RLWC Attendance-O-Meter

[Guest]

4 minutes ago, Dave T said:

Looking at the IRL Annual Report from August 2021:

The company’s balance sheet shows that it has relied on financing from Australian Company (out of the profits from previous world cups) and also on advances received on its 2021 Rugby League World Cup rights fee. Following the deferred staging of the 2021 event, it is anticipated that in 2022 the profits from the competition will result in the company having a healthy, positive balance sheet going forward

So there was certainly an expectation at that stage that there would be a substantial return. 

So, there it is in black and white, discussion of a rights fee and profit for RLWC2021. Interesting.

If we are now only breaking even, it suggests its because we are missing targets.

I can only assume the breakeven is the current position.

In reality - there will be a hell of a lot of additional tickets sold. A sold out Emirates and Final would be transformative.

[Dave T]

12 minutes ago, The Masked Poster said:

Yes I seem to remember the aftermath being being very serious. I might be getting it wrong as it was over 20 years ago but I seem to remember it being touch and go for the RFL. 

And again, I might be getting mixed up but wasn't this debt essentially the reason Maurice Lyndsay personally got on the phone to the Aussies after they said they weren't playing in the 2001 Ashes series due to 9/11 attacks? It was apparently a matter of life and death (so to speak) that this went ahead and it not happening could have spelt curtains.

To add to this, the aftermath of that disastrous WC meant that we had to go back into a shell and play it safe. But actually it wasn't terrible. England hosted end of season internationals for 5 years on the bounce. 2 x ashes tours, a Kiwi tour and then two Tri-Nations. We also had some secondary England A games etc. 

That allowed us to steady the ship, make some money and grow from there. 

[Dave T]

4 minutes ago, Leonard said:

I can only assume the breakeven is the current position.

In reality - there will be a hell of a lot of additional tickets sold. A sold out Emirates and Final would be transformative.

Who knows mate? 

I hope that's the case and any claims of the tournament struggling to break even was simply a clumsy attempt at defending sales strategy. 

[JonM]

31 minutes ago, Dave T said:

EDIT: we also shouldn't forget that we have had a further £10m invested in grassroots RL legacy projects from the government due to this WC. So in any case, if this tournament only breaks even, the legacy benefit is that England RL gets £10m investment.

An important point. There are a whole bunch of amateur clubhouses, extensions, pitches and so forth that have been funded by the £15 million in the RLWC legacy fund. Things like Hemel getting a female changing room so that they can aim for a Women's superleague team, a fenced pitch for Haydock, clubhouses at Queensbury, Sharlston etc. 

[Guest]

Just now, Dave T said:

Who knows mate? 

I hope that's the case and any claims of the tournament struggling to break even was simply a clumsy attempt at defending sales strategy. 

I might be up to 10 for the Emirates now - so I might single handedly be saving the day.

[Big Picture]

2 hours ago, Derwent said:

I think one of the issues here is that the government funding may be milestone based. I recall reading an interview with Dutton where he said the £15m funding pledge was based on selling 750,000 seats. So we may not get £15m - there might be some kind of pro-rata based on actual ticket volumes.

Then we have the issue that the tournament was costed about 4 years ago and there have been massive increases in prices since then. Logistics costs will have increased to a multiple of what they planned for pre-covid.

Additionally there may well have been a lot of costs associated with the cancellation. We may have had to pay for some stadiums twice - don't forget there was technically no legislative reason why the tournament couldn't have been staged last year. The decision to postpone was made by the sport, it was not something they were being forced into by government regulations, it wasn't a a force majeure. Therefore it would not surprise me if we had to pay for the stadiums that had been booked last year and then pay again for them this year. We broke the contracts, there will have been some financial penalty as a consequence.

It not only may be milestone based, I have no doubt whatever that it is milestone based.  And considering that the funding was part of Northern Powerhouse, I have no doubt that the government is behind the ticket prices being charged.

The government desperately needs to able to claim that Northern Powerhouse has been a success if it somehow wants to hold on to the votes of the former Labour voters who gave them their majority last time, and without that they're sure to be defeated at the next election.  A successful northern-based tournament at these ticket prices would be an indication that they're succeeded in turning things around in the North, an unsuccessful tournament with these ticket prices will be a sign that NP has failed to achieve that turnaround.

