International magic days

[pahars]

With Wheelchair RL catching the imagination, the women’s game becoming more popular and Adam Hill’s promoting PDRL could combining all the England family together in future for a magic type event work well? 
 

Examples could be a England mens  and England womens afternoon double header at London Stadium/ Etihad Stadium followed by a night time England wheelchair game in the Copper box/ Manchester regional arena sports hall. 

Both these venues have room for a fan village and a smaller athletics track with spectator facilities so a PDRL international could also happen in the morning as people start arriving. 

[Midlands hobo]

Why not Birmingham? City ground/ villa park. NEC or the old Nia. Or is it solely that RL exists in the north and the capital 

[Whippet13]

A England v France theme across all 4 would be interesting, held during the summer. 

Given the level of current interest in wheelchair RL, I think now is a great time to try and sell the BBC an annual European 6 nations championship - England, France, Wales, Ireland, Spain, Scotland with the top 2 in a Grand Final.

[pahars]

8 minutes ago, Midlands hobo said:

Why not Birmingham? City ground/ villa park. NEC or the old Nia. Or is it solely that RL exists in the north and the capital 

No. I was just using examples of a one day event where people could walk from venue to venue with a fan zone in between. 
 

You could hold it across a weekend in lots of places and Birmingham is a great city with great sports facilities   

[Damien]

Or maybe just sell them as 3 different events in their own right. 

[Jughead]

1 hour ago, Midlands hobo said:

Why not Birmingham? City ground/ villa park. NEC or the old Nia. Or is it solely that RL exists in the north and the capital 

Why would we play in London, where we’ve got great crowds previously, or Manchester, where again we have a history of great crowds? I just don’t know why we’d do that. 

[pahars]

19 minutes ago, Damien said:

Or maybe just sell them as 3 different events in their own right. 

You could do that with this system. Women’s in small stadium, men’s in bigger stadium, wheelchair in arena. All in the same city so people could attend all games or one or two if they choose. 
 

Reduces marketing costs and could get cities buying in as both ticks diversity and inclusion boxes and brings events to more then one venue. 

[JM2010]

I think it would be better if we took events around the country.

9s tournaments, beach rugby league, PDRL, wheelchair RL and touch/tag RL.

They could be taken to different cities over a weekend and be played at various venues across that city.

 

[Midlands hobo]

26 minutes ago, Jughead said:

Why would we play in London, where we’ve got great crowds previously, or Manchester, where again we have a history of great crowds? I just don’t know why we’d do that.

Perhaps a desire to maybe expand the game? Or is Manchester your idea of expansion as they've done so well at supporting a top flight team of their own.

[Midlands hobo]

7 minutes ago, JM2010 said:

beach rugby league

 

Would go well in Devon/Cornwall perhaps around the old run to the sun weekend/Boardmasters 

[Eddie]

2 hours ago, Midlands hobo said:

Why not Birmingham? City ground/ villa park. NEC or the old Nia. Or is it solely that RL exists in the north and the capital 

I think he was just giving a couple of examples, I didn’t get upset that he didn’t chose Carrow Road and the Norfolk Showgrounds as an example. 

[Jughead]

8 minutes ago, Midlands hobo said:

Perhaps a desire to maybe expand the game? Or is Manchester your idea of expansion as they've done so well at supporting a top flight team of their own.

No, it’s not my idea of expansion but not everything the sport does is about expansion. London typically gets good England/GB crowds and has just had a world record wheelchair attendance, Manchester does well for England/GB crowds and has a history of events in the city across all disciplines of the game. Sticking pins in maps, conveniently ones on your doorstep, is daft. 

[Midlands hobo]

Or conveniently halfway between the heartlands and London.

[Damien]

1 hour ago, pahars said:

You could do that with this system. Women’s in small stadium, men’s in bigger stadium, wheelchair in arena. All in the same city so people could attend all games or one or two if they choose. 
 

Reduces marketing costs and could get cities buying in as both ticks diversity and inclusion boxes and brings events to more then one venue. 

As usual with these kinds of ideas you severely overestimate the amount of people that want to go to 2 or 3 games and you cannibalise the target market in that city by them picking and choosing.

Making decisions around cost and selling to the bighest bidder rarely works out well as a strategy, as this World Cup has shown.

[Jughead]

Just having an international weekends that sees England men, women and wheelchair sides playing on dedicated weekends is enough. No need to do the typical rugby league of “get loads of games on, people will definitely turn up” and hoping that means a big crowd. We’ve absolutely annihilated double and triple headers as a sport and people just aren’t really that interested in them.

[gingerjon]

1 hour ago, Damien said:

Or maybe just sell them as 3 different events in their own right. 

THIS.

ALWAYS THIS.

[gingerjon]

1 hour ago, pahars said:

You could do that with this system. Women’s in small stadium, men’s in bigger stadium, wheelchair in arena. All in the same city so people could attend all games or one or two if they choose. 
 

