If that is the case, then that would be a really poor indictment of Rugby League minds.
Look if we were playing 1st tier nations that were also major countries like Britain, France, Germany, Spain, Italy, US, Canada, China, Turkey, India or any other major country in the world like they do in soccer or to some degree Union, then people would love it and flock to it in massive numbers both at the game and national TV ratings, but we don't.
RL is played by an anemic England and France, NZ and a few Pacific Island nations. Which is find and I love, but hardly captures the general Australian publics imagination. The Average Aussie sees the RL international stage as a very small deal and hardly one to get to excited about especially since most of the time the Aussies wipe the floor with all of them.
The NZers and Islanders obviously love it and many RL fans like me love the rivalry and theater they bring to the game, but like I said, the majority of Australians don't get the same buzz as if it were being played by major nations of the world. That is just the plain hard facts about the matter. End of.
That is why when Paul Broughton tried to get the ARLC to help fund and commit to RL in the Universities in China(all he needed was around $200k and backing by the ARLC so that the Australian Gove would then help with grants) they turned him down. Madness and such a typical and pathetic short sighted ARLC response. Paul Broughton is dead now and seemingly so is his grand plan of getting a province of 27m Chinese university students involved in the game. A population larger then the whole of Australia ignored and rejected that could have been slowly converted into bona fide RL fans and thus creating over time what we will never have, a major nation of the world that loves our game and we can play international games with not to mention the amount of Chines that would slowly start to play and be part of our NRL competitions.
Oh well RL the sport that has so many self sabotaging 'If only' moments in its history.
Instead we are going for the fast and short sighted fix that I predict will fail to gain the returns they expect long term in Las Vegas. No new kids will be playing the game that is assured with this plan. Which to me is the only way to really turn people into supporters of a sport long term. Then the gambling is leveraged on top of that and as we know the Chinese love their punting. Time zone is also friendlier.
Instead like I said, the ARLC are trying to take short cuts here and by a golden goose. The problem is no one sells you a golden goose, you need to raise one for yourself from a rare and special golden egg that you are willing to incubate and slowly watch hatch and not crack it for a quick omelette or even worse kill the golden goose that occasionally lays it.
Paul Broughton has been waiting well over a year for a conversation with Rugby League Central about developing rugby league in China.
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