[EggFace]

By the looks of things have we went backwards as looking at all the crowds for 2013 there was not a bad crowd at all games e.g, Australia v Fiji St.Helens got over 14000. 

[The Masked Poster]

4 minutes ago, Dave T said:

To add to this, the aftermath of that disastrous WC meant that we had to go back into a shell and play it safe. But actually it wasn't terrible. England hosted end of season internationals for 5 years on the bounce. 2 x ashes tours, a Kiwi tour and then two Tri-Nations. We also had some secondary England A games etc. 

That allowed us to steady the ship, make some money and grow from there. 

Yeah the 2001 Ashes series was a pretty good one, that at least started off with a win.  2002 Kiwi series saw some great games and decent crowds ditto  the 4 Nations in 2004.

Actually getting nostalgic for those days lol. 

[hunsletgreenandgold]

1 minute ago, EggFace said:

By the looks of things have we went backwards as looking at all the crowds for 2013 there was not a bad crowd at all games e.g, Australia v Fiji St.Helens got over 14000. 

But if it is a 5 digit attendance tonigt, in a non-heartland area and with respect, against Scotland - i'd take that. 

[Guest]

1 minute ago, The Masked Poster said:

Yeah the 2001 Ashes series was a pretty good one, that at least started off with a win.  2002 Kiwi series saw some great games and decent crowds ditto  the 4 Nations in 2004.

Actually getting nostalgic for those days lol. 

Maybe the organisers could bring back the Biff for the knock out rounds (pun intended)?

[EggFace]

1 minute ago, hunsletgreenandgold said:

But if it is a 5 digit attendance tonigt, in a non-heartland area and with respect, against Scotland - i'd take that. 

Yes true but I have total forgotten what a success 2013 was it must of been the most successful Rugby League World Cup we have had ?

[The Masked Poster]

1 minute ago, Leonard said:

Maybe the organisers could bring back the Biff for the knock out rounds (pun intended)?

Just remembered the 2003 Ashes series too, where Morley got sent off after 10 seconds or something. Biff indeed 

[Dave T]

11 minutes ago, JonM said:

An important point. There are a whole bunch of amateur clubhouses, extensions, pitches and so forth that have been funded by the £15 million in the RLWC legacy fund. Things like Hemel getting a female changing room so that they can aim for a Women's superleague team, a fenced pitch for Haydock, clubhouses at Queensbury, Sharlston etc. 

Yes, this is what I referred to. It was £10m for legacy projects like those you list, and up to £15m for tournament costs. 

[Dave T]

9 minutes ago, Big Picture said:

It not only may be milestone based, I have no doubt whatever that it is milestone based.  And considering that the funding was part of Northern Powerhouse, I have no doubt that the government is behind the ticket prices being charged.

The government desperately needs to able to claim that Northern Powerhouse has been a success if it somehow wants to hold on to the votes of the former Labour voters who gave them their majority last time, and without that they're sure to be defeated at the next election.  A successful northern-based tournament at these ticket prices would be an indication that they're succeeded in turning things around in the North, an unsuccessful tournament with these ticket prices will be a sign that NP has failed to achieve that turnaround.

Do you not think the easy get out for Dutton is to say that the government insist on those prices? 

There is a clear reason they are not saying that. 

[Dave T]

9 minutes ago, EggFace said:

By the looks of things have we went backwards as looking at all the crowds for 2013 there was not a bad crowd at all games e.g, Australia v Fiji St.Helens got over 14000. 

That's not quite true. There were plenty of low crowds, but most games did well within the context of the fixtures. 

We are possibly going to exceed the total number for 2013, although it'll be tight, and we do have a handful more games. 

But the likes of Leeds, Leigh and Wire never dropped below 5 figures. 

[Big Picture]

1 minute ago, Dave T said:

Do you not think the easy get out for Dutton is to say that the government insist on those prices? 

There is a clear reason they are not saying that. 

He said before the tournament started that the organizers were under pressure from the government "to do all the right things".  If that wasn't a reference to the ticket prices, what else do you think he meant?

