Rugby League World Cup 2021 (Merged Threads)

[Mattrhino]

3 hours ago, Dave T said:

The pricing was terrible,  I've given clear examples of crazy pricing and inconsistencies. 

And tbh,  the evidence that the pricing is wrong is with me -  they are changing it.  So,  tbh,  you are just wrong. If people aren't prepared to pay the prices,  then the prices are wrong. 

 

I'm going through which games I'm going to and just wondering who these £55 tickers to watch Ireland v Jamaica at Headingley are aimed at ?

[MattSantos]

On 26/08/2022 at 18:05, Archie Gordon said:

Got a reply back from RLWC about whether they'll be selling seats rather than (seats in) a block. I was told only blocks were available but I could make a particular request if I wanted and they'd see what they could do. Right now, I'm not keen. It's really disappointing.

Aye, same here. 

Will buy semi and final tickets on Friday. Will also look at Newcastle, but i'll be on me todd so umming and arring given the long drive.

[Man of Kent]

BeIN acquires Rugby League World Cup rights in France

[Archie Gordon]

34 minutes ago, MattSantos said:

Aye, same here. 

Will buy semi and final tickets on Friday. Will also look at Newcastle, but i'll be on me todd so umming and arring given the long drive.

Yeah, the ability to buy specific seats may be one of the reveals on Friday.

[Hull Kingston Bronco]

3 hours ago, Mattrhino said:

I'm going through which games I'm going to and just wondering who these £55 tickers to watch Ireland v Jamaica at Headingley are aimed at ?

Yup, that sort of thing is mad as a box of frogs 

[Big Picture]

9 hours ago, M j M said:

I think we have made a terrible error in dismissing Rimmer when it's clear from this that we should have sacked Rugby League fans and brought in a new set to address this problem.

What do you think Sean McGuire would think about it?

Not a new set instead current RL fans, in addition to them.

You do know that IMG will only make money out of new revenues which they bring into the game right?  Quite obviously, if the revenues available from current fans have been maxed out as Sean McGuire and Eric Pérez both said (though in different ways), then the only way for IMG to bring in new revenues is to expand the game's audience isn't it.  QED

4 hours ago, Mattrhino said:

I'm going through which games I'm going to and just wondering who these £55 tickers to watch Ireland v Jamaica at Headingley are aimed at ?

Clearly they're aimed at the demographics which make up the crowds are other Major World Class Sporting Events, which seeing that the game's revenues from its current fans have already been maxed out are also the demographics the game needs to attract for its partnership with IMG to succeed.

[Dave T]

50 minutes ago, Big Picture said:

 

Clearly they're aimed at the demographics which make up the crowds are other Major World Class Sporting Events, which seeing that the game's revenues from its current fans have already been maxed out are also the demographics the game needs to attract for its partnership with IMG to succeed.

The problem with this, and I agree that was their intent, is that they have played the majority of games at existing grounds/towns/cities - meaning that the core audience are likely to be people who are aware of RL.

In Warrington for example they are staging 4 games, so have 60,000 tickets to shift, the best way of selling them is to target the warm populations i.e. the engaged RL fan in the local area. There aren't 60k people just likely to come out of the woodwork for this event and pay well over the odds for the games.  We aren't playing in London, Cardiff, Edinburgh, Dublin - yet we are charging those prices. 

We have seen a fair few comparisons to the Women's Euros - a tournament that is far richer than our WC, with all the advantages that football brings in the UK - and their pricing was dirt cheap - a fraction of what we are trying to charge. They had a sensible pricing structure - and still ended up with huge empty sections at some games - just as we will do.

Considering we are trying to sell more and more games, including women's WC and Wheelchair - it seems ludicrous to have a price point of £70 for some seats for NZ v Lebanon.

You have to do more than just decide that you want a different demographic and stick a hefty price tag on it. People know how much RL games cost. They know how much international RL costs, and many will remember only 9 years ago at the last WC when tickets were going for as cheap as a tenner a game. 

It's all well and good them trying to rise the tide and price out those at the lower end, but they need to bring in new segments of fans at the top end, and clearly they have failed to do that. 

[Dave T]

5 hours ago, Mattrhino said:

I'm going through which games I'm going to and just wondering who these £55 tickers to watch Ireland v Jamaica at Headingley are aimed at ?

At Leigh they have Wales v Cook Islands priced at £40, £25, £15 (one of the cheapest games, sensible pricing imho).

At the same stadium, they then have Lebanon v Jamaica at £55, £35, £20. 

Absolutely bats*** crazy.

[gingerjon]

3 minutes ago, Dave T said:

The problem with this, and I agree that was their intent, is that they have played the majority of games at existing grounds/towns/cities - meaning that the core audience are likely to be people who are aware of RL.

