surely this needs to be built in Wigan...it would at the very least solve the problem of that little club having nowhere to play?

When did I say that?

It's all about Perception. Manchester is cool - Leeds/Yorkshire isn't.

I suppose Bradford is better than Wigan though as at least they can play rugby when they want to on their pitch.

Will I need my big coat at Saints tomorrow ??

Well perception tells me (and many others) that Rugby League is a no go in Manchester. For a start they don't have a team. As others have stated there is no high capacity stadium East of the Pennines so logic says that's where it should be built.

How high a capacity do you want it?

We already have a national stadium and OT works well for Grand Final. Magic weekend should stay on the road and netural venue for semis (and dont anyone say double header they dont work for club matches.)

If some work was done at odsal with then it would be a great venue for champs league finals day due to the land at the back which can be used like it was before for kids events.

Really? What's so "cool" about Manchester other than they've got the two best football teams in the country?

Wasn't Leeds voted as the number one night out for students recently? Largest financial centre outside of London? Bigger population. More RL fans.

Why is Manchester more "prestigious" other than they have two good football teams and a band comes from there?

As for when you said about the flat caps...
"But Leeds is in Yorkshire. If you want to promote the flat cap image, and hold our sport back, then go ahead, stick it there."
Why would the promotion of a flat cap image be a problem if not everything in Yorkshire was linked to flat caps?

This thread is going round in circles. A national stadium for our sport at the moment is not required, not enough cash, insufficient events, ground capacity.
If you were spending £50,000,000 (minimum) would you build a rl ground in Manchester, Leeds or anywhere else, just so the RL community would have a "home" ? NO
End of discussion, move on

40k would probably suffice for the medium term.

Keep the Grand Final in the prestigious City of Manchester (or rather, just outside of it

), and the Challenge Cup Final at Wembley. Everything else at the new stadium.

Why don't double headers work for club matches? A semi-final double-header would be far more enticing to a neutral IMO. Everyone has to buy a ticket anyway. You'd get more than the combined total of the two single semis IMO, and I'm surprised it hasn't been tried at least once yet (considering they'd done it for the 4N and now the WC semis).

Not really the end of discussion is it?

If you had £50m, you wouldn't spend it just so you could have a "home". You'd spend it to get a return on your investment. Could a ground owned by the RFL get a return on its investment? Not with just RL events. But you don't build a stadium just to host a few events a year, you try and maximise its use.

Totally hypothetical, but if the RFL had the money and Leeds Utd were wanting a new ground, there's a tenant and some income we could get there. Throw in concerts, etc. and it could do a treat. The increase to Leeds' economy from guaranteed RL events every year would give it some value to the council too. The KC Stadium resulted in a huge boost to the economy in Hull.

It's not as cut and dried as "can RL afford it for so few events?"

Sorry, but with the range of RL events that we have, we could jump into bed with a football club (perhaps The Etihad, Old Trafford or Leeds United), but a RL venue just wouldnt work.
To be viable a stadium would need sufficient capacity to come with the GF or CC final, if not you instantly take away the 2 largest RL events.
Alternatively, you go for say 40,000 capacity to give the game some growing room for internationals and maybe Championship finals etc, but this is too big for any of the current SL clubs.
Yes, a new stadium could host Take That or Justin Beiber, but wouldyou really build a new stadium to call home for 5 or 6 RL games per year, plus special events ? the answer is still no.

Isn't that what I said? Old Trafford wouldn't have us. I don't think Etihad would be allowed due to the restriction on events (plus I don't think they'd want us anyway!).
Elland Road is a dump, but Leeds United want to either upgrade or start from scratch. They can't afford it. They'd probably love to jump in to bed with us.


If there's an alternative, then there doesn't "need" to be then does there.


Why does it matter if it's too big for current SL clubs? You wouldn't have a SL team playing their home games there. It wouldn't be a neutral venue then.


Out of all the concert acts there is, you picked them two!



And no, you wouldn't for 5 or 6 games a year. But there wouldn't be 5 or 6 games a year.
Here's at least 10 RL days:
World Club Challenge. Magic Weekend (2 days). England vs Exiles (2 days). Challenge Cup semis (either DH or 2 days). Championship Finals. England autumn internationals (at least 3 days).

