Interesting to hear the Australian commentators talking about Mickey Mac over the weekend. They seemed full of praise for him leading the team forward. He even made a couplke of breaks.

Why would they target their marketing in Sydney when there's no games being played there? It'd be a huge waste of money.

The NSW Government couldn't be d bidding for any games, they were lucky to get the two Lebanon games.

To say that the majority of games have been played away from RL's heartlands, attendances have been decent, and TV audiences have been very good.

France could do with 2 teams in super league, catalans and Toulouse. and then an 8-10 team first division below that with pretty much a time teams, maybe two of those teams should be in a Paris or close to Paris. this with a long term 10 year plan, to redevelop the game over there.

But you need English rugby league to make it happen, why not improve the French RL organisation, then you can truly be proud of your adopted countries accolades.






For gods sake, grow the feck up you immature, childish individual.

236,294 over 21 games at 18 events is a shocking figure.....Townsville, home to the Grand Finalists saw 7,750 attend a double header there.....16,528 was the 2017 NRL season average for the Cowboys, yet less than half that number could be bothered.....the shoddy management and non existent marketing of this event will be brushed over with a few bumper crowds at the end, but the reality is that Australia shouldn't be let anywhere near hosting such an event ever again.....currently tracking 10% down on 2013 crowds in a country supposedly "mad about league"?
Seriously.... Canberra saw 400 more fans that we got in Limerick 2013........that is shocking for the home of an NRL side.......it is impossible to defend the indefensible and that's what the Australian attendances at this world cup are...119,700 attending 14 games for an 8,550 average.

I keep hearing about the lack of marketing, but i'm curious to know what people mean by this. We live in the internet age and it's easier than ever for people to access and spread information. If someone isn't aware of the world cup, I can only assume they wouldn't be interested in it anyway. And just because people aren't interested, it doesn't mean that they're not aware of something.

TV ratings have been strong – the World Cup opener in Melbourne between England and Australia pulled in 1.4 million viewers, the highest-rating league game this year outside of the NRL grand final and state of origin.

RLWC 2013 Achieved an average attendance that was 16,374 and some 7,400 or 81% higher than that of the 2013 Superleague.......by contrast, the NRL average is 15k and the current RLWC gates are 11,252 or 25% LOWER than the domestic season average.
Why did they bid for the right to host this comp?

Cairns? What were they thinking? Remember, the Aussies whined about Limerick yet they managed to get a lower gate this year...3 games at an average of 4,508.
Townsville? 3 games at an average of 4,278.....unforgivable given the Cowboys average there.
Melbourne for the opener? They took SoO there in 2015 and got 90K+........yet they couldn't even fill a stadium 1/3 of that.......
Canberra? 3 games including a home test match for the Kangaroos and yet still only 8,172 as an average....the Raiders averaged more than the Roos game achieved.
Without the PNG and NZ games this RLWC would be heading for a lower total than 2008.......the Aussies just haven't bothered and whilst TV figures are good, they do nothing to change perception that this is the 3rd level of comp as far as the Okers are concerned.

Marketing isn't about preaching to the converted, it's about informing a new audience of what's going on and inviting them to attend.....something that the organisers of 2013 did brilliantly and which the organisers of 2017 have failed to do at all! Information being freely available online isn't marketing.

If NZ somehow beat the Roos in the semi-final, we'll be lucky to see 25,000 at the final.....whereas the Final for pretty much every other sporting world cup is sold out before the opening game.....but no doubt the million + watching on TV will be rolled out as how Rugby mad the Aussies are

Do attendances matter? The tournament could still make more money than the last one with better sponsorship and money taken away from the gate. What are the aims of the world cup?

I can only go from my own experience, but Tonga played Italy in Halifax in the 2013 World Cup. The game was a sell-out, with 10,266 in attendance. Fax struggled to reach 2,000 for their games that season. My perception was that the majority of the crowd were local people (not many would travel far to watch Tonga vs Italy) that had never been to a game of rugby league before (and probably haven't since either). The game was marketed locally quite strongly (posters and in the local rag) and wouldn't have been such a success otherwise. Some would have been erstwhile rugby supporters who still follow the game but don't regularly attend matches, but a lot would have just turned up through curiosity.

Sadly, none of them seemed to enjoy the experience enough to turn up to watch Fax in 2014.

The good thing is that the world cup gets better every time now.
The next world cup will be better than this one, and this one is better than the last one, and the last one was better than the one before.
The one after next is a bit of a risk, but 8 years from now we should be able to put on a good show in North America.

It's been touched upon by Matt Gillett in the Aussie media, so I thought i'd mention it here. He said that he wants equal pay per game across all nations at the World Cup. Currently, the Aus players get $20,000 per game, Tongans get $500, whilst some of the Irish players are getting $0.

I'd hope that'd be brought in for the next set of internationals, it can help to keep the incentive there for those that represent lesser nations if they're picking up more money than they have during the WC.

I was told in my marketing degree, that effective marketing is making people who don't want something, want it. Effective marketing isn't just creating a presence and hoping people find it, it is about holding their hand and taking them to it

How quaint.

As we'll all see on Black Friday next week, effective marketing is now about creating a presence, leading people in handcuffs to it, then battering them in the face repeatedly with it.