Quote Newbridge_Wolf="Newbridge_Wolf"Newcastle, Bristol, Liverpool and Coventry supposedly in the running for next year.
Don't think you can beat Newcastle on any count unless you think taking it further around the country should be a priority, as a city and centrally located stadium, only Cardiff comes close.
Bristol would be good, with real possibility for growing the game if it's followed up with a League 1 team, but I do think the downside to there and Coventry is the size of the stadiums. Surely the RFL need to be looking at 35k+ to host it?
Maybe Bristol + Cov, Oxford as well, would be good cities for the RFL to take Super League games to like the NRL do to Darwin, Perth, Cairns, etc. as opposed a full weekend.'"
The stadiums at Bristol and Coventry are too small, if you have unreserved seats you can only sell 90% of the capacity, so that takes things down to the around the 30k mark and even the lesser attended Sunday gets that at present. They are also deep in Union territory, so while we may get some curious Union fans to come along for a day or weekend, are we realistically expecting them to become converts?
While Liverpool is a great city, Anfield is a bit out of town and you'd be relying a lot on a fanzone in the next door park to provide drinks and entertainment.
Overall I'd like to see it stay in Newscastle, but no harm at all in the RFL trying to get the hosting fee increased by touting it around, I hope they are getting the host cities to commit to a marketing budget as well, more local publicity the better.