New World Club Challenge?

[mark2]

In the UK newspapers this morning there is a story about a new WCC in 2009 involving 16 teams from England (6 teams) Australia (6 teams) NZ (2 teams) France (2 teams).
The event is the brainchild of Ad agency boss Martin James, with the winning side getting £250,000 and groups stage losers £100,000.
It also says that it has been discussed at a meeting of Super League Chairmen.

It all seems a bit far fetched to me, though I would love an expanded WCC, with six teams playing in it.The Super League Champions and the Challenge Cup winners along with the French Rugby Leagues nominated side i.e. the Catalans Dragons, with the the Aussie Champs , Minor Premiers and the NZRL nominated side i.e. the Warriors.

Two groups of three

Say
Group 1 Northern Hemishere

Leeds
Parramatta
Catalans Dragons

Group 2 Southern Hemishere

Melbourne Storm
St Helens
New Zealand Warriors

Each group has teams from three different countries giving a true international feel, winner of each group play off for the right to be World Club Champion.

 

[roopy]

Sounds interesting as a pre season thing.
Can anyone find a link to this story?

 

[The Tank]

Why would you have Parra over Manly? (Grand Finalists)

 

[bartman]

Can anyone find a link to this story?

I'm coming up blank to be honest...

 

[brendothejet]

i love the sound of it.

The top six Australian side, the Top Six english sides, Catalans and French winner, Warriors and NZ domestic winner. What an awesome comp!

 

[roughyedspud]

nah....

it did'nt work last time so i fail to see it working this time..

 

[1 Eyed TEZZA]

This is different, I like it, it will promote the game and give the 2nd NZ and French team a reward for winnign their comp.

 

[cumberlandsashes81]

Can't find anything on this but it is nice Russell Crowe-esq thinking... though the participation of semi-pro teams from NZ and France isn't a good idea as a top 6 NRL side would put 100 on them...

As far as I can find out Martin James owns a Sports Advertising Agency (Sports360) which sells Super League advertising space. Though, there isn't even a reference to this idea on his website.

What papers did you see this in, mark2?

 

[Sam_the_man]

Far better off having the NRL winner and runner up with Super League winner and runner up along with the Dragons and Warriors.

4 teams, 6 games, short and sweet.

 

[parra_jesus]

this is a great concept and would do wonders for the game internationaly. but with the current length of the season as it is i could see alot of complaints over the idea...

 

[brendothejet]

250,000 pounds for 4, maybe five games....

thats almost what teams earn for winning the NRL.

i can see that sort of financial cherry sweetening the deal.

 

[Azkatro]

Let's hope they reach the dizzying heights the 1997 tournament held with Brisbane unforgettably defeating Hunter Mariners in the final.

 

[thommo4pm]

Given that nobody has actually been able to find anything about this story or a link, or anything relating to it....I'm finding it hard to believe.
I like the idea, but I think this thread may be a prank.....would love to be proven wrong.

 

[roughyedspud]

it was in the news of the world newspaper

 

[Kurt Angle]

Would be a bold movement that's for sure. I don't think we're ready to do that. This sort of comp requires massive underwriting, and we don't really have enough TV markets to sell it to just yet.

WCC games at the moment should be held in developing RL countries. All this noise about Rabbitohs vs Leeds in Jacksonville.... now market that as Leeds vs Melbourne for "champions of the world"....and see the response.

Moscow and Belgrade to help the game in Russia and Serbia... maybe a place that likes to bid for events, such as Dubai, Hong Kong.. a bid to seel NRL and ESL TV right to the Chinese market and have it in Shanghai or even Beijing after their olympic games in their stadium.

Tell the chinese to underwrite it, give the clubs a nominal amount, and they can keep all the TV revenue as a form of risk management.

 

[1 Eyed TEZZA]

Why not have 4 teams from the Aus (not including NZ), 4 teams from ESL (not including Catalans and Celtic), 2 teams from France (inc Catalans), 2 teams from NZ (inc Warriors), 1 team from Wales, winner of Lebanon comp, 1 team from PNG and 1 team from the winner of the Fiji and Tonga national competition.

Sounds good to me.

 

[roughyedspud]

yeah lets try to bankrupt the game again.......lol


the best thing to do with the world club challenge would be to sync the NRL & SL so one finishes 1 week before the other so the season finishes like this..

week 1 - NRL grand final, winners fly to england
week 2 - SL grand final
week 3 - world club championship final

and alternate the fixture so the next year SL finishes first and the SL winner travel to australia..

holding a multi team WCC will take too much time and leave us less time to play internationals...when we should be increasing the amount of internationals we play.

 

[screeny]

Rubbish idea. We need to put more emphasis on players playing in int'ls not adding more tournaments to the workload of the same players.

Lewis knows his strategy and thankfully WCCs don't enter into it and if it's not got his support it won't happen.

 

[deluded pom?]

It's being refuted by the authorities according to today's RL Express.

 

[East Coast Tiger]

It's a crap idea and won't happen. The WCC is good and we should keep it in some form but only as a best of the best, one off NRL v SL game.