RLWC 2025

[The Great Dane]

I wonder if other sports feel the same? You dont hear the EPL complaining about having to supply the players for soccer world cup.

You would if they were expected to carry the financial risk of not only supplying 85-90% of the talent but developing the majority of it as well. Especially if there was no expectation of reimbursement for the financial risk that they were taking.

Fact is RL is a very small sport in every country except one. No signs that will change in any near future.

Yes, and internationals have done little to alleviate those circumstances.

If anything there're cases where it's made things worse. The RFL have definitely made decisions to the detriment of local development in the UK with an eye to making the English side more competitive, a lot of other nations seem to exist exclusively to operate their international sides without putting much effort into the sport locally, and the fact that there's no national club competition in NZ is a joke.

England in particular has it arse backwards, and seem to think that the sport will suddenly become popular if they can just get internationals to take off, when really it's the other way around. The sport becomes popular, then international competition takes off as a result of that demand.

IDK, maybe some of those nations would be forced to put more effort into improving themselves if you took away some of the sugar hits and support that the NRL and internationals provide.

 

[Harry O]

10,047 @ Redcliffe

 

[Perth Red]

You would if they were expected to carry the financial risk of not only supplying 85-90% of the talent but developing the majority of it as well. Especially if there was no expectation of reimbursement for the financial risk that they were taking.

Yes, and internationals have done little to alleviate those circumstances.

If anything there're cases where it's made things worse. The RFL have definitely made decisions to the detriment of local development in the UK with an eye to making the English side more competitive, a lot of other nations seem to exist exclusively to operate their international sides without putting much effort into the sport locally, and the fact that there's no national club competition in NZ is a joke.

England in particular has it arse backwards, and seem to think that the sport will suddenly become popular if they can just get internationals to take off, when really it's the other way around. The sport becomes popular, then international competition takes off as a result of that demand.

IDK, maybe some of those nations would be forced to put more effort into improving themselves if you took away some of the sugar hits and support that the NRL and internationals provide.

You can’t have been around in the late 80’s and early 90’s? International RL was very much driving rl interest in the uk. Reality is people will tune in to watch a national side even if they have never watched the sport.

 

[The Great Dane]

You can’t have been around in the late 80’s and early 90’s? International RL was very much driving rl interest in the uk. Reality is people will tune in to watch a national side even if they have never watched the sport.

Yeah and that's exactly the problem with using it as your major mechanism to push growth. It's the same problem that the ARU and FFA have here.

For the most part those sort of people aren't actually interested in the sport, only in being part of the occasion and supporting their nation, and no major sport can survive off the gate and broadcasting of the relative handful international games alone anymore. Internationals and representative football are always a supplement, dessert if you will, where the club game is a healthy sports business's staple diet.

A healthy club game also maximises interest in representative football as well, making it more profitable over time.

The problem you have internationals in RL is that in Australia (the largest RL market in the world) the dominant form of rep footy is SOO because of the factors I described before, and RL internationals either being a basket case or increasingly astroturfed.

 

[Matua]

As a NZer the Kangaroos tours of the 1990s to the UK, especially the 1990 tour, were awesome.

I don't watch SOO but would love to watch an old school Kangaroo tour.

 

[Perth Red]

As a NZer the Kangaroos tours of the 1990s to the UK, especially the 1990 tour, were awesome.

I don't watch SOO but would love to watch an old school Kangaroo tour.

SOO is the perfect example of how insular thinking takes you down a path that ends up eventually limiting your growth. We should have been building on the Int success of the 80's and 90's and instead decided to focus on two states playing each other.

Personally Id much rather see more of this

 

[Perth Red]

Yeah and that's exactly the problem with using it as your major mechanism to push growth. It's the same problem that the ARU and FFA have here.

For the most part those sort of people aren't actually interested in the sport, only in being part of the occasion and supporting their nation, and no major sport can survive off the gate and broadcasting of the relative handful international games alone anymore. Internationals and representative football are always a supplement, dessert if you will, where the club game is a healthy sports business's staple diet.

A healthy club game also maximises interest in representative football as well, making it more profitable over time.

The problem you have internationals in RL is that in Australia (the largest RL market in the world) the dominant form of rep footy is SOO because of the factors I described before, and RL internationals either being a basket case or increasingly astroturfed.

Disagree, we saw from the initial interest and support for the London Broncos what a vibrant Int scene can do for getting new fans interested in the game. RL has the rare opportunity, probably only soccer compares, to have a very successful club scene and a very successful Int scene together. It doesnt have to be one or the other.

NRL being the biggest comp in the world and full of PI'ers will naturally supply most of the talent to the Int scene given RL's piss poor effort to grow the game in other countries. No bad thing. It raises profiles of players and brings eyes to the game that might not normally watch.

 

[LeagueXIII]

I think we concentrate on the origin etc because our "partners' have a massive say in it. It's their asset and they want no competition for it.

Shows who runs the game.

 

[Éamonn an Chnoic]

Yeah and that's exactly the problem with using it as your major mechanism to push growth. It's the same problem that the ARU and FFA have here.

