Had to check my facts - oops I overstated the crowd by 1100 en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Australian ... on_matches 8/10/2005 London, England The Oval AFL post season exhibition West Coast Eagles v. Fremantle 18,884

Had to check my facts - oops I overstated the crowd by 1100 en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Australian ... on_matches 8/10/2005 London, England The Oval AFL post season exhibition West Coast Eagles v. Fremantle 18,884

Did you see the opening attendances for this years' AFL? By my reckoning, based on those attendances and your statement, an origin match in London would get about 9,000. (Providing you can scrape all the Ockers out of the plastic Aussie bars).

AFL doesnt have an origin series, theirs died out

so the comparison is between zero origin crowds for AFL vs and average of 65,000 for RL.

ill leave further comparisons to you

In Australia

Not in Britain

You might get a fair few ex pats going but they are not the people we are looking to target , you would be preaching to the converted

the comment was about australian AFL crowds.

and your comment re people only having club loyalties doesnt explain how AFL can get 20,000 there.

i can imagine mal meninga getting a hell of a lot of publicity if the game were played there.

plus theyd get other high profile aussies like wally lewis as well, imagine all that publicity for RL.

melbourne had a similar nonchalance to RL and yet they sold out their recent origin and the one this year, the ticket sales are going well.

because of it the storms crowds rose by around 50%

the publicity of origin could do a lot of good for RL in england

Probably most of them were expats that attended

You mention Mal Meninga and Wally Lewis , which to your average League fan is great we know who they are , but 99.9 % of the british population would not have a clue who you were talking about

Sorry pal it is a bad idea , wouldn't work and would be a waste of time,money and effort , much like me discussing it , so I'll leave it there thanks

russel crowe and kylie could be involved aswell

BRITISH fans love origin! Bring it on!

do we?

check the new state of origin tv ad . on the famous video site . very nice

'' NRL 2009 State of Origin TV ad ''

no you watch it but arent interested

but AFL . NFL will . ok

at least he admitted hes never watched it.

its what ive suspected from the people who say its a bad idea.

imagine being a RL fan and never watching origin.

its a bit like saying you like cars and then not being interested in a ferrari

The TV viewing figures for State of Origin over here were terrible. So much so that Sky didn't even bother to bid for the retention of the rights to show them.

That tells you all you need to know.

They are now on Setanta, with viewing figures of less than 20,000 for each game.

People over here just aren't interested in State of Convenience.

what time was it shown on sky tv 4am

since you say the TV figures for origin are terrible, what were they actually?

c'mon lad

About 10am for a half 10 kick off, when most people would be at work. The replays were on at about 6pm

well there you go . 10.30am on a workday

NFL and Aussie Rules have no games over here so fans of these sports rarely get a chance to see a professional game. One off games are bound to attract big crowds. Rugby League fans can watch games every week and showpiece games twice a year. This is why playing the Origin game over here would not sell out a big stadium. It would not raise the profile of the game as it would only be interesting to Rugby League fans. It's a dumb and pointless discussion.

Well put it this way, they are not listed on BARB as being in the top 30 shows on the channels they were shown on for the weeks they were last shown on Sky.

Considering there are things that made it into the top 30 such as Live Greyhound Racing, Americas Cup Sailing and Las Vegas Darts Classic then you get the idea. The lowest rating in the top 30 on any of the Sky Sports channels was 31,000 viewers. Therefore, by implication, there were less than 31,000 viewers of State of Origin in the UK.

so you dont know the answer?

thanks for that, its what i suspected

origin isnt just another RL game.

and it would appeal to people who arent just RL fans.

I know that the viewing figures were less than 31,000 which is poor by any means that you wish to measure it by. The exact figure is irrelevant in that context.

Now if you want to interpret that differently and look even more of a t!t than usual then go right ahead Walter.

You're right, played in the UK it would be a game between two teams that UK RL fans have no interest in. It would not appeal to non-RL fans as much as the Challenge Cup final does.

ill bet you dont watch it either.

put it this way, anybody that does wants to watch more of it