In Warrington for example they are staging 4 games, so have 60,000 tickets to shift, the best way of selling them is to target the warm populations i.e. the engaged RL fan in the local area. There aren't 60k people just likely to come out of the woodwork for this event and pay well over the odds for the games.  We aren't playing in London, Cardiff, Edinburgh, Dublin - yet we are charging those prices. 

We have seen a fair few comparisons to the Women's Euros - a tournament that is far richer than our WC, with all the advantages that football brings in the UK - and their pricing was dirt cheap - a fraction of what we are trying to charge. They had a sensible pricing structure - and still ended up with huge empty sections at some games - just as we will do.

Considering we are trying to sell more and more games, including women's WC and Wheelchair - it seems ludicrous to have a price point of £70 for some seats for NZ v Lebanon.

You have to do more than just decide that you want a different demographic and stick a hefty price tag on it. People know how much RL games cost. They know how much international RL costs, and many will remember only 9 years ago at the last WC when tickets were going for as cheap as a tenner a game. 

It's all well and good them trying to rise the tide and price out those at the lower end, but they need to bring in new segments of fans at the top end, and clearly they have failed to do that. 

An interesting comparison is with the Cricket World Cup of 2019.

Pricing was ludicrous. IIRC, the cheapest ticket for when England/India/Australia played Australia/India/England was around £75.

But, for the equivalent matches to our hard sells, you could land genuine bargains. Around £25 would get you into a Bangladesh v Afghanistan.

Where we've gone wrong with the RLWC is that I don't think we've really been able to be that smart. (There are examples where we've got it right but the ones that are wrong really jar.)

[Dave T]

1 minute ago, gingerjon said:

An interesting comparison is with the Cricket World Cup of 2019.

Pricing was ludicrous. IIRC, the cheapest ticket for when England/India/Australia played Australia/India/England was around £75.

But, for the equivalent matches to our hard sells, you could land genuine bargains. Around £25 would get you into a Bangladesh v Afghanistan.

Where we've gone wrong with the RLWC is that I don't think we've really been able to be that smart. (There are examples where we've got it right but the ones that are wrong really jar.)

I think that is the approach we should have gone with - if you want to start moving away from discounting, and starting to charge premium pricing, then you need to start to work towards that - not just arrogantly sticking hefty price tags on the games. 

I could live with the premium prices for the marquee games - England games, England Semi and the Final - but they have gone all over the place. Asking for £70 for seats for some of the games that they are is just really really stupid. 

Interestingly, on your point about bargains, there are some to be had (I was considering starting a thread that pulled these out as they can be tough to find):

Games at Leigh start at £15 for adults.

Watch NZ at Warrington for as low as £25 in some seats.

France v Greece - all tickets £20 for adults

England QF (including Women's game) - starting at £25 for adults

Watch Tonga for as low as £25

[gingerjon]

4 minutes ago, Dave T said:

Interestingly, on your point about bargains, there are some to be had (I was considering starting a thread that pulled these out as they can be tough to find):

Games at Leigh start at £15 for adults.

Watch NZ at Warrington for as low as £25 in some seats.

France v Greece - all tickets £20 for adults

England QF (including Women's game) - starting at £25 for adults

Watch Tonga for as low as £25

Yes - there really are. Were I anywhere near "the north" I might even have dusted off my wallet.

[Dave T]

3 minutes ago, gingerjon said:

Yes - there really are. Were I anywhere near "the north" I might even have dusted off my wallet.

I am surprised that the marketing efforts are not really shouting about this. They aren't controlling the narrative.

[WN83]

2 hours ago, Archie Gordon said:

Yeah, the ability to buy specific seats may be one of the reveals on Friday.

You’d love to think that will be implemented and surely it isn’t difficult. Some people love to pick a specific seat for various reasons but as things stand, the tickets we’ve bought don’t even give you a row/seat number on the email confirmation, they just print the block you’re in.
 

I’m looking at games at Leigh/St Helens/Warrington and the old man could do with sitting down due to his mobility issues nowadays. You can get a seat for the same price as standing in some cases but we don’t want to be sitting at pitch level, so would love for them to let us choose our actual seats. If we can’t do that we’ll probably just stand. 

[Tex Evans Thigh]

The geographical spread of games is puzzling to say the least, particularly when some stadiums have several games. 

Do we think the lack of games in London is to create scarcity to try and sell out the emirates for the semi? 

The mind boggles as to why Wales don't have at least one game in Wales. I get that interest in Ireland and Scotland is very low but we have 2 professional Welsh clubs! I understand cities had to bid but it seems bizarre.

On a separate note, if England win the group and then the QF are we then playing Australia at Elland Road? I thought I had read somewhere that the path would lead to Aus v NZ semi but the RLWC suggests otherwise.

[Mr Frisky]

4 minutes ago, Tex Evans Thigh said:

The geographical spread of games is puzzling to say the least, particularly when some stadiums have several games. 

