In Rugby Union there has become a recent trend of taking fixtures to large stadia with cheap tickets. The results seem to be great.

It started with Stade Francais going to Stade de France. They are going to Brussels next week and now Toulon have gone to Stade Velodrome, Saracens to Wembley and Cardiff to Millenium stadium. Rarely does it seem to flop.

Maybe its possible with fees being underwritten I dont know.

But is this an idea that might be worth doing? Catalans at Barcelona went well

Harlequins RL v Leeds at Wembley?
Salford v St Helens at Old Trafford?
St Helens v Wigan at Anfield?


I know some of this has happened but at £5-10 tickets, is it a gamble worth trying?

Cracking idea , lets do it

I'd agree with that except for the quinns one. RU has massive appeal in the south hence filling stadia I don't think quins even Leeds would fill wembley. However a slightly smaller stadium say the Reading fc Or something similar better to have a 80+% full small stadium than a very empty looking big one look at murryfield this year

No No NO , the Quins/Leeds is the best of the bunch , just do it

It is an idea, but some of the examples you have quoted for league would be disasterous.

Salford and Harlequins can barely draw at home. Taking them to a 75/90k stadium will still not provide a big enough crowd for them to even fill their original home ground most likely.

Saints vs Wigan at Anfield I reckon could go down well. If Widnes ever got a license, I'd go with Saints vs Widnes (as they both apparently have fan bases traditionally in Liverpool).

Unfortunately for us, the heartlands don't really have many big grounds in them. The biggest ground in West Yorkshire is Elland Road and it's a dump. East Yorkshire already has a big game at the KC.

The only two places I could see us drawing decent crowds at is Anfield and Elland Road. If Leeds took a game against Saints or Bradford to Elland Road they'd easily get 30k IMO.

Wigan are the biggest club that could probably draw a good crowd in Manchester. But I doubt they could get hold of Old Trafford or Eastlands. I think it would devalue the GF slightly as well if they played a game at OT.

The initial idea of Stade v Toulouse in at the stade de france was ridiculed initially too. Stade were getting 5-6000 at Stade Jen Bouin but they sold 80 000 tickets at 5 Euros each.

The huge event philosophy is the whole point so a medium sized stadium such as Reading would not have that kind of appeal. Saracens at Wembley recently got 44000, 7 or 8 times their normal gate.

Saracens made a big loss on their game at Wembley - it's over £400k if you want the whole stadium open - and that's before you start on the cost of promoting it. 50 000 tickets at £10/£5 doesn't even pay to hire the ground. Maybe it's worth it for the publicity and to increase the fanbase - not sure it's improved their crowds at Watford any?

I suspected that might be the case, but they have made a statement that they would like to do it 3-4 times per year. There has to be a reason they would want to do that?

If Saints took a game to Anfield and sold 30,000 tickets at a fiver each and say, £1 for kids, would it cover expenses?

I spoke about this on here a while back, it's tough for quins as they have no fans anyway, quins RU do so they can take big games to Twickers. I would give it a go though. Personally I would go with this.

Leeds v Bradford - Elland Road

Saints v Wigan - Anfield

Quins v Wigan/Leeds - Twickers

Catalans v Wigan/Warrington - Barcelona

Crusaders challenge cup game - Millenium

Toulouse v Widnes - Don't really know, just a game on the road.

I think every team should take on board the 'big one' idea from the Wigan Marketing team.

=#8000FFWhich most/all SL teams have done before at one point or another, it wasn't a Wigan original they just advertised it far more - and on a game that really didn't need that much advertisement either.

As for the big stadium idea, it would work if marketed properly, and cheaply Saints/Wigan at Anfield has the potential to sell out if the tickets are £10 & £5.

Wigan did it properly and marketed it correctly, this is what I am wanting all teams to take on board.

I fail to see the value of this in the heartlands. Anfield for example might be appealing but what good would it really do Saints other than cost them the extra cash for the hire of the stadium.
Reading equally would be pointless as we are not looking to have a team there, unless a multi millionaire wants a team there. Given that Ldn Irish play there why would anyone want to have an extra team at the stadium.

I do see the value of a match in London though. White Hart Lane, Emirates. Big clash Quinns vs a club with big following such as Hull / KR / Leeds / Wire. Trains from Yorkshire straight into Finsbury Park for the Emirates all at a reduced rate and Match tickets just a tenner would be a winner for the away fans. Quinns and the RFL to flood the underground stations and the Metro and Evening Standard with advertising. Plus a Skolars match as a curtain raiser. RL may well get noticed in London. Make it a yearly event like the NFL match at Wembley and you never know people might just take some notice of our sport in the smoke.

There are certainly enough people in London who would go to the Emirates just to say they have been, also enough Aussies / Kiwis who would make a trip to the Emirates. Make the game in the middle of June when football is well off the agenda and bobs your uncle. Arsenal need to make that stadium pay and what better way than another 60000 in mid summer.

Just don't turn up in a stretch limo.

Hull KR vs FC at the KC would be a winner in Hull as well. Though I suspect we would lose as per.....

