In regards to stadiums and where the NRLW competition should be played and when.
My ultimate grand plan for the women's comp would be something like this. I would lobby all State governments to fund and build new all seater and under cover stadiums around the 10K-12K capacity mark.
So in other words I would try and get Sydney at least 4(North, South, East and West) stadiums and next to train stations and amenities of course. Two in Brisbane, one on the Gold Coast and one in NQLD. One in Canberra, One in New Castle, One in Melbourne and finally one in Auckland to cover all the teams. Obviously this will take some time and effort but the end result would be awesome.
Also being so small the land necessary would be much smaller and therefore easier to come by in great strategically advantageous locations that are impossible for us to get for the larger stadiums. Locations like Chatswood Park and if we got really, really lucky Prince Alfred Park next to Central Station in Sydney.
Imagine if we had strategically placed small and intimate boutique quality stadiums that represented the girls game in a very classy and professional way that they could sell and promote to the fans and media networks alike that just does not exist currently in this country like the images I show below?
We aren't talking about hundreds of millions of dollars for each of these types of small stadiums. Remember they are all around 10K-12K capacity. These sorts of Stadiums are priced at under $50m-$60m each at the higher end with all the bells and whistles. So they are very affordable. We just need the right type of business plan to justify them to state Governments. Which should not be all that hard to do considering that so many other tiers of the sport like State Cups and other codes like Soccer and Rugby lower comps could and would love to use them too or even for some of their 1st tier games as well.
In fact they would by shear quality, size and location be the most in demand stadiums in the country. Sounds to ambitious? Sure to most small minded and limited aspirational Australians it may well be, but to people that have vision and dare to dream it is the very least we should be aiming for.
Some may say that these stadiums are to small and are putting a cap on the NRLW of ever getting larger crowds, but I say realistically over the next 30 odd years at least, the women's game would be doing really, really well if it was consistently selling out 10K-12K stadiums. Remember for the odd blockbuster game or Final, they could move it to the larger Stadiums anyway if they though it would be needed.
But by having these types of classy and stylish mini stadiums it makes the women's game cool and sexy for all the fans that go and allows them to be so much closer and personal to the action and the players will only thrive in such and environment.
What I would do then is start their season during the mens NRL Semi Final time and continuing after the Mens Grand Final all the way into late November if not December. I would have all the teams play one round against each other then the Semis and finally the GF. Also somewhere in between that or after the GF, I would add the WSOO 3 game series to be played at Parra Stadium or NQLD stadiums and any internationals that are planed in any given year, which could also be scheduled in the most appropriate sized stadium deemed necessary.
This way the NRLW doesn't over saturate the already busy NRL schedule and those first few rounds are during the NRL's semi finals when there are way less games to watch so there will be no major issue with time slots scheduling or over saturation. Then we can also sell the rights to the NRLW on its own merits in a great and positive light, one that the broadcasters like more then anything and that is, great small stadiums that are full of colour and happily screaming fans that present brilliantly on TV and are an easy sell.
Obviously this is a proposal that can be adjusted where necessary to fine tune it or adjust it for any changing season's scheduling that may create new obstacles that maybe necessary to work around for. But overall this is the type of long term planning that our leaders should be thinking about and working towards.
But I bet none have this type of vision or ambition and will somehow try to shoehorn the NRLW as is into the scheduling really badly and keep stuffing it up telling us all it is oh so vey hard.
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