Add to that 2 concerts a year + 23-28 football games per season (if we jump into bed with a football club) + other potential external bookings, that's year round usage. It'd be very similar to how Hull FC and Hull City share.

See magic weekend or champs finals day as to why double headers dont work 80% of that teams fans watch the game and then go home. If you had a double header for the cup semi. Game 1 fans will be off after that game. Game 2 fans will start pouring in during the second half of game 1

No point building a 40k stadium in the north to be used 3 or 4 times a year. Might as well use Leeds utd as thats 40,000

Dont spoil his fun, he seems desperate for the RFL to plunge a pile of cash into a stadium, completely pointless for me.
If we want to create a "home" then we need to pick the best current stadium and get into be with the current tennant, which would still leave some flexibility to play games elsewhere if desired but, as I say, dont spoil his fun.

Depends what you mean by "don't work". What's more important? Selling more tickets or having more people in the ground?
As for a semi-DH, wouldn't the majority of the fans of the team that won the first game want to stick around and see who they'll be facing in the final? I know I would!


If Leeds United had a decent ground, then I'd be all for that.
Why not work together on building one?

And where has 3 or 4 games come from? I've listed 10.

Is there a particular reason for this change in arguing tactic? Going from discussing the points with me to now patronising me to somebody else? I can only presume its because you're struggling to come up with an argument.

And just to be clear, making up statements isn't an argument. I aren't desperate for the RFL to plunge cash into a stadium. I'm saying there could be a time when it is beneficial, that is my opinion.

As for your idea of a creating a home, if that were an option then I reckon it would have happened. What stadium of sufficient size and quality, that isn't used for RL club games and is close to the majority of RL fans is there? The two Manchester clubs, and neither would have another tenant.

I invite you to try and spoil my fun

I disagree with your point, I think a double header semi final would work very well.
As a fan I'd be quite happy to watch 2 semi final matches at the one stadia (as per the 4 N@Wembly), even if my club wasn't involved. I'd take this anyday over having to endure 3 or more fixtures on the bounce that were conceived by the RFL as a way of justifying their crappy sortie into Wales and force 'derby' games away from the places that make them so intense for the fans in the first place.
Fans don't want to sit through 3 or 4 games so that's why they come and go at the MM, 2 games is just right & personally I think fans would attend a double header semi in decent numbers.

as I've said I don't think we need one, but if I had to choose I Manchester I don't think would be viable to have a new RL stadium as there isn't a big enough team to either a) utilise for their own and b) no soccer team to share with but I reckon Leeds would be a prime candidate IF some sort of deal with the soccer club could be struck.
It's all pie in the sky & the RFL would never risk that kind of capital even if they had a huge amount of money from SE and other grants to help fund it

What he said.

Thinking about this...

St Helens or Warrington's grounds are used for 13 home games per annum. That is all. It's nothing, especially when you consider that the crowds they get are about 12,000ish give or take a couple of thousand.

You'll have perhaps one playoff game, two max, a cup game, two max and maybe an international. So, there you have a ground used on 15-17 days out of a 365 day year. That's 204,000 paying spectators per annum, paying say, £18-20 each. And they're viable, supposedly.

An RL ground would probably have the following...

- The Grand Final - 70,000 people, paying an average of £30 per ticket.
- Challenge Cup Final - 70,000 people, same prices.
- Challenge Cup semi finals, say a double header, say 50,000 people, say £20 per ticket on average.

We've already got to 190,000 paying spectators from just three events, here. More than your average gate at more than half the Super League clubs, I would say.

You will no doubt additionally have...

- Super League Playoff final eliminators (2 games)
- Four, five maybe six internationals per annum
- Northern Rail cup final
- Championship Grand finals
- Perhaps a sevens/nines weekend
- Perhaps Magic Weekend

That's a further eleven weekends. Add them together, and the ground would be used as many times as your average Super League stadium, but with bigger crowds. Imagine also if the RFL had their head office there instead of at Red Hall, and they promoted it for conferences, rock concerts, football reserve grade games (like at Warrington and Widnes) and what have you in the same way as a normal large stadium would.