For the most part those sort of people aren't actually interested in the sport, only in being part of the occasion and supporting their nation, and no major sport can survive off the gate and broadcasting of the relative handful international games alone anymore. Internationals and representative football are always a supplement, dessert if you will, where the club game is a healthy sports business's staple diet.

A healthy club game also maximises interest in representative football as well, making it more profitable over time.

The problem you have internationals in RL is that in Australia (the largest RL market in the world) the dominant form of rep footy is SOO because of the factors I described before, and RL internationals either being a basket case or increasingly astroturfed.

Actually I think the big centrepiece events are the games that draw potential fans to have a closer look at the club level…

yes, the club level is clearly the foundation (and the major weakness for RU) but English RL really lacks the big event games.

Imagine what an annual event like Origin could do for RLs profile in England and Europe!!

 

[The Great Dane]

Disagree, we saw from the initial interest and support for the London Broncos what a vibrant Int scene can do for getting new fans interested in the game. RL has the rare opportunity, probably only soccer compares, to have a very successful club scene and a very successful Int scene together. It doesnt have to be one or the other.

I don't disagree with your assertion that it doesn't have to be either or, but your method for achieving that goal has consistently proven to be expensive and totally ineffectual.

Historically it's been the case that healthy international scenes grow from healthy club scenes, not the other way around. Furthermore, internationals can only carry a sport so far in a nation if the club scene starts to die, just look a RU in Australia or RL in England.

Whether you want to accept it or not you need local investment in local comps first if you want RL's international scene to grow into something even remotely comparable to soccer's in the future, and the current international scene in RL seems to largely be an expensive distraction that's undermining investment into that potential growth in many nations that would/could be major markets for RL around the world.

NRL being the biggest comp in the world and full of PI'ers will naturally supply most of the talent to the Int scene given RL's piss poor effort to grow the game in other countries. No bad thing. It raises profiles of players and brings eyes to the game that might not normally watch.

Okay, but the vast majority of those "PI's" (simply being racially Polynesian, Melanesian, or Micronesian, shouldn't be enough to make you a PI in our modern globalised world, but that's a tangent) shouldn't be eligible to play for the nations that they are, and wouldn't be in a healthy system broadly speaking. It's blatant astroturfing, and is an example of the exact sort of distraction undermining real growth that I'm talking about.

You're basically creating a situation where it's easier to fill the teams with Aussies, Kiwis, and Poms on the cheap, instead of investing in growth on the ground in the PI's, Home Nations, Lebanon, other European nations, USA, Jamacia, etc, etc, to make it look like the international scene is bigger and stronger than it actually is?!

Yeah you fast track a more competitive WC on the pitch, but it's proven to be at the expense of real sustainable growth on the ground in developing RL nations in almost all cases. None of what growth there has been has been in major markets either.

 

[Ideas Man Stephen]

The international game is an expensive waste of time if there is not a fantastic product to watch on a week to week basis.

The international game can gain the interest of the curious. The club game is where the curious become the actively interested.

As such, the WC is an expensive party for RL organisers to give a false representation about how popular the sport is around the globe.

I don’t want to eliminate those lesser nations from participating, but equally, I don’t want to see the Greece playing England and Australia playing Scotland at the expense of seeing Australia play England.

In the last WC, we missed out on England v Aus, England v NZ, Aus v Tonga, NZ v Tonga, NZ v Samoa. Do we think the WC would have been more financially successful if those matches were played in place of Aus v Scotland, England v Greece, NZ v Jamaica and Tonga v Cook Islands?

The tournament needs changing in order to see all of the best playing each other and if that means the semi finalists of the last WC are joined in a round robin tournament by two nations who qualify via a centrally located 16 nation knock out event immediately prior to the round robin, then that means we get to see the best v the best but also allow a pathway for any of the top 20 ranked nations to participate in the wider WC tournament, satisfying the needs of government funding in those weaker locations.

 

[siv]

Its not just the RLWC that is important for RL, but also the regional championships

The post season 6 week window between mid Oct and end of Nov works

A 6 nation Oceania cup of Aus, NZ, Tonga, Samoa, PNG, Fiji & Final would be massive

But if we do tours to North, then it needs to be 2 or 3 nations touring playing 2 or 3 tests v England plus single tests against France and the highest ranked other nations

RLWC2025 has proved you need to keep a % of money in the IRL bank

 

[yakstorm]

In the last WC, we missed out on England v Aus, England v NZ, Aus v Tonga, NZ v Tonga, NZ v Samoa. Do we think the WC would have been more financially successful if those matches were played in place of Aus v Scotland, England v Greece, NZ v Jamaica and Tonga v Cook Islands?

That was one of the big differences between RLWC2017 & RLWC2021. In RLWC2017, because of the super pool setup, there was at least one big match each week of the group stages, which both drew crowds and media attention and ensured there was plenty of hype come Finals time.

In 2021, you had England v Samoa and then Tonga v PNG as those 'bigger games' in the group stages with everything else waiting on the Finals.

