World Cup Finances

[Hull Kingston Bronco]

1 hour ago, Tommygilf said:

Its not forced to be an unparalelled success or a disaster. They aren't the only 2 possible outcomes of the world cup.

It wasn't the disaster of 2000, but it didn't grow as much on the success of 2013 as many, including myself, dearly hoped it would. 

It wasn't the disaster of 2000 because we won the lottery in terms of Government subsidy, only as it aligned with their (very short-lived) Northern Powerhouse fig leaf policy. That's just luck. Or at least great corporate affairs by other people beforehand, at most. The organisers themselves however delivered capacity utilisation outcomes in the WC2000 range.

From the perspective of ticket sales, it was an unmitigated disaster. You can't make changes to improve the next time until you accept things were a failure, analyse the issues, and implement plans from those lessons learned. That's what we need rugby league officials to do. But how many chances do they need? 

[Toby Chopra]

1 hour ago, ATLANTISMAN said:

Totally spot on the ticketing was a disaster from start to finish as has the spin ,but hey ho everyone off to their next gig in the world of sports functionering from cycling to snail racing leaving others to clear up the mess.

 

What we need is people on the coal face 

The weird thing is Dutton and Hogan have been at the coalface of British rugby league, so they should have been able to feel what was going on. But they just got carried away with their own hype. So less an issue of experience and more one of character.

[Tommygilf]

2 minutes ago, Hull Kingston Bronco said:

It wasn't the disaster of 2000 because we won the lottery in terms of Government subsidy, only as it aligned with their (very short-lived) Northern Powerhouse fig leaf policy. That's just luck. Or at least great corporate affairs by other people beforehand, at most. The organisers themselves however delivered capacity utilisation outcomes in the WC2000 range.

From the perspective of ticket sales, it was an unmitigated disaster. You can't make changes to improve the next time until you accept things were a failure, analyse the issues, and implement plans from those lessons learned. That's what we need rugby league officials to do. But how many chances do they need? 

It wasn't total disaster. The tournament paid its bills - partly because the relatively few tickets that were sold were pricey unlike in 2000. The government subsidy was built into the accounting, of course. You can't just say it doesn't count because it doesn't suit. 

I think it could have been much better. The ticketing (including the ticketing platform) and scheduling had clear issues from the outset. The sport didn't get the boost it really needed imo and the presence of the World Cup was limited by the poor geographical spread. If we had been less pricey and a bit more thoughtful on ticket sales I think we'd have seen easily the most profitable World Cup ever. Instead it just paid its bills, which if the IRL fee is decent is still a good result from that perspective. 

Its frustrating that the problems that were there were so glaringly obvious, and were obvious before any Cost of living crisis and Covid. 

[Hull Kingston Bronco]

14 minutes ago, Toby Chopra said:

The weird thing is Dutton and Hogan have been at the coalface of British rugby league, so they should have been able to feel what was going on. But they just got carried away with their own hype. So less an issue of experience and more one of character.

Their analysis of the strategic problem was reasonable. 

1. Heavy late discounting in prior tournaments had removed the "buy early" incentive from the core, existing customer.

2. You can charge premium prices for premium events, because general event buyers are less price sensitive than the current rugby league customer, and our sport had never managed to. 

But the strategy to overcome this was incompetent.

1. The core customer waited for discounts previously *because* they are highly price sensitive. The correct read on this would be to implement prices near the discounted range up front, in most cases. The market is what it is.

2. The new, event customer will pay premium prices to sample an "experience" in a way an existing rugby league fan might not, but they will only do so for premium products. At most in this RLWC context that would be an England opening game, an England game in London, an England semi final (if actually promoted) and the final. You could do clever price segmentation in these games to maximise yield (which we did for e.g. the final, where yield was through the roof versus previous attempts), *but* any sensible strategy would not have attempted to do that for group matches which in reality were never premium products, certainly not for the uninitiated.

So absent the event customer here all you're left then is just some random hope that your existing audience will pay twice as much money to watch an international not involving England, than they would to watch their club team. Just madness. To a rugby league fan, already price conscious, a neutral group game is an inferior product and if anything you'd need the price point lower.  

I say this stuff with no joy at all, simply constructively from the perspective of someone who has been running large organisations marketing various different types of product, service and event for 25 years. You have to know your audience. Kevin Costner's 'Field of Dreams' was fictional, it wasn't a business "how to" parable. People don't come just because you build something. 

