I'll take that as a complement, given I wrote the bid and delivered the programme...

Huge kudos to RLWC2013 for a courageous decision to run with Bristol. The top team there, Sally Bolton, Jon Dutton, Mark Forster and Martin Johnston, have been superb throughout.

In fact they created the structure that has made this comp a success... a bidding process that meant local partners had to commit to delivering each individual game on a local level.

In Bristol there have been some brilliant, key individuals, who made it possible, and some fantastic organisations, particularly Bristol City and South Glos Borough Councils, Bristol Rovers, SGS Filton College (did you know we have a RL Academy in Bristol?), Bristol Sonics RL, UWE, and Watershed Arts Centre.

But the framework for success was set by the RLWC2013 team, and in turn by the RFL who commissioned and created them.

My big question.... what next?

Here's a few thoughts:

- invest in development staff in Bristol, to run a primary programme that follows a generation of kids from 5 to 16, adding in years below as the first intake move up through the years

- stage big events in Bristol. England vs Wales, with Cardiff only 40 minutes away? Super League on the road? I'd push for Magic Weekend at Ashton Gate... yes, it holds around 26,000 and current ticket sales are 30,000, but suddenly instead of being a 'maybe/maybe not' event, fans would have to get in early and it would sell out. How about an extended-format WCC game there?

- invest in Bristol Sonics. It would take a couple of salaries to make them into a Championship 1 side. No more that that on top of the existing central contributions to all Champ 1 teams.

- support Student RL, and the Student Alumni properly - that's a genuinely national game, and why? Because it is self-run by smart young adults.... a pool of (intellectual) talent we don't nurture and sustain after they graduate (which is sad, because they become the bosses, teachers, leaders in the next generation)

- plan for a Bristol SL team. Not parachuted in, or on the whim of a rich benefactor, but a strategic 10 year growth plan, so that those primary age kids who start playing now, are pushing for first team contracts by the time Bristol RL hit the SL. There is nothing special about the kids in Wigan or Leeds that makes them more suited to RL than the kids in Bristol and Bath... just years of coaching and playing opportunity. Even then, how many of our greats only played their first game of league as adults.... Boston, Sullivan, Davies, Van Vollenhoven, Risman... etc.... the SW is a Rugby heartland, and unlike in the north, where playing union is a social class thing, it's just the game that the ordinary blokes play if they are too tough for soccer.

Of course, the SL clubs can't even stay in a meeting room together at the moment, and the RFL has the will, but not the money, to grow the game without their revenue from the tv deals. It would take vision, especially from the smaller-town SL clubs and aspiring Championship clubs, to make the game truly national because they'd find it much harder to reach the top of a SL game that had teams in Bristol, Coventry, Glasgow, Newcastle. But if the pie gets bigger, everyone gets more. League 2 football teams turn over more money, and attract more fans, that some current SL teams. If only the current SL teams could think that far ahead.

...and that is exactly how it's been done.

In Bristol we have had:

- a corporate touch rugby event
- a female only touch rugby event
- a museum exhibition
- a cinema screening
- a music competition
- a cheerleading festival
- a student rl nines
- a wheelchair rl exhibition game
- a secondary schools rl competition
- a coaching masterclass.

- a stall at the Harbour Festival and the Brisfest Music Festival
- stalls at the weekend 'make Sunday special' events
- a stall at the Half Marathon
- the trophy tour for 4 days in Yate (a small local town), Bristol City Centre, and the international Balloon fiesta.
- a stall at the 1908 Cup Schools events (400+ kids from Gloucestershire playing an annual RL festival)

We've regularly been at the two universities, UWE and Uni Bristol, with a standard RFL ticketing deal for ALL their student clubs.

We've engaged with all the local amateur RL clubs

We (I) have emailed every rugby union club (over 150 of them) with the RFL ticket offers.
We've mailed all the coaches, volunteers, rlc players and RL spectators that we have contact details for

We've staged press events at the bid launch, the announcement of the venues, the 1 year to go, the announcement of the game, the 100 days, the 50 days, the arrival of the Cook Islands, the Civic reception for the team, the raising of the CI flag, and the USA flag.

