Quote: Bull Mania "Slightly off topic, but while driving to work today (not a union stronghold at all) there was a massive billboard advertising the union WC. Got into work and the front and back cover of the metro was taken up by WC advertisement. We're still a year out it.
It was just a reminder of the absolute wealth in the other code. The RFL's entire marketing budget was probably the same as what the RFU paid Charles Dance to appear in their marketing video.
Despite the enormous amount of wealth, England could still have a back line where 3 of the 7 players were developed by league. Shame they don't spend a lot of their wealth on junior development.
I'm sure when the union WC is over, some will gloat how much more well attended the union WC was than leagues. But with their budget, is it any wonder!'"
The RU World Cup is undoubtedly more established and has more 'major' nations than ours, but after a successful League World Cup last year I don't think we are as far away as we once were.
Union are doing exactly the same as RL by playing the lesser fixtures at smaller grounds in the heartlands midweek such as Georgia-Namibia at Exeter, which makes common sense. After this initial rush there will be a lot of discounts on offer though (as with our World Cup) even though the likes of the All Blacks are a draw, its a massive task to fill the Millennium Stadium for them playing Georgia on a Friday night, and no doubt discount codes and Groupon etc will be used to fill it you can already buy 15 tickets for that game, whereas for the big games its a limit of 4.
The main difference is they have a much better '2nd tier' of nations such as Argentina, Scotland, Italy who will still draw a crowd and compete but won't be anywhere winning the thing. RL badly needs the likes of Scotland, France, Fiji, Samoa, Wales etc to improve and grow.