 

Edited July 21, 2023 by Hull Kingston Bronco
Typo

[Tommygilf]

8 minutes ago, Toby Chopra said:

The weird thing is Dutton and Hogan have been at the coalface of British rugby league, so they should have been able to feel what was going on. But they just got carried away with their own hype. So less an issue of experience and more one of character.

Agreed. That said Hogan was brought in later iirc, probably because of his reputation of being able to do a lot with a little (which is where the RLWC was by the time he came in iirc).

Dutton has now been responsible for the World Cup and before that the 2016 Four Nations. Neither seemed to be particularly successful imo - he oversaw a 10k attendance drop between 2015 and 2016 for England vs NZ/Australia in London for example, and had games played at Hull KR and Workington Televised only on Premier Sports. His record in RL is patchy at best, and I certainly think hubris got the better of him.

[Damien]

45 minutes ago, Hull Kingston Bronco said:

It wasn't the disaster of 2000 because we won the lottery in terms of Government subsidy, only as it aligned with their (very short-lived) Northern Powerhouse fig leaf policy. That's just luck. Or at least great corporate affairs by other people beforehand, at most. The organisers themselves however delivered capacity utilisation outcomes in the WC2000 range.

You can't just separate the funding, and a massive part of the budget, from the event and the decisions that were made. The entire event would have been done differently without it 

The funding wasn't luck either, the sport went out and got that.

[Hull Kingston Bronco]

13 minutes ago, Damien said:

You can't just separate the funding, and a massive part of the budget, from the event and the decisions that were made. The entire event would have been done differently without it 

The funding wasn't luck either, the sport went out and got that.

I gave credit to the people who went out and got it. But I was discussing the performance of the organisers in selling tickets, and that was by any measure a disaster. The fact it didn't have disastrous financial consequences for the sport because we were fortunate the Conservatives needed to be seen to "do something" in the north (which is an event we can't repeat) doesn't do anything to mitigate against that. 

If we sold tickets competently, we might have had more money. We need that. We'd certainly have attracted some new customers we could then monetise further in the future. The absence of those things is, in my view, a disaster. And an avoidable one. 

[Damien]

2 minutes ago, Hull Kingston Bronco said:

I gave credit to the people who went out and got it. But I was discussing the performance of the organisers in selling tickets, and that was by any measure a disaster. The fact it didn't have disastrous financial consequences for the sport because we were fortunate the Conservatives needed to be seen to "do something" in the north (which is an event we can't repeat) doesn't do anything to mitigate against that. 

If we sold tickets competently, we might have had more money. We need that. We'd certainly have attracted some new customers we could then monetise further in the future. The absence of those things is, in my view, a disaster. And an avoidable one. 

The performance of the tournament and the budget was directly affected by the funding though. You can't decouple that to suit.

Community grants aside I actually think there is a strong argument to say that the funding negatively impacted the tournament and the decisions that were made. The funding saw far too many games played in the North due to the northern powerhouse element and I think the comfort blanket of that funding led to the organisers thinking they could charge what they did because it was all cream on top. If the tournament had to wet its own head then I think the strategy regarding ticket pricing would have been vastly different as the RFL would have been left to carry the can. I don't think the ticket pricing being completely out of step with every RFL event over the last 2 decades, at least, and the funding received is a co-incidence.

[Gomersall]

4 hours ago, Tommygilf said:

Ireland vs Jamaica for instance was a clear example of just poor scheduling. It was the second game at Headingley in the space of 2 days, the previous being Australia's opener against Fiji. 

To be fair Tommy that wasn’t the original schedule. Australia v Fiji was supposed to be at Hull on the opening day.

[Tommygilf]

1 minute ago, Gomersall said:

To be fair Tommy that wasn’t the original schedule. Australia v Fiji was supposed to be at Hull on the opening day.

Yeah, but that just suggests that with extra thinking time they got it worse.

[Dave T]

What I don't really understand is why the organisers felt they had to change RL fan culture that has been built up over decades? Surely as a one-off tournament your real objective is to get as many people in as possible. 

I absolutely agree that we should have targeted new audiences that had different behaviours, but this should never have been about changing RL fan behaviour. That is something that will take decades, and in reality will probably never happen. 

And if you are targeting non-traditional RL fans, I suggest you don't base all of your games at Warrington, Leigh, St Helens etc.

