They should keep odsal and develop into a 50k stadium. Bulls can rent it and the GF, cc semis, and internationals (min 3) every year played there. I'm sure fans on other side of Pennines will play up but tough, RL needs a home and a way of earning income. Say 250k in rent+ 2mill GF sales + 500k semis + 500k Int's + other fees for renting it out for concerts etc. should be able to to bring in around 5mill a year. Not sure where they get the 70mill to build it though?

Those 3 Internationals, against who exactly?

Australia, Fiji, png, NZ, France, tonga, Samoa, exiles, maori, aboriginal all stars, take your pick!

4 games in 2012, England and France in the 6 nations and the AB's and Saffas in the Autumn....260,381 in attendance....let's call it 30 quid average so just short of 8 million I'd say.....not bad for the sickest Union in the home nations.
Pie in the sky plans for a national stadium will do nothing to "promote" the game across the nation.........better to fill Elland Road for England v Wales or England v France before wasting millions on a white elephant. Jesus, even the KC didn't sell out for the England v Kiwis game in 2011 and you want to build a 50k seater stadium

Professional Sport is about putting on an EVENT and creating a demand for more of the same.......Rugby League marketing, such as it is, consists of sticking up posts and expecting people to roll up.........Look at what the Bulls achieved when the put some effort into marketing their games as EVENTS........people wanted to go to Oddslum.......then looked at what happened to them when the stopped trying.....they dropped their pants on pricing in the hope of a quick fix....and we all know how that panned out.

RL is a fantastic product, but even down here in the Southern Hemisphere, they have to market the off it to keep it growing....this year there are 3 minute NRL adverts showing across the region, paid for by the NRL, attracting members.

Rather than build stadiums that you'll never fill, why not get the overpaid idiot from Man City that the RFL trumpeted as a guru to earn his crust and get attendances up across the board, but specifically at Play-off games and Challenge Cup games....because patently, just sticking up posts isn't working for them.

Rubbish, you can't tell me that major national media coverage wouldn't make a difference to how popular RL could become. I remember the early 90's when American football, on the back of fta tv coverage, hype and decent media Covg sold out Wembley on numerous occasions. Union gets a free go due to the old school network and its influence on the southern biased media. And if you don't think the French game was long term, and possibly permenantly, damaged by what the nazi union collaborators did then more fool you. We need to find a way to become class neutral as soccer is. I do agree with you marketing and image are key, the launch of SL back in the 90's with its beefcake national billboards and star players on the media was the only glimpse of what RL could be I can remember.

All those stadiums get on average 7 highly attended rugby union internationals each year. Whilst the Scots may be struggling, they still get crowds RL would kill for and Twickers gets generally in excess of 80,000 for each game. Plus an 80,000 Premiership Final, an 80k double header, plus numerous other events like the 7's comps. Not to mention all the other events they stage.

What would this RL stadium get to show? If we move the GF to this 50k stadium we lost 10-20k of paying fans plus the tradition that's built up. If we move the Cup Final we lose 30k of paying fans plus the tradition plus our only significant, high profile presence in London.
That's 2 games per year, at the moment the international schedule would give us 3 games every 2 years. None of which would fill the stadium.

So that's 5 games on a good year. A total crowd of around 230,000 and that's being generous. On a bad year (ie no 4 Nations) it's 2 games with a crowd of 145,000.

Twickers gets 700k every year, plus the extras.

American football spent a lot of money....and averaged 40,483 in 1991...fast forward 6 years and that had dropped to 5,944....Channel 4 was showing Gridiron from the USA....the version people saw at Wembley, then White Hart Lane and eventially Crystal Palace Athletics stadium was not what was on FTA by any stretch of the imagination.

The BBC show the 6 Nations on FTA because it is part of the so called crown jewels....as is the Challenge Cup......I believe the BBC published figures that showed an average of 4.5 million people watched their coverage of the 6 nations games......1.25 million watched the CC Final......supply and demand at work there RB.......no school tie and no old boys network.
The Southern based media print what people want to read...but you carry on with the "it's not fair" rant...it's why RL is such a marginalised sport in the UK. As for France.....I said it was a terrible thing, but it is not the reason that RL in the UK is on its .

The Day people stop worrying about the past and concentrate on the future is the Day RL in the NH can kick on and grow.....not burdened with past stereotypes,chips on shoulders or concern what "the other lot" are up to.....I said it a few years back and I'll repeat it now, the RLIF/RFL could do alot worse than learn from the IRB/RFU....

