million ticket sales, whilst then focusing on what is very much an M62 corridor fixture list and relying heavily on a smaller number of people but then limiting their ability to attend multiple games due to cost is something that doesn't quite make sense to me. There is plenty of good stuff going on with the organisation of this world cup but there are bits of it that confuses me. Positives from the 2013 tournament don't seem to have been carried on in some areas.

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1 hour ago, gingerjon said:

The former would (possibly) be okay if since 2013 there was any obvious growth in the number and diversity of our ticket buyers.

The latter ... well, we've done that one. It could be a lot better even within the terms of the Northern Powerhouse funding.

With the prices though, we should get a lot more ticket income than in 2013. Sponsorship looks to be more or less okay for the tournament as well.

It's an important point on your last para. If we manage to get decent numbers at these prices, it should be a huge success financially. I believe the commercial income is far better than previous, government funding on a different level, hospitality breaking records and with ticket prices as they are, revenue should be high. 

In 2013, we were getting hold of marquee event tickets for only a few quid. 

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1 hour ago, Mark S said:

RL fans are going to have to get used to paying what the game is worth. With all of the discounting that goes on it will become a discount brand. It is very difficult to become a lifestyle (or dare I say, a premium) brand once the place in the market has been set.

Just saying that though doesn't mean anything. 

If we end up with empty grounds, then those tickets weren't worth the price. 

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1 hour ago, Dave T said:

Just saying that though doesn't mean anything. 

If we end up with empty grounds, then those tickets weren't worth the price. 

That’s why the game needs people who can market events and sell tickets. I have not seen any digital ads for the tournament yet, but in the run up to the Six Nations I will see plenty of ads across the web and on social media. 

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3 hours ago, Tommygilf said:

500k is still sadly only half of what the stated aim was in 2016 when the bid was launched. https://www.therhinos.co.uk/2016/06/30/england-to-bid-for-2021-rugby-league-world-cup/

Good point, I had forgotten the exact number that was originally stated, but did feel like it was higher than 500K.

Honestly with a 250K base, getting up to 700K+ I would say is realistic, provided there is enough capacity at the games being marketed. 

1 million is highly unlikely, although does anyone know what would be the maximum number of tickets we can sell for the event? 

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5 minutes ago, Yakstorm said:

Good point, I had forgotten the exact number that was originally stated, but did feel like it was higher than 500K.

Honestly with a 250K base, getting up to 700K+ I would say is realistic, provided there is enough capacity at the games being marketed. 

1 million is highly unlikely, although does anyone know what would be the maximum number of tickets we can sell for the event? 

There’s about 740,000 tickets available for the men’s tournament not sure about the women’s though.

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26 minutes ago, Mark S said:

That’s why the game needs people who can market events and sell tickets. I have not seen any digital ads for the tournament yet, but in the run up to the Six Nations I will see plenty of ads across the web and on social media. 

Funnily enough, it feels like they have ramped up some of the ads this week. Now I have been on the RLWC ticket site this week, but I have seen plenty of digital marketing following me around, so hopefully that is a good sign. 

I was in Warrington earlier this week too and there were a fair few ads for the WC too. Maybe this is the start of their campaign. 

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2 hours ago, Mark S said:

RL fans are going to have to get used to paying what the game is worth. With all of the discounting that goes on it will become a discount brand. It is very difficult to become a lifestyle (or dare I say, a premium) brand once the place in the market has been set.

That is fine, but two questions arise from that.

1. What is the game worth?

2. Is this tournament trying a strategy that compliments the pricing policy?

To answer 1., it is worth what people will pay for it. I don't think most of the prices are unreasonable by any stretch in isolation. I've paid equivalent or more for F1, Cricket, Football and other RL games.

This though leads us into 2. The prices, and matches, aren't in isolation. International RL competitions have always been dependent to a varying extent on multiple match attendees, none more so than the RLWC in 2013 for example. RLWC 2021 is the highest concentration of matches for a tournament I can remember (and a lot of this is self imposed). The strategy seems to be around existing RL fans in existing RL areas (or those commutable from there such as Newcastle) paying one off marquee ticket prices on multiple occasions for multiple matches. 

For example, £55 tickets for side line seats at Leigh or Doncaster for Lebanon vs Ireland or Samoa vs Greece respectively is ludicrous. It is especially ludicrous when Leigh hosts 2 other games, then have an England group game guaranteed within a 20 minute drive, and also have the England Quarter Final, another Quarter final, the final, and 6 more group games within 30 minutes drive. Doncaster also have 2 other group games, an England group game within 30 mins drive, 3 group games and a semi final in Leeds 45 mins drive away, even 2 QFs within an hours drive.

You get the point, this isn't scarcity driving up prices, and it certainly isn't reaching audiences outside of the existing scope of RL.

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32 minutes ago, Yakstorm said:

Good point, I had forgotten the exact number that was originally stated, but did feel like it was higher than 500K.

Honestly with a 250K base, getting up to 700K+ I would say is realistic, provided there is enough capacity at the games being marketed. 

1 million is highly unlikely, although does anyone know what would be the maximum number of tickets we can sell for the event? 

I believe they already revised the aims down to 750k due to various factors, including losing Anfield. 

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3 hours ago, gingerjon said:

The former would (possibly) be okay if since 2013 there was any obvious growth in the number and diversity of our ticket buyers.

The latter ... well, we've done that one. It could be a lot better even within the terms of the Northern Powerhouse funding.

With the prices though, we should get a lot more ticket income than in 2013. Sponsorship looks to be more or less okay for the tournament as well.

You've got to hope so anyway.

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