It does all rather come down to root cause analysis again. What is it they are trying to fix? People buying tickets late really shouldn't be something that they need to 'fix'. If that's the behaviour, fine, so be it. As long as it happens in volume, you can plan for that. The real problem here is that they don't like fans hanging around for discounts - and the issue there is that many fans won't pay the price that they set. The core issue here is that they haven't built international RL (or other major events) into premium events that people will pay a decent amount for. And that isn't the customer base's fault.

[Gomersall]

16 minutes ago, Tommygilf said:

Yeah, but that just suggests that with extra thinking time they got it worse.

Or they couldn’t get hold of football stadiums after Aus and NZ pulled out?

[RigbyLuger]

34 minutes ago, Gomersall said:

Or they couldn’t get hold of football stadiums after Aus and NZ pulled out?

Don't spoil the arguments we already know the answers to. See also: the switch from Anfield to Wigan.

It wasn't perfect, but the added spotlight on TV for the women's and wheelchair games was great. Wheelchair players featured at Wimbledon? Unthinkable.

[Hull Kingston Bronco]

2 hours ago, Damien said:

The performance of the tournament and the budget was directly affected by the funding though. You can't decouple that to suit.

Community grants aside I actually think there is a strong argument to say that the funding negatively impacted the tournament and the decisions that were made. The funding saw far too many games played in the North due to the northern powerhouse element and I think the comfort blanket of that funding led to the organisers thinking they could charge what they did because it was all cream on top. If the tournament had to wet its own head then I think the strategy regarding ticket pricing would have been vastly different as the RFL would have been left to carry the can. I don't think the ticket pricing being completely out of step with every RFL event over the last 2 decades, at least, and the funding received is a co-incidence.

I do think there's something in this. The complacency brought by the knowledge the downside was underwritten by the Government very likely did mean that decisions were made that would not have otherwise been. I don't see that in any way as a mitigation though... good, intelligent, competent people would always seek to optimise outcomes. 

[Tommygilf]

15 minutes ago, RigbyLuger said:

Don't spoil the arguments we already know the answers to. See also: the switch from Anfield to Wigan.

It wasn't perfect, but the added spotlight on TV for the women's and wheelchair games was great. Wheelchair players featured at Wimbledon? Unthinkable.

The switch to Wigan, and indeed Headingley, would have been fine if the venues weren't either themselves, or in areas close by to, venues used for other matches. That oversaturation, at an unreasonable pricepoint, is the core issue at play here with the disappointing ticket sales. 

All games across all 3 tournaments but for the 4 Games in Newcastle, 1 Semi Final in London, and the matches at the Copper Box were within an hour or so's drive of either Leeds or Wigan. That's hundreds of thousands of tickets to shift to roughly the same group of people.

I've said the world cup does not need to be assessed on a binary perfect unmitigated success or total failure option, on this very thread no less!

[RayCee]

7 hours ago, Hull Kingston Bronco said:

From the perspective of ticket sales, it was an unmitigated disaster. You can't make changes to improve the next time until you accept things were a failure, analyse the issues, and implement plans from those lessons learned. That's what we need rugby league officials to do. But how many chances do they need? 

What RL specialises in.

Edited July 21, 2023 by RayCee

[Dave T]

15 hours ago, Tommygilf said:

The switch to Wigan, and indeed Headingley, would have been fine if the venues weren't either themselves, or in areas close by to, venues used for other matches. That oversaturation, at an unreasonable pricepoint, is the core issue at play here with the disappointing ticket sales. 

All games across all 3 tournaments but for the 4 Games in Newcastle, 1 Semi Final in London, and the matches at the Copper Box were within an hour or so's drive of either Leeds or Wigan. That's hundreds of thousands of tickets to shift to roughly the same group of people.

I've said the world cup does not need to be assessed on a binary perfect unmitigated success or total failure option, on this very thread no less!

The tournament clearly had lots of successes but it would be silly to pretend it didn't have major issues. 

If we break down the main off-field areas of a major tournament:

1. The UK TV deal was excellent. The BBC were a superb partner, but let's be honest, it was a real tough sell everywhere else. The organisers have my sympathy on that as I think that is a bigger issue than selling for one tournament. 

2. The inclusivity element was brilliant. Probably the biggest positive of the lot. They should be applauded by how they made the 3 tournaments feel like one. The PDRL cup felt like an add on but hopefully that will be better in future. 

