What's the obsession with double headers? As a spectator, sitting in a cold stadium in November for about 6 hours is not fun. Especially if it's somewhere like Okd Trafford with a tiny concourse.

You don't remember that ridiculous dance?

I think staging games in big stadiums outside the heartlands works better as a double header as it's easier to market it as an "event" as opposed to just one rugby match and easier to sell tickets to non rugby league fans.

You don't remember the advertising at stadiums? Grubber and Steed? For a sport with sod all money it was very well done.

I don't really know what you expected. What marketing do you remember from the latest football or Union world cups?

Marketing is a real buzz-word on this forum, but what does it actually mean, in rugby league terms?

The tournament is in ENGLAND (nowhere else). The majority of games will be played in the north (80%) due to securing £25m in Northern Powerhouse government funding. The stadiums on the bid video include Wembley, Old Trafford, Etihad, St James Park, Anfield, Olympic Park, Hull FC, Leeds and Saints https://goo.gl/bm0Hxl

The tournament is in ENGLAND (nowhere else). The majority of games will be played in the north (80%) due to securing £25m in Northern Powerhouse government funding. The stadiums on the bid video include Wembley, Old Trafford, Etihad, St James Park, Anfield, Olympic Park, Hull FC, Leeds and Saints https://goo.gl/bm0Hxl

Try a game in Nottingham. At decent game might pull a good crowd at the City Ground. Not too far away from the Heartlands but far enough to be pushing some boundaries.

It should be possible to make a very decent profit from this tournament.
25 million in the bank is a great start, and that should just about cover the running costs.
Keeping it all in the heartlands should maximise profits and minimise costs.
With the 2025 tournament promised to North America, we'll probably need to bank a profit in 2021 to cover costs in 2025.

Olympic Stadium for the opener and Wembley for the final. Let's show some ambition please and ensure the London based national media can't ignore this.

Anywhere apart from the Olympic stadium, awful ground.

First of all I think it's important that all the games are played in England.
England have won the World Cup bid, not Wales Scotland or France etc.
Secondly they need to look at 2013 World Cup, what stadiums worked, what didn't.
Thirdly they said they want to get 1 million fans attending games at the 2021 World Cup, this is a huge ask but think it is achievable, to do this though they need to be looking at getting 40-50 thousand at all England games and 20-30 thousand at all Australia/ New Zealand games.
Based on all that I would look at using the following stadiums

England group games
Olympic stadium (opening ceremony/England's opening game)
Anfield
St James Park

Australia/ New Zealand group games
Kcom stadium
John smith stadium
DW stadium
Ricoh arena?? If it's successful 4 nations venue

Other group games
Langtree park
Headingley
Haliwell jones stadium
Leigh sports village
The shay stadium

Quarter finals
Kcom stadium
Etihad stadium
St James park
DW stadium

Semi final
Wembley double header

Final
Old Trafford

In terms of this forum, it usually means cheap tickets.

Have you watched rugby (league or union) there, or you basing this on the opinion of West Ham supporters? My experience of watching rugby there is that it's a great venue, as the broader park can be utilised for fans to have a great day out. Also, for the all the reasons the ground is bad for football (easy for fans to mix, etc), it's great for events like rugby internationals. And it's another element to helping us get headlines.

I don't think having England group games at both St James Park and Anfield would work as England are probably gonna be playing two pretty rubbish teams in the group stage so you're gonna struggle to get a big crowd in Anfield for something like England v Fiji. I think one of them would work as a double header with a New Zealand game though and my preference would be St James Park.

I get your point but the RFL now have 5 years to get their house in order and really to push the event even more than 2013. This is a WC and we should absolutely be pushing this as a must see event to the locals and beyond. We have to be more ambitious than staging any of the big 3 at little heart land stadia, we should be trying to fill 40, 50 even 60k stadiums for England and Australia. Over to the promotions team, no excuses really.