Reduces marketing costs and could get cities buying in as both ticks diversity and inclusion boxes and brings events to more then one venue. 

No. It's still dilution.

[pahars]

29 minutes ago, Damien said:

As usual with these kinds of ideas you severely overestimate the amount of people that want to go to 2 or 3 games and you cannibalise the target market in that city by them picking and choosing.

Making decisions around cost and selling to the bighest bidder rarely works out well as a strategy, as this World Cup has shown.

I’m not sure I am overestimating. If out of say 40,000 for a men’s game in London, 5,000 want to watch a women’s game and 5,000 want to watch a wheelchair game then that’s great crowds for the latter two. 

With regard to your second point. we can’t just stop making decisions around cost and stop getting bids from cities because this World Cup hasn’t worked. 
 

 

[Midlands hobo]

37 minutes ago, Jughead said:

We’ve absolutely annihilated double and triple headers as a sport and people just aren’t really that interested in them.

This. The seats are not that comfortable for more than a game and let's face it who wants to sit outside in autumn for 6 hours then drive home.

[Damien]

1 hour ago, pahars said:

I’m not sure I am overestimating. If out of say 40,000 for a men’s game in London, 5,000 want to watch a women’s game and 5,000 want to watch a wheelchair game then that’s great crowds for the latter two. 

With regard to your second point. we can’t just stop making decisions around cost and stop getting bids from cities because this World Cup hasn’t worked. 

Plucking figures from thin air is pretty pointless.

Magic is a failed concept, hence its going to be scrapped. Double and triple headers have been tried time and again and have never succeeded and have never shown to be more successful than their individual parts.

This line of thinking is a very lazy and unambitious and so RL.

[pahars]

8 hours ago, Damien said:

Plucking figures from thin air is pretty pointless.

Magic is a failed concept, hence its going to be scrapped. Double and triple headers have been tried time and again and have never succeeded and have never shown to be more successful than their individual parts.

This line of thinking is a very lazy and unambitious and so RL.

It’s not pointless as you are making out like everyone would be expected to go to more then one game for it to work.

If only about 10% of the men’s crowd also watch the wheelchair game then that would currently be a world record crowd and that is clearly better then they are managing as an individual part. 
 

I think far from being unambitious it’s a mini-Olympic/Paralympic sport festival  and could be portrayed as such. 
 

 

[Whippet13]

9 hours ago, Damien said:

Plucking figures from thin air is pretty pointless.

Magic is a failed concept, hence its going to be scrapped. Double and triple headers have been tried time and again and have never succeeded and have never shown to be more successful than their individual parts.

This line of thinking is a very lazy and unambitious and so RL.

I don't think Magic is a failed concept, it brings in cash, attracts publicity and people / players / clubs seem to enjoy it. It's reached a static commercial ceiling however so I think IMG are recommending it goes because they see better opportunities, whatever they are.

[gingerjon]

1 hour ago, pahars said:

If only about 10% of the men’s crowd also watch the wheelchair game then that would currently be a world record crowd and that is clearly better then they are managing as an individual part.

A section of the sport that has never had any real exposure until this tournament and is now having standalone 3,000+ crowds in indoor arena hours away from where men's (and, indeed, women's) games are being played.

There are ways to grow a whole new audience of rugby league out of that. It's really not about hoping 10% of folk already there for something else decide to take in a game.

Edited November 9, 2022 by gingerjon
clarity

[pahars]

18 minutes ago, gingerjon said:

A section of the sport that has never had any real exposure until this tournament and is now having standalone 3,000+ crowds in indoor arena hours away from where men's (and, indeed, women's) games are being played.

There are ways to grow a whole new audience of rugby league out of that. It's really not about hoping 10% of folk already there for something else decide to take in a game.

So you take the 3,000+ that are currently watching games and add in 3,000+ that are in town and fancy watching something else and you sell out the Copper Box. 

This gives great publicity for Wheelchair Rugby League and the game in general. As well as a stronger platform for stand alone wheelchair games around the country. 
 

I’m not suggesting to constantly have all the different internationals in the same city but to build on this World Cup with a one off or at most annual festival type event. 

 

[gingerjon]

5 minutes ago, pahars said:

So you take the 3,000+ that are currently watching games and add in 3,000+ that are in town and fancy watching something else and you sell out the Copper Box. 

This gives great publicity for Wheelchair Rugby League and the game in general. As well as a stronger platform for stand alone wheelchair games around the country. 
 

I’m not suggesting to constantly have all the different internationals in the same city but to build on this World Cup with a one off or at most annual festival type event. 

 

I just have a bit of a trigger reflex as RL has an ongoing issue with constantly piling high and selling cheap.

We still haven't moved away from having women's games as curtain raisers.