3. Partners. A lot to like here. The UK government funding was a massive boost, and probably allowed us to do the bold things like the inclusivity element. The sponsor portfolio though was odd. It was a lot of supplier-type partners rather than out and out commercial sponsors that these tournaments usually see. Pepsi Max were announced but were missing (not sure if they just pivoted to Gatorade instead), and most other names on the boards were things like the Lotto. We had a few sponsors like Vodafone and Selco who were maybe more traditional, but I think it shows the real tough sell we have in RL. 

4. Matchday sales. Just rubbish. A mess from start to finish. You have data that shows that your warm customer base buys late and usually at the lower end. So they increase prices to unseen highs as we get later. That is telling fans you don't value them. You're directly sticking two fingers up to them. But we don't even need to debate opinions, the men's tournament was massively down on 2013, also held here. 

5. Scheduling. Horrible. Too many games in close proximity, unambitious in many ways. 

6. The events. Started horrifically with an abandoned opening ceremony and never improved. Lovely branding imo, but no event feel, poor technology etc. Usually no entertainment. No family element. Cheap. 

 

Against that commentary, it has to be seen as a real positive if all bills are paid and the IRL have been handed millions of quid to fund their activity. But let's not kid ourselves - the only reason we didn't lose a fortune is because the UK government covered it. The organisers deserve credit for that, but it was a) unprecedented and b) never happening again (in reality). 

[Tommygilf]

5 minutes ago, Dave T said:

The tournament clearly had lots of successes but it would be silly to pretend it didn't have major issues. 

If we break down the main off-field areas of a major tournament:

1. The UK TV deal was excellent. The BBC were a superb partner, but let's be honest, it was a real tough sell everywhere else. The organisers have my sympathy on that as I think that is a bigger issue than selling for one tournament. 

2. The inclusivity element was brilliant. Probably the biggest positive of the lot. They should be applauded by how they made the 3 tournaments feel like one. The PDRL cup felt like an add on but hopefully that will be better in future. 

3. Partners. A lot to like here. The UK government funding was a massive boost, and probably allowed us to do the bold things like the inclusivity element. The sponsor portfolio though was odd. It was a lot of supplier-type partners rather than out and out commercial sponsors that these tournaments usually see. Pepsi Max were announced but were missing (not sure if they just pivoted to Gatorade instead), and most other names on the boards were things like the Lotto. We had a few sponsors like Vodafone and Selco who were maybe more traditional, but I think it shows the real tough sell we have in RL. 

4. Matchday sales. Just rubbish. A mess from start to finish. You have data that shows that your warm customer base buys late and usually at the lower end. So they increase prices to unseen highs as we get later. That is telling fans you don't value them. You're directly sticking two fingers up to them. But we don't even need to debate opinions, the men's tournament was massively down on 2013, also held here. 

5. Scheduling. Horrible. Too many games in close proximity, unambitious in many ways. 

6. The events. Started horrifically with an abandoned opening ceremony and never improved. Lovely branding imo, but no event feel, poor technology etc. Usually no entertainment. No family element. Cheap. 

 

Against that commentary, it has to be seen as a real positive if all bills are paid and the IRL have been handed millions of quid to fund their activity. But let's not kid ourselves - the only reason we didn't lose a fortune is because the UK government covered it. The organisers deserve credit for that, but it was a) unprecedented and b) never happening again (in reality). 

Yeah I think it is such a shame that so much of the criticisms were patently obvious, particularly around ticketing, locations and scheduling. The matchdays being a bit poor were insult to injury.

Its alright saying "lessons learned", but they were already learned and just totally ignored!

Your point about commercial partners is interesting. Cazoo seemed very prominent (and aren't present in RL at all since), probably because there were so few others! It definitely demonstrates the difficult situation RL is in being geographically stunted.

[Dave T]

2 minutes ago, Tommygilf said:

Yeah I think it is such a shame that so much of the criticisms were patently obvious, particularly around ticketing, locations and scheduling. The matchdays being a bit poor were insult to injury.

Its alright saying "lessons learned", but they were already learned and just totally ignored!

Your point about commercial partners is interesting. Cazoo seemed very prominent (and aren't present in RL at all since), probably because there were so few others! It definitely demonstrates the difficult situation RL is in being geographically stunted.

Of course, Cazoo slipped my mind. We had a bit of bad luck there too in that they announced some financial difficulties in advance of the tournament and their involvement felt a touch muted. But on the surface, they are absolutely the kid of sponsors we should be attracting. 

[Tommygilf]

6 minutes ago, Dave T said:

Of course, Cazoo slipped my mind. We had a bit of bad luck there too in that they announced some financial difficulties in advance of the tournament and their involvement felt a touch muted. But on the surface, they are absolutely the kid of sponsors we should be attracting. 

