pennpool said:
its a good i dea to find the grandfinal a permanent home and im all for it in florida but one kinda large question spinner.
who funds the travel cost if two teams from the north reach the final?
no body gets payed to play rugby in the us so is it to be expected that players put up what could possibly be $400plus for a flight as you would have less than two weeks to get an airline ticket and it is in peak time for tourists.
i understand that your guys travel 6 away games in a year but you have a fan base which brings in money and you have sponsors that bring in money. all other teams want to aspire to were you have got the axemen but other teams just arent geographicaly placed in the right area to genrate this income.
We are working on trying to get some reduced airfares to Jax and we hope that our talks with the airlines and the Jacksonville International Airport Authority will help with the Flights for the Grand Final. We do expect the traveling teams to fund their travel and accomadation but we are working on getting both a a low rate. We would expect the Airfares to be no more than $200 and the rooms no more the $65 for a double room.
I know we have a great situation with our deal here in JAX but I do not think that some of the teams in the AMNRL really don't do everything they can in regards to sponsorship. I know that there are many reason, such as work family, etc, etc but we all have to make a commitement to go out and get those dollars. Oneof the ways we got some money was get each player a sponsor. I think that each player could find themselves a $200 sponsorship from a company.
We are also trying to get a league sponsor to make sure that each team get some money from them. Hopefully $500 each. That would be a $6000 deal for some lucky business.
Lastly, This season we expect each team that travels to JAX to bring a full squad and have a full set of kit for all players. We are going out on a huge limb with our sponsors down here to pull all of this off. So we are asking for the support of all the visiting teams to show up with a full team and to look very professional.
You cannot have one without the other. Image and Professionalism is what companies are looking for when they put there name on anything.
And to comment on T'hawk. I would expect each team in the AMNRL to at least plan on having the money to travel and least once to JAX in case they make the Final.
THE IMPORTANT BIT = We meet with the UNF People this week and we will have the Grand Final Date nailed no later than the end of Januray. The reason for this is that it gives us 6 full months to market the game. We are going to promote it to JAX, the State of Florida. We will be letting every club in the UK know when it is, Australia, etc, etc.
The AMNRL is now at a stage that I think some clubs may have an interest in looking at some USA talent and by giving them so much time, there is no reason that they could not send scouts to this game. It will showcase the best the league has to offer.
THE NEXT BIG THING to happen to the AMNRL is to get one of our players signed to a contract to soem club somewhere in the World. We have had a couple come close but we need that one guy to "make it" and we will never look back.