Putting all this together, I probably struggle to see why viability would be as much of an issue. Rather lack of funds (or lack of a credit line) to carry out such a venture would be more of a stumbling block.

you want football reserve games held in a 70,000 stadium get a grip.

There's always one.

What about the rest of my post? The fact that it would be used MORE and get MORE PAYING SPECTATORS than your average SL ground? All the other things, and you pick ONE throwaway thing to take the p155 out of?

There's a reason why RL never gets anywhere. Idiots like you.

He's got a point though. You wouldn't have reserve team football in a 70,000 capacity stadium. That stadium would be bigger than all but one club football ground in the country. Most certainly it would be used for first team football. You can't throw a comment out there like that and then get upset if someone picks up on it.

And although you'd get more paying spectators, you need to remember that the cost of running the ground and building the ground itself will be at least 5 times greater due to the sheer size of the place. You'd need a lot more income than just 13 games a season, otherwise every Premier League team would have one.

I don't think a 70k stadium is viable as its only get used to capacity twice per year (even with a football club on board). I think with sufficient funding (which is THE MAJOR stumbling block) and a football club on board, we'd have enough events to make a 40k stadium viable (keeping the two big games at bigger grounds). At this moment in time, in the current economy, there just wouldn't be the available funds to get it started. But maybe in the future.

Like I said, if you could get Leeds United on board, it'd go a long way in finding what would essentially need to be £100m at least to get it built. Football Stadium Fund, sponsorship, Leeds City Council could all contribute. But that would be your main stumbling block... getting enough people on board. You won't get many banks forking out much.

How do you know these stadiums are viable, not on the back of gate money alone, don't forget a 'national' stadium wont have the same additional revenue that a club has? Given that the large majority of fans buy season tickets and quite a few juniors your £18-20 per head is a little off in % terms.


Whilst i like your optimism, 50k for a semi final is just not even close, if you got 35K I'd say you were doing very well


There's a lot of doubt surrounding fixtures that don't exist, chairmen who are wanting additional income from these types of games and in the current climate fans are just not turning out in numbers so even more games are not always going to be attended well to justify holding the event at a 70K stadia.


In an ideal world some of the events could well be run at a national stadia, however can you see that some of the events you've listed as been totally inappropriate. Even with the best will in the world having 15-20k(max) for chamionship /Northern Rail finals & low level internationals stuck in a 70k stadium makes no sense at all and probably lose money as well as looking pretty poor on TV. Can you also say what 4-6 internationals per year (EVERY year) will take place that could justify being played at a 70K stadium? Maybe one or two every other year but 4-6 every year, sorry that is unrealistic.
Concerts are great however the vast majority of the money goes to the groups and the overheads, only the very biggest artists sell out big arenas so there is no gimme that you could first get the right artists and B actually make a profit that is sustainable given the turnover. What if some events make a loss, what then?

Attracting funding of around £150-200M for the stadium & other buildings (as per your proposal for the RFL) is one thing, however you've got running costs which will run into the millions per year as well.
On top of that you've got the interest payments on tens if not hundreds of millions of pounds, that will be several million pounds per year alone (£75M say at 5% is £3.7M)
Sorry but it isn't as clear cut/viable as you make out

Go on i'll take the bait.

Super League Playoff final eliminators (2 games)
Why would teams give up home game. Even if it was a double header lucky to get 35,000
- Four, five maybe six internationals per annum
Every year? mixed teams France, PNG etc lucky to get 15,000. Might get 40,000 for oz 30,000 for NZ

- Northern Rail cup final
Lucky to break 5 figures for this

- Championship Grand finals
Again lucky to break 5 figures

- Perhaps a sevens/nines weekend
10,000 tops

- Perhaps Magic Weekend
30,000 each day

I feel your the idiot wanting to blow 100 million on a project that the RFL doesnt have the cash for. When we ALREADY have a national stadium for Rugby League.

Not that I'll argue much with the rest of what you said (I think you're right with the figures, but there is more potential for them to grow if they're in a better location IMO), but where is this national stadium for RL you speak of? Please don't say Wembley.