Yeah, although it was just them - unlike 2013 which seemed to have different sponsors for everything!

Its difficult for RL I think given that regional nature - and an almost non-presence in the richest and most populated part of the country. How many sponsors see high value in that? Probably the regional (or at best regionally based) brands we end up with. The world cup was a chance to break out of that, and with say Cazoo it did, but not nearly as much as I would have hoped.

[ATLANTISMAN]

41 minutes ago, Dave T said:

The tournament clearly had lots of successes but it would be silly to pretend it didn't have major issues. 

If we break down the main off-field areas of a major tournament:

1. The UK TV deal was excellent. The BBC were a superb partner, but let's be honest, it was a real tough sell everywhere else. The organisers have my sympathy on that as I think that is a bigger issue than selling for one tournament. 

2. The inclusivity element was brilliant. Probably the biggest positive of the lot. They should be applauded by how they made the 3 tournaments feel like one. The PDRL cup felt like an add on but hopefully that will be better in future. 

3. Partners. A lot to like here. The UK government funding was a massive boost, and probably allowed us to do the bold things like the inclusivity element. The sponsor portfolio though was odd. It was a lot of supplier-type partners rather than out and out commercial sponsors that these tournaments usually see. Pepsi Max were announced but were missing (not sure if they just pivoted to Gatorade instead), and most other names on the boards were things like the Lotto. We had a few sponsors like Vodafone and Selco who were maybe more traditional, but I think it shows the real tough sell we have in RL. 

4. Matchday sales. Just rubbish. A mess from start to finish. You have data that shows that your warm customer base buys late and usually at the lower end. So they increase prices to unseen highs as we get later. That is telling fans you don't value them. You're directly sticking two fingers up to them. But we don't even need to debate opinions, the men's tournament was massively down on 2013, also held here. 

5. Scheduling. Horrible. Too many games in close proximity, unambitious in many ways. 

6. The events. Started horrifically with an abandoned opening ceremony and never improved. Lovely branding imo, but no event feel, poor technology etc. Usually no entertainment. No family element. Cheap. 

 

Against that commentary, it has to be seen as a real positive if all bills are paid and the IRL have been handed millions of quid to fund their activity. But let's not kid ourselves - the only reason we didn't lose a fortune is because the UK government covered it. The organisers deserve credit for that, but it was a) unprecedented and b) never happening again (in reality). 

I think that is a very fair assessment Dave and as for Pepsi they had no idea about any sponsorship (It was with their distributors Britvic) Pepsi actually are a client of my wife's and branded at SL matches in 2019/20 but were clueless about the RLWC.

Edited July 22, 2023 by ATLANTISMAN

[Toby Chopra]

25 minutes ago, Dave T said:

The tournament clearly had lots of successes but it would be silly to pretend it didn't have major issues. 

If we break down the main off-field areas of a major tournament:

1. The UK TV deal was excellent. The BBC were a superb partner, but let's be honest, it was a real tough sell everywhere else. The organisers have my sympathy on that as I think that is a bigger issue than selling for one tournament. 

2. The inclusivity element was brilliant. Probably the biggest positive of the lot. They should be applauded by how they made the 3 tournaments feel like one. The PDRL cup felt like an add on but hopefully that will be better in future. 

3. Partners. A lot to like here. The UK government funding was a massive boost, and probably allowed us to do the bold things like the inclusivity element. The sponsor portfolio though was odd. It was a lot of supplier-type partners rather than out and out commercial sponsors that these tournaments usually see. Pepsi Max were announced but were missing (not sure if they just pivoted to Gatorade instead), and most other names on the boards were things like the Lotto. We had a few sponsors like Vodafone and Selco who were maybe more traditional, but I think it shows the real tough sell we have in RL. 

4. Matchday sales. Just rubbish. A mess from start to finish. You have data that shows that your warm customer base buys late and usually at the lower end. So they increase prices to unseen highs as we get later. That is telling fans you don't value them. You're directly sticking two fingers up to them. But we don't even need to debate opinions, the men's tournament was massively down on 2013, also held here. 

5. Scheduling. Horrible. Too many games in close proximity, unambitious in many ways. 

6. The events. Started horrifically with an abandoned opening ceremony and never improved. Lovely branding imo, but no event feel, poor technology etc. Usually no entertainment. No family element. Cheap. 

