Marv:

catalanc:

jim_57:

I think NZ would be capable of hosting a WC. I am of the opinion that a 'four nations' tournament bsed in NZ would be a good gauge as to whether they would manage. Play games not just in Auckland and Wellington but other towns such as cristchurch, dunedin, etc. If a world cup was held in NZ it would not just be to accomodate the RL towns like aukland but to spreade it all across NZ.

Russia? im not so sure, dont get me wrong i would love to see it but there would be problems a few of which i could name now.

1. RL needs to make money out of WC and even though the game might be growing in russia do you really think the WC would be able to pull 20-30000 crowds for pool games or 50000+ crowds for finals? Whereas in Australia or england maybe even france or NZ by then there would be great crowds. I'll be honest even if the game continues growing over there i still would think you would get a crowd of 25000 max for the final.

2. From what i here travel cost is pretty expensive and money is one think RL is short on.

3. Russia is a huge country and if players had to travel from one end to another they would be prone to fatigue and therefor the game quality would be less.

IMO russia would need to make its league fully pro and get crowds of 5000 to their games before i would consider hosting a WC there.

 

some good points jim

i cant imagine crowds of more than 10/15k especially not for group matches

quite right catalanc i really dont think the wc08 will be pulling anything like 20,000 for group games, only the final being in brisbane is making me think it will sell out, because it wouldnt in sydney or the UK

as for NZ hosting the next world cup - theres a thread going debating the fact that RL is the 14 most popular sport in NZ, not really the place you would hold the WC ANY   World cup outside the UK or Aus would be suicide and nothing is changing to make me think diffrent

I think all games in QLD will sell out, Townsville will sell out twice for the Pool A games, Rockhampton will sell out for the ranking game, Brisbane will sell out for the semis and final, maybe the GC wont sell out but IMO they will get close. Also i think some of the smaller sydney grounds will sell out maybe canberra too.

As for the RL being the 14th most popular sport in NZ, i cannot believe it, there is no way that i can see 13 sports ahead of RL, IMO opinion it would be 3rd or 4th at the worst! Was this thread by any chance introduced by the NZRU? lol

no way is league 14th sport in NZ!

a WC in GB/france would work

fance play their games in france england and thw home nations who qualify in the respective countries

the only worry for me would be the final

if england didnt make it to the final (which is very possible) i think i could be a struggle to sell it out

and so the organising comitee would have to put the tickets for the semis and final on general sale well in advance

next WC in 2013 for mine ;)

Lets get this straight, has the next RLWC been confirmed for 2013? alot of people are talking like its a done deal and i looked on wikipedia and it says it has been confirmed for 2013. You cant trust everything you read on wikipedia though. Also is Richard Lewis' int schedule a done deal or is it just a proposal at the moment?

As for the WC hosting, i would hope in 10+ years we would be able to host a WC in France.

Maybe this could work as a proposed schedule

2008 - Australia
2013 - England
2017 - France
2021 - NZ/PNG
2025 - Ireland/Scotland/Wales
2029 - USA

Who knows by the time of 2029 Rl might have the popularity in USA to hold a sucessful WC. Also in saying this several other countries may have the popularity to host it like russia, south africa, maybe even a pacific islads WC based in Fiji, Tonga and Samoa?

It may be a while but i think we will one day get to the stage where the WC hosting schedule is similar to the Soccer WC where there are heaps of countries in contension.

I think it has been pretty much confirmed for 2013. Richard Lewis' 10 year plan spelled this out... sensible in my opinion.

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jim_57:

Lets get this straight, has the next RLWC been confirmed for 2013? alot of people are talking like its a done deal and i looked on wikipedia and it says it has been confirmed for 2013. You cant trust everything you read on wikipedia though. Also is Richard Lewis' int schedule a done deal or is it just a proposal at the moment?

As for the WC hosting, i would hope in 10+ years we would be able to host a WC in France.

Maybe this could work as a proposed schedule

2008 - Australia
2013 - England
2017 - France
2021 - NZ/PNG
2025 - Ireland/Scotland/Wales
2029 - USA

Who knows by the time of 2029 Rl might have the popularity in USA to hold a sucessful WC. Also in saying this several other countries may have the popularity to host it like russia, south africa, maybe even a pacific islads WC based in Fiji, Tonga and Samoa?

It may be a while but i think we will one day get to the stage where the WC hosting schedule is similar to the Soccer WC where there are heaps of countries in contension.

 

sounds great jim but realistically i think we've got to be looking at WCs being held in australia, Aus/NZ, GB, GB/france for a long while yet

one problem that immediately springs to mind with a pacific islands WC is the island hopping it would involve

these islands are not as close to each other as you might think so even if the teams could manage the travelling i think most fans would find it almost impossible

as far as i know the 10 year plan was produced with the specific aim to be implemented and used to expand the international game

catalanc:

jim_57:

Lets get this straight, has the next RLWC been confirmed for 2013? alot of people are talking like its a done deal and i looked on wikipedia and it says it has been confirmed for 2013. You cant trust everything you read on wikipedia though. Also is Richard Lewis' int schedule a done deal or is it just a proposal at the moment?

As for the WC hosting, i would hope in 10+ years we would be able to host a WC in France.

Maybe this could work as a proposed schedule

2008 - Australia
2013 - England
2017 - France
2021 - NZ/PNG
2025 - Ireland/Scotland/Wales
2029 - USA

Who knows by the time of 2029 Rl might have the popularity in USA to hold a sucessful WC. Also in saying this several other countries may have the popularity to host it like russia, south africa, maybe even a pacific islads WC based in Fiji, Tonga and Samoa?

It may be a while but i think we will one day get to the stage where the WC hosting schedule is similar to the Soccer WC where there are heaps of countries in contension.