We've had viral campaigns for our local theme song, with a video I cut from other videos ([urlhttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iTz7VXkLH0A[/url), and the footage of the Cook Island lads doing their haka at a local arts centre in Team Suits ([urlhttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6rHGYfpaNO0[/url)

We've had a huge social media campaign, particularly by systematically building up a twitter audience (we have 1753 followers in Bristol... Leeds has 1294).

We've had local leading councillors and mayors involved at major events.

We've run competitions for stash and tickets on all the local and regional radio stations.

We've run standard ticket offers for cashback to the Community Foundations for Bristol City, Bristol Rovers and Bristol Rugby.

We worked with the Cook Islands Tourist Board to get a troupe of Dancers over... they have performed for the Mayor, at an arts venue, at a museum, and at the Bristol Rovers home game v Chesterfield last weekend, before coming to the match and performing there.

Our entertainment included a local choir, the Bristol Samba Band, our singer (NICOLE), three groups of cheerleaders, the local Police Ceremonial Guard, 'Mr Isambard Kingdom Brunel' from SS Great Britain, 7 local schools, all the schools from the RL competition, and 4 local RL clubs

The City Council bought and erected huge banners around the city. RLWC funded bus ads and bus-shelter adshel ads.
The Council also ran a few local ads, and advertised in the Cardiff programme, and put flyers and fixture cards in all the leisure centres and libraries.

S Glos Council ran library exhibitions, and presented every school with a RLWC ball

We've run press articles in Forty-20, the African-Caribbean media, local history bulletins, and in papers from the regional Bristol Post down to the doorstep-local 'Bishopston Matters' news-sheet.

In other words.... we've reached out to hundreds of different groups of people, a very few who know RL, a lot who only know union or football, and even more who don't follow any sport. We built our audience over 2 years and dozens of programmes, in the framework from, and supported by markeing from, RLWC2013. The key was, and is, to get people talking about it, to make one or two key advocates in dozens of different groups, and to get them to spread the word. We didn't spend a fortune because we didn't have a fortune to spend.

But we did get 7000 people to a RL match in Bristol.

You didn't really do very much......

THIS

That's about 20 x more than London Broncos have done in the last 15 years in total to promote the club and sport.

Proves you don't need money, just passion and a brain. A willing and interested local govt. also makes a big difference.

Well done indeed...

London Broncos given their budgets should have been running community focused programmes for years. Considering they already have community rugby league clubs in the city, they have seriously failed here (especially in the last few seasons).

to be fair to the year 2000 marketing team, social media has made it easier to connect with people without spending vast sums of money. Back then it was TV or press ads or nothing.

But yes there has been some great ground choices this time round, Fiji at Rochdale was a master-stroke, and even the tired Derwent Park & Memorial Stadium looked decent with a good crowd in.

the organisers have created a good mix of massive, shiny stadia like Cardiff and Wembley, decent SL grounds like the John Smith's and the KC, and smaller compact traditional rugby grounds.

also as others have mentioned, the Olympics has opened the public's eyes to try new sports and get involved, there seems to be a lot less 'snobbery' about the RLWorld cup as a result.

Brilliant night in Bristol, well done to all concerned.

Here is a (yet another) radical idea.

As a thank you to all the "non league" areas that have put on games, why not put on games, even double headers instead of the magic weekend?
It may not be easy, nothing worthwhile ever is, but it will keep the momentum going.
Once you have created an interest, it would be a shame to let it wither.









Now waits for the my club, home game, travel cost, season ticket etc etc apologists shoot the idea down.

OTR round would be great. Stadiums that hold 10k or so, opportunities for competing clubs to fill coaches, as well as attract long distance fans.
Wigan v London in Bristol.......Leeds v hudds in Cumbria
FC v Salford in Sheffield etcetera ......

When you take a club game off a club the issue is always ££££££££££££££££££££££££££££££.

Who will pay??