 

Against that commentary, it has to be seen as a real positive if all bills are paid and the IRL have been handed millions of quid to fund their activity. But let's not kid ourselves - the only reason we didn't lose a fortune is because the UK government covered it. The organisers deserve credit for that, but it was a) unprecedented and b) never happening again (in reality). 

I agree with all of that Dave, although I have since been pondering whether the financial outcome was still roughly the best we could have hoped for.

The knockout stages drew about 10k less than 2013, but the ticket prices were at least doubled, more in some instances, so I'd be confident that the knockout stage revenue was up by a figure into the millions. I think the group stage would have had something similar, if not identical.

So if instead we'd taken less govt money to spread the games around, halved many of  the ticket prices and spent more on the gamedays, we may have got much closer to the 750k attendance target but not made any more money.

I'd still have preferred the latter scenario because a well attended, geographically diverse tournament would have been better than what we had, but it may well not have delivered much more profit, if any.

Because we all want the game to do well, perhaps we were all guilty of thinking that our World Cup could be the same sort of cash cow as the union and cricket ones held in England in the recent past were. In the cold light of day that was never going to happen.

[Dave T]

11 minutes ago, Toby Chopra said:

I agree with all of that Dave, although I have since been pondering whether the financial outcome was still roughly the best we could have hoped for.

The knockout stages drew about 10k less than 2013, but the ticket prices were at least doubled, more in some instances, so I'd be confident that the knockout stage revenue was up by a figure into the millions. I think the group stage would have had something similar, if not identical.

So if instead we'd taken less govt money to spread the games around, halved many of  the ticket prices and spent more on the gamedays, we may have got much closer to the 750k attendance target but not made any more money.

I'd still have preferred the latter scenario because a well attended, geographically diverse tournament would have been better than what we had, but it may well not have delivered much more profit, if any.

Because we all want the game to do well, perhaps we were all guilty of thinking that our World Cup could be the same sort of cash cow as the union and cricket ones held in England in the recent past were. In the cold light of day that was never going to happen.

It's a fair point about the financials, but I think that's where the balance has to come in around the outcomes we're looking for. Money is important, but so is engagement with the fans. If we were told we could make the same money but have fuller grounds and therefore atmosphere and the other benefits that come with that, we'd be stupid not to take it. 

Whilst it was positive that gate receipts may have been decent for some games - the reality was that expensive tickets just weren't sold for most games. The premium areas were empty, to the point that people just went in them. So it isn't even necessarily a halving of ticket costs for example it was probably a more sensible approach across the board. 

The quality of events just weren't worth £60-£70 for a halfway line ticket, that was even the price at the Riverside. 

[Tommygilf]

15 minutes ago, Toby Chopra said:

I agree with all of that Dave, although I have since been pondering whether the financial outcome was still roughly the best we could have hoped for.

The knockout stages drew about 10k less than 2013, but the ticket prices were at least doubled, more in some instances, so I'd be confident that the knockout stage revenue was up by a figure into the millions. I think the group stage would have had something similar, if not identical.

So if instead we'd taken less govt money to spread the games around, halved many of  the ticket prices and spent more on the gamedays, we may have got much closer to the 750k attendance target but not made any more money.

I'd still have preferred the latter scenario because a well attended, geographically diverse tournament would have been better than what we had, but it may well not have delivered much more profit, if any.

Because we all want the game to do well, perhaps we were all guilty of thinking that our World Cup could be the same sort of cash cow as the union and cricket ones held in England in the recent past were. In the cold light of day that was never going to happen.

Just on the geographical spread point, it didn't have to be so narrow. Yes the Northern Powerhouse funding stipulated 80% of matches were in the Northern Powerhouse, yet we went closer to 95% with only the Semi final, Coventry x1 and the Copper Box wheelchair matches outside that area.

We should have been creative about meeting that 80%, and certainly not gone beyond it.

[Dave T]

18 minutes ago, Toby Chopra said:

 

Because we all want the game to do well, perhaps we were all guilty of thinking that our World Cup could be the same sort of cash cow as the union and cricket ones held in England in the recent past were. In the cold light of day that was never going to happen.

On this point, I don't think that is the case. I think the organisers may be guilty of that. 

But what we do know is that it is our biggest international asset. Despite a huge operation and a year delay, it is likely that it still mad millions and millions for the IRL. To that extent, it is our cash cow. It's just far thinner than we'd want it to be. 

But based on us having one money making tournament every four years, it's really diaappointing when it feels like a missed opportunity.