Was the Rugby League World Cup a success?

Hi Mark I am afraid this is a massive misunderstanding of how the tournament financials work for the IRL. RLWC provide the IRL with a 'rights fee' and Jon Dutton and Troy Grant have both been quoted as saying the tournament has paid a rights fee double the size of one ever given to the IRL / RLIF. Charlie PS. I massively dispute that the tournament was a failure. Crowds were good given the UK's cost of living crisis and the clashes with other sports (not RLWC's fault). Also didn't 600k people in Australia watch the final behind a paywall at 3am?

I love tournament footy. It gives countries that rarely play an opportunity to get their team organised and playing their best footy by the quarter finals. Look at the performance of Samoa from big loss in opening game against England to winning against England in the semi to make it through to the world cup final. There is no perfect option because league isn’t the world game. The options are: be as inclusive as possible and give the minnows a chance to play against the best in the world, or let the minnows fight it out for a place in a smaller/shorter tournament so there are fewer blow outs. The fundamental ethos of the olympics is international participation. I think the winter olympics blew it and compromised their fundamental ethos when they changed eligibility rules for the ski flying to exclude another Eddy the eagle because they thought his distances were so short that he was making a mockery of the sport - but his participation brought global attention to the sport and was exactly what the olympics is supposed to be about - inclusion. I don’t care about the blow outs. I don’t care that there were only 5 or 6 competitive games in the entire tournament. But don’t expect the better teams to be performing at their best without the lead up pool games. And before you kick the minnows out, how about talking directly to the players and supporters of those countries, ask them what the opportunity to participate is worth. Finally, if you want a Pacific Cup, that’s just kicking out the minnows and England. Ask how that supports the health and viability of the English Super League comp, and where the international game goes if Yorkshire has less interest in Rugby League. It’s a pretty small area of the UK that has any interest in Rugby League - I don’t see benefit in excluding them for health of international rugby league. I reckon the best thing for the next world cup is for the French team to be regularly playing against visiting international teams (and visiting NRL club teams) over the next 4 years to lead in to this event.

I agree with you sheek. Related to this sentiment is NZ being afforded pseudo status of our federation evidenced through its membership of our domestic sporting leagues. This makes a mockery of tribalism while undermining the grass roots growth of Rugby League in this country in my opinion.

Clear no for me on super groups. It's taking the easy option in trying to fudge the draw, rather than actually develop those nations. In the example draw it's a death sentence for Lebanon. I think the claims about profitability are wrong given the hosting fee is guaranteed, that alone should make it the most profitable ever. I'm assuming their won't be the issues we had in 2017, when the ARL tried to avoid paying the guarantee in full

Mark your idea of 3 going up in groups A and B and 1 from C and D is a logical one, but you can't put France in group D - if they don't go through it will be a dire outcome for crowds and the TV audience there. Better to cull in down to 8 and include France in as many games as you can. After the suspected losses in this WC, they might be a bit spooked to try and fund the full 16 teams again. Best to wait for Australia where you can get a few along in regional areas.

How do the world rankings work? Despite Australia supposedly dominating the code fro decades and now bringing home the WC, they remain number 4 in the world. What a complete farce.

Brett Morris, down the stairs and into the hoardings. Horrifying.

$5 seats may be what is required to get bums on seats for games that would normally have next to no fans in attendance, or for those who haven't seen a game of RL before & will be amazed at the speed / hitting etc when they see it live & may become new fans of RL

No, hardly a fair dinkum global competition. I only watched semis and a few early matches.

I must admit to losing interest in the many games that involved almost total annihilation of one team. I went to crossword puzzles and reading whilst kind of listening and vaguely watching. I don’t really enjoy total domination type games. I love the great game with a passion but as entertainment it lacks the excitement of watching two strong, skilful and passionate teams duke it out. I don’t find a KO or TKO in the first round of a fight to be very satisfying as a spectator. I like your ideas. They have merit and so… how can we get you onto the RLWC working committee?

:thumbup:

As each generation becomes further removed from their heritage, the pull to play for their heritage country will become les & less. Seriously? What the ...??? :shocked:

Mark Campbell, Excellent article. I especially like your idea of the pool configurations at the next world cup & quarter-final allocations. You also mention the grandfather rule becoming obsolete, & this is where rugby league is in serious trouble. Most of the Samoan & Tongan teams for example, were made up of first generation Pacifika players whose parents came here as migrants. As each generation becomes further removed from their heritage, the pull to play for their heritage country will become les & less. There are those who say this won't happen, which is rubbish. Pacifika countries don't have a special mortgage on the concept of family unity. If the IRLF doesn't find a way to develop sustainable domestic comps in tier two countries, & developing talent from the country of source first, then the concept of international rugby league will quickly subside. It's obvious that international rugby league would be dead without Australia. England, despite its tier one status & super league domestic comp, wasn't good enough to get past Samoa. And the only other tier one country NZ, benefits from ghostng in Oz's slipstream with their leading players fine-tuned by Oz's NRL. As are the players from Samoa, Tonga, Fiji, PNG & many other pretend rugby league countries. Australia is lifting the standards of other countries almost singlehandedly, yet there are those still criticising Oz when some of us say that state of origin should be reserved only for those chasing a Kangaroos jersey. That represents an appalling lack of respect for what Australia is doing, already above & beyond anyone else. So that's the conundrum facing the IRLF. The parent rule, the grandparent rule & the great grandparent rule will only get a country so far in recruiting talent. Then it will begin to reverse.

Hello Mark, The articles about the profitability of the RLWC included the fact that the hosting rights fee has already been paid to the IRL. This will likely be the largest contribution of funds the IRL has received from any World Cup. Because of this, RLWC 2021 only needed to break even once the tournament started.

Those goat manicured fields of which you speak are at least owned by the clubs in question . The final at Old Trafford which is probably one of the best stadiums in the UK . If anything blame the organisers and the IRL as they made the decision to play there .

My concern is the cost involved with holding a game at a larger venue will naturally cost more, so higher tickets prices and still not much profit. I would rather see lower overheads and a more money returned to the local clubs and competitions to kick start the game locally.

Can't have that now!

Agree. It's great for fringe players that get to represent on a big stage, but for the NRL it's a huge waste of time and resources

Soccer World Cup is about to kick off, with 32 teams competing from the countries that took part in qualifying, pretty much covering every country on the planet. In the end, there's always countries that missed out, who wouldn't have been out of place in the Cup. There's also always a number of countries who qualify, but appear out of place. On the balance, though, 32 is a pretty fair number, a bit over 1/6 of the total who tried out. Rugby League lists 48 ranked teams worldwide, many of those you would not even know had football fields, maybe just a few goat-manicured soccer fields converted into UK Super League replica size playing areas. In League's case, it's a vast majority who would look out of place in the World Cup, and we saw that first hand in WC21. Although apply the same proportion of qualifiers that soccer use, and you get 48 divide by 6 = 8. Eight teams would be the equivalent number. Is that the number to have a competitive challenge for world honours ? I think so. 16 is just too many - doubly so. Is that fair on the rest ? Who's to say (imo)? Do the top soccer nations feel they have a responsibility to raise the standard of the lower ranked teams in the world ? How would qualifying even work ? You could take this year's top 8 and seed them. 8 pools of 6 teams, one seed in each group. Leader of each group qualifies for the World Cup. Over 2-3 years or so, just five games each required. Then the Cup itself could be just two groups of four, 3 pool games each, two semis and the final.

Speak for yourself, I thought it was brilliant