2011 4 nations tournament attracted 128,000 fans to 7 matches and you want to build a 50,000 seater stadium to acommodate the 18,300 average Even the final didn't sell out.. your pipe-dream stadium would have only been 75% full

Rugby League in England does not need to waste money on a national stadium.....it needs to concentrate on filling the smaller grounds it currently uses.

Where would this national stadium be built anyway? Castleford? Halifax? Couldn't think of a quicker way to sink the game than doing something like that.

I have always been an RL fan but recently went to watch a Championship XV versus Maoris All Blacks game at Doncaster (a town with hardly any rugby heritage). The game attracted a crowd of around 5k and was a very well organised and enjoyable event at a cost of only £5. I have since been back to watch Donny RU and have to say the facilities, catering and most of all the PEOPLE were very good. Ok the product on the pitch was not to my uneducated eye as exciting to watch as RL, however the total absence of effing and blinding on the terrace and general yobbish behaviour which seems to be every where you go within rugby league nowadays is seriously making me reconsider where my future as a rugby spectator lies.

Acceptance of real facts versus wishful thinking would be a good start. Expand total crowd size by first giving the 'low hanging fruit' ( all people in traditional RL areas ) the chance to watch a team that is either in the top flight, or with the fans loyal support could get promoted into it.

To contradict my own opening sentence with a bit of dreaming ( but not total insanity I might add...) a proper 'Champions League' for the top four versus Aus top four with games spread throughout season like the actual Champions League, or Union's Heineken Cup would be a huge shot in the arm, and can be done with a system where you only need make one trip overseas to play your two overseas group games. Brilliant for us, but could the Aussies be bothered? As we stand, probably not.

Regardless, one thing League has to realise is that sustained interest is the key, not one off flashes of interest. Without interesting stuff to write or broadcast all year round, media outlets don't retain staff with an interest in the sport: frankly, Magic Weekend, fun though it is, just isn't that important. Leeds' victories in the last two years, fully deserved, have nonetheless exposed a danger - diminishing yet further any media interest in the regular season. I hear the defence that "other sports do it and it works" but we need to tailor our competitions to address our own specific biggest problem, that of limited media interest. Steady interest in an ongoing interesting competition will pay higher dividends than flash in the pan headlines twice a year or so.

We aren’t ‘a northern sport’ we gain nothing from trying to be ‘a northern sport’ we need, as a sport, to get over this chippiness. People in the south, or in france aren’t ‘wrong’ because they aren’t RL fans, we shouldn’t hold it against them. The game needs to be inclusive, it needs to get over its flatcap and whippets obsession and realise that the game belongs to the kids playing in a park in cornwall as much as it does to the kids playing in the park in Hunslet.

There isn’t some conspiracy against us, the Media doesn’t pay us enough attention because we are a fairly insular sport that doesn’t really include the wider community, not because of some Union bias, people elsewhere don’t watch the game in great numbers because he have done the square root of f@ck all to sell it to them. We expect that people from outside the game should be grateful we have deigned to give them the opportunity to play our game rather than welcoming them.

It isn’t the establishments fault, its not RU’s fault, its not the Vichy regimes fault. Its our fault. Its us as a community the whine incessantly about cost despite the game being ridiculously cheap, about having to travel despite there only being two games outside a small geographical area, its th RL community that doesn’t attend internationals, it’s the RL community that doesn’t support things like the Magic Weekend. It’s the RL community that doesn’t look forward to a trip to London every year but treats the club like an unwanted step-child being forced on our nice little family. We, as a community, are more to blame about the state of game than anybody else.

Except it isn’t, and we know it isn’t. The crowds at yo-yo clubs fall, it does untold damage to them as a business, and it stops them growing. More fans will watch an SL side which loses every game than a championship side which wins every game. It is demonstrable fact that people, in general, are less likely to watch a relegated team, less likely to watch a team get relegate, and even less likely to watch a team get promoted than watch a middling SL side. If you want an acceptance of fact as opposed to wishful thinking, start with this ( all people in traditional RL areas ) the chance to watch a team that is either in the top flight, or with the fans loyal support could get promoted into it will not Expand total crowds

Would be a great idea, and i agree, its acheivable. It is one of many things we as a game could do.