The tournament is in ENGLAND (nowhere else). The majority of games will be played in the north (80%) due to securing £25m in Northern Powerhouse government funding. The stadiums on the bid video include Wembley, Old Trafford, Etihad, St James Park, Anfield, Olympic Park, Hull FC, Leeds and Saints https://goo.gl/bm0Hxl

The tournament is in ENGLAND (nowhere else). The majority of games will be played in the north (80%) due to securing £25m in Northern Powerhouse government funding. The stadiums on the bid video include Wembley, Old Trafford, Etihad, St James Park, Anfield, Olympic Park, Hull FC, Leeds and Saints https://goo.gl/bm0Hxl

Try a game in Nottingham. At decent game might pull a good crowd at the City Ground. Not too far away from the Heartlands but far enough to be pushing some boundaries.

It should be possible to make a very decent profit from this tournament.
25 million in the bank is a great start, and that should just about cover the running costs.
Keeping it all in the heartlands should maximise profits and minimise costs.
With the 2025 tournament promised to North America, we'll probably need to bank a profit in 2021 to cover costs in 2025.

Olympic Stadium for the opener and Wembley for the final. Let's show some ambition please and ensure the London based national media can't ignore this.

Anywhere apart from the Olympic stadium, awful ground.

First of all I think it's important that all the games are played in England.
England have won the World Cup bid, not Wales Scotland or France etc.
Secondly they need to look at 2013 World Cup, what stadiums worked, what didn't.
Thirdly they said they want to get 1 million fans attending games at the 2021 World Cup, this is a huge ask but think it is achievable, to do this though they need to be looking at getting 40-50 thousand at all England games and 20-30 thousand at all Australia/ New Zealand games.
Based on all that I would look at using the following stadiums

England group games
Olympic stadium (opening ceremony/England's opening game)
Anfield
St James Park

Australia/ New Zealand group games
Kcom stadium
John smith stadium
DW stadium
Ricoh arena?? If it's successful 4 nations venue

Other group games
Langtree park
Headingley
Haliwell jones stadium
Leigh sports village
The shay stadium

Quarter finals
Kcom stadium
Etihad stadium
St James park
DW stadium

Semi final
Wembley double header

Final
Old Trafford

In terms of this forum, it usually means cheap tickets.

Have you watched rugby (league or union) there, or you basing this on the opinion of West Ham supporters? My experience of watching rugby there is that it's a great venue, as the broader park can be utilised for fans to have a great day out. Also, for the all the reasons the ground is bad for football (easy for fans to mix, etc), it's great for events like rugby internationals. And it's another element to helping us get headlines.

I don't think having England group games at both St James Park and Anfield would work as England are probably gonna be playing two pretty rubbish teams in the group stage so you're gonna struggle to get a big crowd in Anfield for something like England v Fiji. I think one of them would work as a double header with a New Zealand game though and my preference would be St James Park.

I get your point but the RFL now have 5 years to get their house in order and really to push the event even more than 2013. This is a WC and we should absolutely be pushing this as a must see event to the locals and beyond. We have to be more ambitious than staging any of the big 3 at little heart land stadia, we should be trying to fill 40, 50 even 60k stadiums for England and Australia. Over to the promotions team, no excuses really.

I'm all for having a bit of ambition in regards to the venues but I think you've gotta be realistic too. If the big three are playing anyone but each other then it's going to be a bit of a drubbing 9 times out of 10. I just don't think you're ever gonna get a crowd of more than 30k for a game like England v Scotland or Australia v Ireland unless it's as something like a double header which can be turned into an all day event with lots of other stuff going on. I think Elland Road or Goodison Park would probably be about as big as I would be willing to go for just an England group game on it's own not against Australia or New Zealand and even then I don't think they would sell out no matter how well they were promoted. I suppose it's just personal preference between whether someone prefers a sold out 25k stadium or 30k in a 60k stadium.

I agree. Stadium was great for the NZ game last year. Loads of space, good fun area for the kids, easy to get to ( slightly odd last bit of route walking through Westfield Shopping Centre, but, no sweat ) real ale on tap, loved every minute apart from the match itself which was a let down.