They already play a game at the KC.

If you wanted to be really ambitious you could play it further north but I wouldn't see the point.

The whole idea of something like this is to get the medias eye on the sport and to get more people through the gates, it is not about expansion.

I really think we should play the challenge cup semi finals as a double header at Eastland or down at twickers as a triple header with a quins game or even maybe the skolars as well.

Isn't the Magic Weekend our equivalent?

Unfortunately there is no sarcastic button on this new look site.


My genuine post was posted just before the one you picked up on.

I don't think it wouldn't be commercially viable for Saints due to reasons already discussed, once the additional advertising costs, venue rental and subsequent loss of revenue from refreshments are taken into account we'd likely run at a considerable loss of profit compared to playing the game at the GPW with regular ticket prices.

TBH i don't think we need another 'gimmick' match at this moment in time as a sport, with the GF and MM we're well covered and frankly we have more important concerns such as the farce that is Crusaders and the fact that Red Hall continue to move the goalposts in one form or another every season in a pitiful attempt to catch up the the NRL and compete with football in this country. We need to get the basics sorted once again before we try to add more bells and whistles.

Leeds play the WCC at Elland road, they are the only club who could fill a big stadium, look at the crowds when saints or bradford played the aussies
if all 14 clubs and neutrals cant fill murrayfield why would just 2 fill a similar sized stadium?

Simply because the MM is not promoted. I went to Cardiff twice and on each occassion spoke with locals who knew nothing about the MM.
I work in London and know / knew about the NFL game the Saracens game at Wembley as did a lot of people I know. When we have games at Wembley very few know about it. Its all about publicity. If we really went for it we could easily get 45 - 50000 in the Emirates.
If we book these venues and expect people to simply turn up we will end up with a dozen locals and the hard core RL fan only. Reach for the stars !!!!!
We have a complex about RU, yet the reality in London is that with Professional RU the capital now has just ONE team. Quinns. The rest have moved out of the M25 because no one in London watches anything other than football in numbers. Yet when a bit of publicity is thrown at it they flock to it.
We now have a summer sport and we should be able to get a stadium rocking with the publicity.

And the point of this thread is?

KnK is a mass interest sport, to which armies of 'interested' people will show up if it is a bit out of the ordinary and hence augment the real supporters on such occasions. RL is quite different; there is virtually no latent 'interest', almost everyone who turns up at Wembley, Millenium, GFs, internationals etc are regular fans who already turn out for their own teams, so where are you going to draw the 10,000s to (part) fill these super stadia? Lets face it some SL clubs' marketing people are already do discounts to various sectors to draw more fans.

IMO with a couple or three exceptions, SL attendances are going in the right direction at about the right (ie sustainable) rate.

KnK ??? Union has few real fans imo. I walk around London daily and always see a RL supporter. We are out there. You also see Saracens and Quinns supporters in their shirts but the majority of sports supporters are football. You certainly never see NFL kit. Yet they FILL Wembley and charge £60 + a ticket. How is that ???? Yet we can't fill Wembley for a CC final. !!!! MARKETING is they way. It does not happen in London and did not happen in Cardiff and Edinburgh. If it did we would sell out. As I say reach for the stars. Have an annual big game in London, ( where we have two teams unlike Cardiff and Edinburgh)as well as the CC Final and fill a stadium for a club game, like the NFL do.

Christ I even went to the Oval once to watch a Aussie rules game which was as boring as hell, but the ground was packed. PUBLICITY and MARKETING. Things we as a sport are very poor at. If we improve we can go places.

The issue is more about who is prepared to underwrite the losses.

As mentioned, the Saracens game ran at a loss (and from what I remember of the time they played Northampton, a pretty large number of spectators seemed to be dressed as black tarpaulin). Stade Francais and Toulon have multi-millionaire backers and both the Stade de France and Stade Velodrome are regular rugby union venues - they know that the market is already there.

If you can get a sponsor to underwrite the costs, well done. Then again, RL isn't exactly swamped with huge offers from commercial partners at the moment, other than a Polytechnic that is being [url=http://www.yorkshirepost.co.uk/news/Exclusive-University-broke-rules-with.5842929.jpinvestigated for financial irregularities[/url.

Personally, I think that we over-estimate the strength of RU, or at least, club RU.

Anybody who flicks onto Sky Sports 2 this afternoon will see Heineken Cup games being watched by plenty of plastic seats (although granted, the knock-out stages do pull in the crowds) and Premier Rugby still struggle to sell out the GP final, even with a huge amount of ticket promotions (BOGOF tickets are common and at present, they are also offering a free rugby shirt with any £45 ticket). Club RU gets some things right that we don't but on the whole, is it really something that we want to use as a benchmark?

Leeds Already do this, Its called the World Club Challenge where we go to Elland Road and invite the best from the southern hemisphere to come and play us.

Lets not play games, Union is miles ahead of league in so many ways.

The two main events of the year didn't sell-out this year by a long way.

And the international games, we will never compete.