 

sounds great jim but realistically i think we've got to be looking at WCs being held in australia, Aus/NZ, GB, GB/france for a long while yet

one problem that immediately springs to mind with a pacific islands WC is the island hopping it would involve

these islands are not as close to each other as you might think so even if the teams could manage the travelling i think most fans would find it almost impossible

as far as i know the 10 year plan was produced with the specific aim to be implemented and used to expand the international game

Yeh as far as i know the CWC in west indies didn't really work out, so maybe the island WC isn't such a good idea.

Im still however confident a PNG/NZ world cup could work, have say 3 or 4 pools and play only PNG's pool games in PNG aswell as a semi.

and well i don't know if the USA idea would be worth the risk, i mean if it was pushed with advertising and theAMNRL was stronger than it should be reasonably succesful because USA does love sport and im sure a few people would be willing to check it out. Or they could just be ignorant an d the WC could fail.

They said that about the soccer WC didn't they and it was deemed a success in the USA.

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Druzik:

They said that about the soccer WC didn't they and it was deemed a success in the USA.

you could take the football world cup to the moon and people would pay to go you cant compare the two

 

im not knocking jim or anything cos i think hes got some good ideas but the crowds for the games in Wales/Scotland/Ireland  this year you would think a world cup held in these nations is so far off i find it depressing even discussing it not one game involving Ireland/Wales /Scotland got more than 1,500 crowd

 

the islands is a complete no-go as catalanc says there not all next to eachother and i would doubt the y would have the infrastructure to hold such a comp

 - if you want a world cup to make any money then it has to be in the UK or Aus, you could take NZ or France games to that country but otherwise forget it, forget the islands forget the USA

i hope i am proved desperatley wrong but i really think there will be some dissapointed people come the end of novemeber 2008
 

Some very good points by Marv and I agree wholeheartedly with most. My only point of difference is that I expect the RLWC08 to sell between 70 and 100% of tickets at all venues. My leaning is closer to 100% at most from which a good profit should be made.

I strongly concur with the view that at present World Cups can only be conducted in Oz and the UK with matches from those World Cups taken to NZ and France respectively to ensure bigger gates at home venues. If Russia qualifed for a UK based World Cup I would also provide them with home games in Russia.

The only way a RLWC is sustainable is by making a profit and that should not be risked. Hopefully some profits will be disseminated to minnow and smaller nations to assist them in developing and growing the game.

 

RUSSIA! Mate I am all for it, but it would be damn expensive... visas cost a fortune alone.

But look... there is an underlying theme here... and that is that the whole financial situation of RL is lying on one tournament every onec in a while. This is whay we need a structured set of tournies that postentially can bring in extra money so that we do not have to rely on one tournie. It also helps build up the exposure of the sport so that in the future we can take it to somewhere like russia.

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Good Points druzik. I think the 08 WC will be sucessful if it is advertised enough so that people in melbourne will know that there is international rl coming to their city, also to a lesser extent NSW and QLD IMO should have no trouble selling out every game!

Good point with the structured set of tournaments, i have said before and also druzik i think has put forth the idea of euro, pacific and atlantic championships. IMO i would have them rotating every 4 years 2 years after and before WCs. Also the top 2 from the euro and pacif and a winner of a 3rd place playoff between 3rd pacific and 3rd euro would join the atlantic winner in a world 6 nations a year before the WC.

And in reply to marvs post, looking back on it now i do see the problems with my own schedule, maybe it was a long night? i cant remember lol. I think NZ/PNG would be capable of holding a world cup still, but the other few wouldnt work, atleast not for a long time yet. Maybe a UK/France world cup where maybe france, irland, scotland, wales and england can share group games with finals in england and maybe a few in france or wales.

As for coverage in russia and around the world for that matter, i think televising NRL and SL games would be great to promote the game. also have advertisements for the local comps acording with the telecast. However would have to get some $$$ behind it.

jim_57:

As for coverage in russia and around the world for that matter, i think televising NRL and SL games would be great to promote the game. also have advertisements for the local comps acording with the telecast. However would have to get some $$$ behind it.

Look Russia have two clubs entered in the Challenge Cup this year... this needs to be promoted like hell there particularly Lokomotiv Moskow who are the Current Russian league and Championships champs... the other club is Veraya Moskow. Need to get them to gain the support and momentum in Russia. These are two pro clubs in Russia with Billionare backers and they do quite a bit for the sport, but the RLIF, RLEF and RFL need to also get some 1/2 decent advertising. The promote these tournies on the fumes of history.

I am hoping to get out and see one of their games in the CC next year.

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hey druzik the NZ Defence force team played in the victory cup in russia a few years ago do they still play that tourament

No they don't, So the tournaments used to be basically the guys who won WW2. So Russia, USA, BARLA, NZD, Serbia and France played in it. It lasted 2 years in the mid 90's I think and was hosted in Russia and basically became real expensive to run so it died. Also about that time with teams like Lebanon and morocco starting to emerge, the Mediteranean cup was formed for them, so you had France Lebanon and Morocco play in that and then Serbia.

Though in 2003-04 there was a push by the RRL to re-establish it as the Victory cup 7's - then the victory 7's and then they had plans to make it the RL world 7's, but that all fell through, I am assuming money at that stage was the issue.

It was a shame as Russia very rarely gets quality games out in a year and so needs to play more... their VISAS are the biggest promeblems with everybody needing them and are real expensive, and vice versa. I am hopeing now that the RRL and two of the teams have oil tychoons funding them that maybe something will get up again.

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ok our Defence force went in 2003 i think and enjoyed the experience there was a close tourament russia won and bob bailey was the russia coach