Quote ="Call Me God"Samoa v USA in Brighton...a city with no professional Rugby side and no pedigree in the sport, attracted 29,000 fans. It is highly unlikely that many Samoan or American tourists were in the crowd that day, so you have to ask who was?'"
I have no idea who attended that game or what the ticket prices were or what marketing they did. However, I do know that there is huge interest in international rugby union that simply doesn't exist with international rugby league. England rugby union gets 80000 at Twickenham seven or more times a year. England rugby league could only get 67000 at Wembley for a once in a blue moon World Cup semi final in 2013. I'm not knocking England RL - I like the sport and I'll always back my national team - but you can't pretend that the two sports are equal in terms of interest in the international game. Therefore just because RU can do something, it doesn't follow that RL can just copy it and achieve the same results. That's just pie in the sky stuff.
Quote ="Call Me God"Samoa v USA could well be a pool match in 4 years time......is it your belief we're best not to book a stadium that holds 30k and try to fill it, but instead play it at Craven Park and hope to get 5k?'"
I'm saying that RL needs to be realistic. It needs to forget about RU and look at the evidence from past attendances and be sensible when trying to decide what sort of stadium is appropriate for each fixture and each stage of the competition. In principle I'm not against using any stadium. I'd be delighted if they used Wembley and got 90000 for Samoa v USA. But my head tells me that sort of attendance is unobtainable. I think 30000 is probably too optimistic as well. Good marketing and promotion can help any event - sporting or otherwise - but it can't work miracles.
Quote ="Call Me God"how the BBC hides our comp whilst ITV champions the other code, or how the RFU manages to make multiple millions on the gate for meaningless friendlies whilst we struggle at a tenner a ticket......'"
The BBC doesn't hide anything. That's paranoid nonsense. The RLWC just isn't worth showing because not enough people are interested in it. What they do cover they do well. You can't tell me that Mark Chapman, Dave Woods, Brian Noble etc. aren't positive and enthusiastic about RL. But you can't make a silk purse out of a sows ear. If RL is unhappy with the BBC's coverage of the world cup it can instead go to ITV or Channel 4 or Sky or BT. Or are you going to claim that they're all against RL too?
