Quote roopy="roopy"Sports tourism is where the real money is.
Someone going to a game in their own backyard might spend 30 to 50 dollars on everything.
Someone travelling to the UAE to watch a game might spend 3k to 5k - or 100 times as much.
Governments want those dollars flowing into their economies and will pay for events that draw tourists.
The recent cricket world cup in Aus and NZ is estimated to have generated hundreds of millions in sports tourism.
IMO the place where we really could both expand the game and generate big tourism dollars is the south east USA. This is already a massive area for tourism from RL playing countries, and it's where RL is starting to make inroads in the US.
If we could convince tourism authorities in Florida and surrounding states that a RL WC would attract 20 or 30k tourists from the UK, NZ and Aus they should be willing to fund the competition - it just makes sense.'"
I agree completely. If we can show that every 4 years the RLWC can get 20/30/40k people to visit a destination along with advertising such a comp allows to tens of millions the countries will pay handsomely and invest in our game. They will basically hand over millions of pounds for the privilege of spreading our game and there are plenty of places after UK, French, Aussie and kiwi tourism money. As you say the south East US pays millions to advertise itself as a tourist destination, Vegas, and California too, Closer to home Spain, italy and Portugal.
I've always thought it is a trick we are missing with the Pacific Islands. And England tour or a world 9s comp in the islands would be a huge opportunity for them to show off their tourism infrastructure and probably get a fair few over there and spending money, and you can't tell me the Fijians or Samoans wouldnt go nuts to see a world 9s comp with all the NRL stars or a full England tour in their back yard.
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