1. All games should be played in England as its England thats won the WC. The 2013 bid was a joint E&W bids (yes some games were played outside of those borders). But what has changed that Wales was dropped from the bid and will that impact on its "right" to host a game ?

2. Start with the stadia which held games in 2013. Did any of them "fail"? If so, drop them. So then have a look at the stadia dropped and the extra games from the expanded matches.

3. Out of the stadia which were successful in 2013, are there any new stadi better then these to replace them ?

4. Which stadia are willing to pay the RFL the most money to host the games ?

Double headers are a tough call. They are only likley to work with 2+ x "big name ties" BUT those are the ties which should be capable of being successful as a standalone fixture.

Do we need to use the RLWC as a means of expanding the game or should it be aimed at a successful consolidation of its strengths ?

Westfield is owned by Frank Lowy, an Australian billionaire who used to be Chairman of Football (Soccer) Australia.

Yes watched both codes there, massively underwhelmed by the place. Felt it had a total lack of atmosphere . Its an athletics ground not a rugby ground.

Although it would be great to have a strong competition based on strong foundations in England, you do seem very, very keen to exclude everyone else ?
Surely the ideal situation would be to have RL played in every country across the globe and not just restrict our sport to 2 states in Aus, a small part of France and the M62 corridor ?
To attract serious sponsorship, the game has to have wider appeal and although their definitely needs to be a long term plan, your suggestion of building from the grass roots up will take decades or even centuries.
We've had 125 years so far and the game has barely spread, how long do you want to wait before we actually make any meaningful progress.

125 years of still not spreading the game in England beyond the heartlands, then use the WC as a fulcrum to do so.

Focus on establishing a firm widespread professional game, and sustainable, game in England before chasing further expansion elsewhere.

Its not a case of exclusion, but a case of trying to develop in a methodical manner, rather than (yet another) misguided scattergun approach.

The only two places World Cup fixtures should take place up North are at Newcastle and Liverpool (although do we really need to go that neck of the woods). The rest of the fixtures including quarter finals, semi finals and the final, should take place down south.

In 2013 the Eng v Aus opening match was in Cardiff as Cardiff were willing to pay decent money to host the game. Similarly the 2017 World Cup venues have been selected depending on who's willing to pay for the privilege of hosting games. For this World Cup to be a success financially we need to do the same, so the venues should be wherever the money is.

Why just Newcastle and Liverpool when there are two bigger stadiums in Manchester?

If you want a tournament that nearly bankrupts the game then this is a great plan



We saw in 2000 what happens when you just plonk games slaphazardly in towns that dont care about RL.

I'm all for taking games to new places but they require a much bigger marketing spend and are a gamble. Games involving the small nations aren't very attractive, so the policy of having them midweek in the heartlands is the only way of making money.

RU also copied this policy in 2015 with small games played midweek (some even with afternoon kickoffs while people were at work) at places like Gloucester and Exeter. The only games they risked outside their heartlands were an England game at the Etihad, Scotland games at Newcastle and Leeds due to closer for Scotland fans to travel, and the All Blacks (biggest brand in ether code of rugby) at Newcastle.

2013 worked so why break a winning formula? We just need to try and build and get those 10k crowds to 20k the 20k crowds to 30k+ that 60k for the Wembley Semis to a 90k sellout and so on and so forth.

also learn from the success of The Big Bash in Aus, and keep the tickets prices low and pack out the grounds with free tickets to school kids rather than show empty seats.
the benefit of showing a full ground to a TV audience with a proper atmosphere is worth a lot more in credibility terms than trying to up the ticket prices and take a short term revenue game on gate receipts.

You're right - it's the stadiums fault. We should take it to a northern four sided ground where the stands are close to the pitch, maybe like the John Smiths stadium in Huddersfield, because then the atmosphere will be electric

The real money in these big tournaments is made through sports tourism.
the 25 million from governments is being given on the expectation that the tournament will attract at least that much in tourism dollars for the economy.
For that reason, the best places to hold games will be places that RL fans from Australia, NZ, France, Usa, Italy, Canada etc will want to visit and spend dollars in.

Don't use thought, common sense and logic on this forum, people will give you abuse for daring to actually THINK!!!!