short term pain for long term gain. Australia would be mad to miss out on teh biggest sports event in the world due to two small national comps.

I wouldnt say that two billion dollar sporting competitions are small.


I think considering the soccer world cup will see Newcastle end up with a 40,000 seat stadium, North Queensland, Parramatta and Canberra stadiums upgraded and even Penrith looking to get some money out of it.....it would be stupid not to look at a few ways to take that money and look to play some games outside of Australia for a couple of months.

RL fan eh ?

i would be surprised if Oz got the WC. if by chance it did though, it would only be if the afl and nrl get on board and for that the FFA would have to compromise with them, as they couldnt just shut their seasons down for several weeks.

how have the afl reacted to the WC bid?

Compared to the World Cup they are! An 8 week soccer tournament sells more in merchandise than both the NRL and AFL are worth in total in a year! It is hard to say exactly what it is worth overall (just like the NRL and AFL, I'd be interested to know where you plucked the $billion from) but sponsorship alone is worth over $16billion then you have ticket sales of over a billion, merchandise over 3 billion, 5billion in stadium and infrastructure improvements, 1/2 billion in tourism spending etc etc.

Australia would be mad to miss the opportunity, as would the NRL, and to a lesser degree as they won't get the stadium benefits so much, the AFL.

I can see the financial benefits for Australia, and approve, however in what possible way does it benefit the NRL?

Some minor stadium upgrades which will largely be irrelevant to League fans. Lang Park and Homebush will get upgrades, and maybe the SFS, but dolling up the MCG and Docklands in Melbourne, Hindmarsh in Adelaide and Subiacco or the WACA will do nothing for us.

The cost to the game on the other hand will be huge.
4 weeks of disruption to Sydney and Brisbane games
4 week mid season break
Shortening the season or extending it further towards February and November when it's really too hot to play.
People not buying League memberships to pay for massively overpriced (and they are) World Cup tickets.
Frustration and anger for those who don't care about soccer, and those who love both sports
Massive publicity for the roundball game with League nowhere to be seen - it's not even like we would have the opportunity to play showcase matches.

Show me the wonderful benefits, and how it would not be an all around disaster for League?

By reading that you really realise how insignificant RL is to the world.

on a world scale it is a very minor sport, but what does that matter? As long as there is plenty of interest where the game is played and plans to keep growing then that'll do for me.

biting the hand that feeds it etc?

There would need to be a big financial sweetner for starters. That could fund NRL expansion and RL growth generally for the next 20 years.

Then we have MASSIVE improvements to a number of NRL grounds. Were not talking sticking up some temp seating here. They generally spend in the region of 3/4 billion upgrading stadia for the WC. If the NRL and clubs play their cards right we could see massive improvements in both fan comfort and, more importantly, corporate boxes at a number of grounds.

If I was the NRL I'd insist on $100mill for disruption and insist on a new 44,000 rectangular stadium in western Sydney that a number of clubs could then use post WC. They need to make sure the upgrades are at RL grounds and not AFL grounds.

If the WAFL can't agree to a Subi upgrade (will never be the WACA) then the WA govt should push for a new rectangular 60,000 stadium in Perth that can host the semi then be reduced to 35,000 for the three codes to use. Canberra could get a new covered stadium out of it, North Queensland could get a massive upgrade, Newcastle could be finished off, the list goes on!

I'm as staunch a Rugby League man as anyone but it would really give me the tom tits if we stood in the way of the Soccer world cup bid.

I think I read somewhere that we'd need 16 stadiums, that means massive upgrades to a lot of stadiums that NRL teams use. Thankfully, we aren't as OZTAM-centric as the GAYFL so we'll benefit a lot more than them.

It's a once in a lifetime opportunity.

Having said that, I don't think we're much hope of snagging it even though I'd love to see it here.

Have you seen the TV commercial yet for the bid?

Nah.

If it's not on Foxsports or Comedy Channel there's not much hope of me seeing it..