[Dave T]

Just now, Big Picture said:

He said before the tournament started that the organizers were under pressure from the government "to do all the right things".  If that wasn't a reference to the ticket prices, what else do you think he meant?

Getting bums on seats. 

They have spent the last 5 days having to answer questions on ticket pricing - you don't think they may have mentioned that it was a stipulation? 

They've explained quite clearly why they are charging these prices and sticking with them. 

[Big Picture]

Just now, Dave T said:

Getting bums on seats. 

They have spent the last 5 days having to answer questions on ticket pricing - you don't think they may have mentioned that it was a stipulation? 

They've explained quite clearly why they are charging these prices and sticking with them. 

I agree, getting bums on seats and doing that at these prices.  If they've been working closely with the government as they put this together, the ticket prices were surely part of those discussions.

[BristolDevonCharlie]

Re. the "struggling to break even" point. I have only seen this in one line of the BBC Sport article which is then not backed up anywhere else in the article. And it does seem to contradict other statements made, and different from the info in the Guardian and other RL press on the same story. 

Without more details, it could be either more alarming or was a comment taken out of context or misunderstood.

Quite a lot of speculation based on half a sentence in perhaps, a badly written article?

[Dave T]

6 minutes ago, Big Picture said:

I agree, getting bums on seats and doing that at these prices.  If they've been working closely with the government as they put this together, the ticket prices were surely part of those discussions.

I'll hold my comments on my thoughts on this government, but there is little logic in them enforcing high prices which see empty grounds.

Its in their interests that Warrington has 60k people involved instead of the likely 30k.

Its in their interest that Leigh has 35k instead of 18k.

It's a numbers game for government, they want as many people as possible to be positively impacted by RLWC. 

The one's who have the real interest in ticket prices are RLWC. Its them who have to make this tournament wash its face financially. 

[Dave T]

6 minutes ago, BristolDevonCharlie said:

Re. the "struggling to break even" point. I have only seen this in one line of the BBC Sport article which is then not backed up anywhere else in the article. And it does seem to contradict other statements made, and different from the info in the Guardian and other RL press on the same story. 

Without more details, it could be either more alarming or was a comment taken out of context or misunderstood.

Quite a lot of speculation based on half a sentence in perhaps, a badly written article?

Dutton did make the point on a tweet. I don't know whether that is where the BBC have taken it from. But Dutton wrote it. 

[Damien]

8 minutes ago, BristolDevonCharlie said:

Re. the "struggling to break even" point. I have only seen this in one line of the BBC Sport article which is then not backed up anywhere else in the article. And it does seem to contradict other statements made, and different from the info in the Guardian and other RL press on the same story. 

Without more details, it could be either more alarming or was a comment taken out of context or misunderstood.

Quite a lot of speculation based on half a sentence in perhaps, a badly written article?

To be honest I wouldn't be surprised if it stems from the tweet that Dutton did, which was vague and contradictory at best. I'm hopeful that it isn't as it seems.

[JM2010]

I'm hoping after this weekends fixtures and a bit more clarity of potential QF match ups that there might be a spike in ticket sales for the rest of the tournament 

[HawkMan]

Interesting attendance figures may be they are not the be all and end all of how the the tournament will be judged. Martyn Sadler on this forum months back said that if in a year's time the general public are still as ignorant about Rugby League as now then that would be a worry.

Question is, will the RLWC achieve a breakthrough like Women's football or Netball,  both had spikes in attendance figures for domestic competitions following international tournaments. We get our answer next year.

[BristolDevonCharlie]

"Understood, World Cups are expensive to stage even to a break even point but we are listening and want more people to enjoy in person."

"£2.21 for all children tonight in Doncaster. £15 for adults and £5 for children in Leigh on Wednesday. Tournament runs to break even, no profit and we pay for everything, hence the need to raise funds from tickets and other sources."

Bar the two above quotes Jon Dutton made on Twitter on 17th October, I can't see any other mentions of breaking even.

Those tweets do not allude to struggling to break even. Also implies surplus goes to IRL, which is excellent. 

Other IRL point is that the RLWC organisers have to pay a hosting rights fee to the IRL, so that is surely money guarantee before profit.