Wembley, Etihad and Elland Rd?

<Extremely Loud GUFFAW>

Hudds, Wigan and Leigh SV would struggle to sell out unless tickets were Sally Bolton cheap.

SL era Moonies do talk a lot of tripe.

Got to admit a few weeks ago I thought we should play it safe and go for Hudds, Wigan & Hull as venues, especially as the games will clash with the RU world cup.

but after a great 4Nations series and a superb game today I have totally changed my tune and think we should go big! Play at Wembley & the Etihad or Old Trafford. Sell the bottom tiers first, Groupon it, employ the people who did the World Cup promo, sell tickets via the clubs (with the clubs getting a cut as an incentive) bill it as revenge for the Semi final heartbreak in 2013!

Anfield (market the kop for the wall of white)
Elland road
KC
Etihad.

Any 3 from those 4 for me.

The problem with this bit is that as Test matches are generally played on a Saturday - most RL registered players will have a game for their winter amateur teams. I've always thought it's silly to have them mid-afternoon on a Saturday when a large proportion of the fans will be busy with their local clubs.

One of RL's biggest failings is that it doesn't promote it's games at the biggest and best rugby league stadiums.

Time to invest in a new stadium where the revenue streams go back to the game.

for big events like magic, cc final and grand final im pretty sure no amatuer games take place, the same will probably happen here.

Rugby league is too underfunded to be able to afford a top quality stadium. Until it can quadruple its annual revenue, the concept is a non-starter. But quadrupling its revenue when there is no London team and only one French team in Super League is a pipe dream.

If that day should ever come that the RFL has quadrupled its revenue, the stadium should be a 70,000 seater where the Grand Final and both semi finals are staged, along with Challenge Cup semi-finals, and non-Wembley internationals (including the World Club Challenge series). It should be located approximately half way between Wigan and Leeds, within walking distance of a train station. Any suggestions where that might be?

Diggle, Delph or Littleborough.

Probably Littleborough as it's got a railway station.

It's a bit of a walk from Diggle or Delph to Marsden.

Cloud cuckoo land perhaps?

Is there much vacant land near Littleborough, within a 10-20 minute walk from the station (i.e. up to one mile away), where a 60-70,000 seater stadium could be built?

It would only make economic sense if it could have other uses, apart from rugby league, like pop concerts. People from Wigan, St. Helens, Warrington, Salford, Bradford and Leeds, as well as other parts of Yorkshire (especially Hull) would like to see Sir Paul McCartney, Sir Elton John, Sir Michael Jagger and his band, Eagles, U2, Sting, Billy Joel, Fleetwood Mac, and Foo Fighters, as well as Adele, at a great venue when these artists go on tour. The RFL stadium could provide that venue, just as ANZ Stadium does in Sydney.

Odsal cough, do the RFL still own it?

IF you were going to build a RL/shared use stadia in the North. I'd say just South of Doncaster https://www.google.co.uk/maps/@53.48904 ... a=!3m1!1e3 Cheap land for one thing, you have direct motorway access from all directions from the M18 (M1/A1/M62), easy to build a station hub off the main East coast line. It's less than 2 hours from London KX so easy for us Southerners to get to, by road it's not much more. For the Lancastrians/Merseysiders/Cheshire set it's less than two hours driving, there are good routes other than just the M62/A1 also. Won't happen though

IF you were going to build a RL/shared use stadia in the North. I'd say just South of Doncaster https://www.google.co.uk/maps/@53.48904 ... a=!3m1!1e3 Cheap land for one thing, you have direct motorway access from all directions from the M18 (M1/A1/M62), easy to build a station hub off the main East coast line. It's less than 2 hours from London KX so easy for us Southerners to get to, by road it's not much more. For the Lancastrians/Merseysiders/Cheshire set it's less than two hours driving, there are good routes other than just the M62/A1 also. Won't happen though

Said it when the AJ Bell stadium was first being talked about - the RFL should have invested in the project and helped built a 40,000 stadium as the home of British RL.

Relocate the RFL and create centres of excellence for all areas of the sport, from physio, conditioning, officials, youth development - everything.

Play internationals there, as well as cup semis, lower league finals, 'magic' weekends, amateur finals, youth internationals and finals. Aim at something like the fantastic complex Manchester City are creating, but for RL. Also hire the stadium out for concerts.

The location is perfect, fairly central, on good transport links (granted, a little overwhelmed but being improved), and next to a major yet mostly untapped city in RL terms.

The Hull Daily Mail have reported that HullFC want to play New Zealand in a friendly as part of our 150th year celebrations, but a sticking point is that the RFL are considering the KC for an England-NZ game. And hiring out the ground twice in a few weeks in the football stadium won't be easy, and some will choose one game or the other. So it sounds like they are considering 'safe' options for this series.

They do......and it would be a cracking venue for the opening Friday night game of the 2015 NZ Kiwis tour of England IMHO. 25,000 capacity and no rent to pay to a stadium owner. Proper RL ground and almost dead centre of the M62.
8.30 PM Kick off to allow for Kiwi TV viewers, live on the BBC........brilliant exposure.

James McCartney and William Joel surely?

Agree with this. I think Manchester is the only place an RL stadium could work.

With entertainers, I think that you have to stick to their stage names. Otherwise Elton John would have to be identified as Reginald Kenneth Dwight.

Rugby league players, by contrast, do not have stage names.

and by contrast again, you are known as ""!

Nope they never have done. They own the head lease. Bradford council own odsal same as they always have done. Although bradfords new owner has said he's in talks with both RFL and council about buying lease and freehold.

But as the holder of the lease, the RFL could, in theory use the ground for Internationals (or 80's revival concerts featuring Belinda Carlisle) couldn't they?

Dare say they could, provided it didn't interfere with terms of bradfords sub lease. But why bother bother? Bradford already sated the appetite of locals for be kinda for the forseeable future

Rick astley then?