Quote: Wire Yed "I would prefer to see it turned into a 9s comp similar to the Auckland comp.
Play it over a bank holiday 3 days include more teams, you'd attract way more fans and neutrals.'"
I reckon SL teams would play their reserves if no league points were at stake. Also not sure fans would travel for what would surely be seen as a Mickey Mouse Cup. IMO they have the right idea putting league points on the line and pitching evenly matched teams against each other. The only issues I have with it are:
It makes the league uneven - why not pitch evenly matched teams against each other from the top and middle 8's after the split? That way it's fair and gets rid of the extra home/away fixture issue as well
Some years they have held the events at places where there is no regular professional rugby league to watch - 90 miles to Workington or 96 miles to Leeds if you are from Newcastle and decide you want to start watching Pro RL regularly. Same issue when they have held it in Cardiff and Edinburgh.
When it is in Manchester, why aren't they encouraging clubs to put offers on to encourage new fans to watch a regular season game the week after? I'd give a voucher to each fan who buys a full price weekend ticket entitling them to buy one get one free to their favoured team's next home fixture (or a tenner off the price, whichever). That way there is more of a link between the event and actually getting more fans in regularly