Any who thinks taking NRL games to places like Tamworth is a bad thing is totally clueless. Regional Australia is a huge strength for the NRL. Not only because of all the juniors they provide but also the TV ratings. Seriously our TV ratings would be atrocious if not for regional numbers. It's the one area we totally dominate the AFL no questions asked.
More importantly though I question what possible downside there is to taking a game to somewhere like Tamworth.
Is it about profit? Well these areas are paying for games to be taken there, I'm prettt sure the teams playing in these areas are making more money if anything not less.
Is it about the size of the crowd? Tamworth had around what 10K people? How many NRL games every year draw a worse crowd than that or at the least a similar crowd? The stadium looked packed on TV and provided a great atmosphere so who cares anyway?
Is it about the look for the game? Frankly most of these regional stadiums look as good on TV as some of the shithole stadiums some NRL teams play out of.
These games look good on TV, are just as profitable as regular games, they draw good crowds regardless of the teams involved and they provide a HUGE boost to the local areas.
Has anyone else here actually attended a game in a regional centre? Who am I kidding no one here actually attends matches. I went to the Tamworth match and the atmosphere and general feel around the town was fantastic.
If it had been played in Sydney it would have been just another NRL match that did nothing for the local area and probably would attract a similar level crowd.
The NRL don't care about the crowd number though, they only care about the TV revenue which would go down if they changed the slot.
Then why not just make tickets $5 or even free? It would create a better atmosphere and IMO almost certainly lead to better TV ratings.