Do we think the lack of games in London is to create scarcity to try and sell out the emirates for the semi? 

The mind boggles as to why Wales don't have at least one game in Wales. I get that interest in Ireland and Scotland is very low but we have 2 professional Welsh clubs! I understand cities had to bid but it seems bizarre.

On a separate note, if England win the group and then the QF are we then playing Australia at Elland Road? I thought I had read somewhere that the path would lead to Aus v NZ semi but the RLWC suggests otherwise.

The tournament is staged in England and they have got money from the UK government to stage it in England.

I do think any Welsh warm up games should have been held in Wales though.

[gingerjon]

Just now, Mr Frisky said:

The tournament is staged in England and they have got money from the UK government to stage it in England.

I do think any Welsh warm up games should have been held in Wales though.

Interestingly (well, to me), it's Northern Powerhouse funding.

Parts of Wales are included in the Northern Powerhouse area.

[Tommygilf]

I feel like they have priced it almost like the RUWC.

In 2015 it was north of £50 to sit in the East Stand at Elland Road between the 22 and Goal Line for Canada vs Italy (I presume similar for Scotland vs USA the day after, but could be wrong).

They could get away with that because there was a) large demand for tickets and a genuine ballot, and b) there were very few games in the "North" to compete with, so even these relatively lower tier games could be priced highly. A final c) might be that they chose large venues in Large cities that are at the centre of wider regions for these limited fixtures: Leeds, Newcastle, Manchester.

The RLWC2021 couldn't replicate a) and largely decided against replicating b). We haven't really covered c) too much either.

To even take a more recent example of the Cricket World Cup 2019. England vs Sri Lanka at Headingley in the top tier of the new football stand end was talking £175 a ticket. 

These prices can be charged in the north of England for sporting events, but not in the circumstances the RLWC2021 has decided to work with.

[Tommygilf]

15 minutes ago, Mr Frisky said:

The tournament is staged in England and they have got money from the UK government to stage it in England.

I do think any Welsh warm up games should have been held in Wales though.

As GJ said, the Northern Powerhouse funding is quite a broad definition and does include key target markets for the RFL competitions in North Wales.

Even then, it seems we have doubled down on that restriction and not sought to push the boundaries as much as possible.

[Dave T]

20 minutes ago, gingerjon said:

Interestingly (well, to me), it's Northern Powerhouse funding.

Parts of Wales are included in the Northern Powerhouse area.

North Wales is included. I'm not sure whether we should have taken a game there tbh, I expect we are likely to get better support in Leigh.

[Dave T]

28 minutes ago, Tex Evans Thigh said:

 

On a separate note, if England win the group and then the QF are we then playing Australia at Elland Road? I thought I had read somewhere that the path would lead to Aus v NZ semi but the RLWC suggests otherwise.

No - If all goes with seeding, England will play Tonga at Arsenal. We can't meet the Aussies or Kiwis until the final. We are in separate sides of the draw.

The happy path for England is, Group Stages, QF at Wigan, Semi at Arsenal and Final at Old Trafford.

[gingerjon]

1 minute ago, Dave T said:

North Wales is included. I'm not sure whether we should have taken a game there tbh, I expect we are likely to get better support in Leigh.

Wrexham would be the only realistic option, I imagine. And that may not be particularly realistic.

Even then we have gone past the % required to be in the north and been very narrow with the locations.

Again, there could be perfectly could reasons for that but it does mean we possibly could have been smarter on some of the pricing.

[Dave T]

1 minute ago, gingerjon said:

Wrexham would be the only realistic option, I imagine. And that may not be particularly realistic.

Even then we have gone past the % required to be in the north and been very narrow with the locations.

Again, there could be perfectly could reasons for that but it does mean we possibly could have been smarter on some of the pricing.

You know my thoughts on the organisation - they have got a fair bit wrong so far. I don't think not taking a game to Wales is one of those things. 

I absolutely loved the opener at Cardiff last time, but games in Wrexham and Neath were poor, and only Wrexham and Colwyn Bay are now covered by the NPH scheme.

[Mr Frisky]

50 minutes ago, gingerjon said:

Interestingly (well, to me), it's Northern Powerhouse funding.

Parts of Wales are included in the Northern Powerhouse area.

But its an English WC - Wales isn't part of England. The 2013 WC had Wales in the title as they were co-hosts.

[gingerjon]

6 minutes ago, Mr Frisky said:

But its an English WC - Wales isn't part of England. The 2013 WC had Wales in the title as they were co-hosts.

The funding you refer to though … it includes Wales.

[Mr Frisky]

15 minutes ago, gingerjon said:

The funding you refer to though … it includes Wales.

You assume I mean Northern Powerhouse funding - not so the funding is from the UK government and sport England on the condition that its held in England and mostly in the North.

With that money is distributed to hundreds of local clubs and communities to aid the RL legacy.