We still could have had 16 teams in 2021 and retained the power pools concept. For the likes of Jamaica and Greece, they would still get huge value out of playing against the likes of Scotland & Wales.

 

[The Great Dane]

If the IRL are smart they'll accept that the 2025 RLWC is going to be a bit shonky given the circumstances and the timeframe left to organise it in, they'll throw out any ideas of trying to do anything too revolutionary, and fast track hosting rights for Australia or England with the objective of running it at low cost with the aim of maximising profits.

Sell games to the highest bidders, spend the bulk of the budget on marketing, and keep ticket prices as low as feasibly possible to try save face by drawing crowds.

Attempting anything else on such short notice is just asking for more problems.

It's great if NZ is serious about hosting, but give them 2029 and enough time to do it properly.

 

[Llangennech]

There are 2 countries on the planet where RL is a big deal, PNG and 'stralia.

Can I get to watch England v the Kangaroos please.

 

[The Great Dane]

New Zealand Rugby League working on unique World Cup bid that includes Pacific Islands
David Long08:54, Jun 18 2023

New Zealand Rugby League (NZRL) is in talks with the Government on a bid for the 2025 Rugby League World Cup, which will include co-hosting with Pacific Island nations, but not Australia.

It would be a fully inclusive and diverse World Cup, including the men’s, women’s, wheelchair and physical disability tournaments.

International Rugby League (IRL) is desperate to find a new home for the sport’s showpiece tournament after France pulled out in May because of financial reasons.

NZRL chief executive Greg Peters told Stuff at the time they would look at whether to put in a bid, and he has now confirmed they have a vision for the next World Cup that would not only bring the tournament to New Zealand, but take games to the Pacific Islands for the first time.

“We have commenced a feasibility study to look at whether we can achieve a vision of New Zealand and Pasifika and Papua New Guinea hosting the World Cup in 2025,” Peters said.

“That’s an ambitious goal, but we want to have a good crack at it and see if there’s a chance of it being possible.

“We’ve got a pretty short window of time because of France withdrawing and two years to the planned World Cup, it’s not long.

“That can act in our favour, or it can act against us. We’ve got to get stuff done quickly, so things happen quicker, but obviously for the planning stage there’s a short runway.”

Since the modern era of the Rugby League World Cup began in 1995, New Zealand has only once been involved in hosting the tournament, in 2017, and it played second fiddle to Australia that year as only seven of the 28 games were held in the country.

Peters said he wouldn’t rule out Australia being involved in the 2025 World Cup if they end up making a successful bid, but currently it’s the NZRL leading the proposal, with input from Pacific Island nations.

“We’re happy to talk to Australia, but at this stage we’re wanting to lead a New Zealand/Pasifika opportunity and we’re not closing out Australia,” Peters said.

“But we’ll work on a feasibility that considers options and Australia’s very strong relationship with PNG is certainly one area we may explore more.”

Peters believes this could deliver a unique World Cup and one that acknowledges the important role players from the Pacific Islands have played in the sport in recent years.

“We want to bring Pasifika with us, in a collaborative and cooperative manner. So co-hosting with Pasifika and PNG to the extent that’s possible,” Peters said.

“To bring it all together as a partnership to host it, that’s different to what’s been done before in any other code and particularly in rugby league.

“In the NRL 48% of players are Māori or Pasifika and in New Zealand 86% of our participation base is Māori or Pasifika, so this respects and acknowledges that.

“That’s the vision. It will cost a lot of money so we are working with the New Zealand Government, MBIE (Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment) to do the feasibility work in a very tight timeframe.”

Samoa haven’t played a home test since 2016, while Tonga last played at home in 2007 and Fiji haven’t hosted a test for 23 years.

In the past, infrastructure, costs and broadcasting and medical facilities have been issues, but that’s no longer the case, as highlighted by Fijian Drua playing all their Super Rugby Pacific home games in either Suva or Lautoka and Moana Pasifika playing the Reds in Apia this season.

“They are all on a capability facilities improvement pathway,” Peters said.

“Three years ago broadcasting was very expensive and challenging out of most of those territories, now it’s entirely possible, as we’ve seen with those examples.

“You can do it and the cost has come down significantly. You can see the Pacific tourism benefits if we’re able to make this happen, so it becomes more than just rugby league.”

To bring the World Cup to New Zealand Peters says it will need financial support. That has to come from the Government and regional organisations like Tātaki Auckland Unlimited, which is part of Auckland Council, but is facing significant cuts under the proposed budget of Mayor Wayne Brown, with the risk of the city falling further behind what Australian state governments are prepared to fork out for major events.

“It will require a significant contribution from New Zealand Central Government and regional councils and entities, because that’s the only way these events work,” Peters said.

"Australia is aggressive in that space and I would like to see New Zealand stand up and make a mark in that space as well.”

Peters wants to be in position to go to the IRL’s meeting in Singapore next month having something detailed to show them about the World Cup.

“We don’t understand yet what the IRL’s process for awarding a new host for 2025 is, we’re seeking that,” Peters said.

“But we’re also not waiting for that, because we want to be in a position, if we determine it’s feasible, to put something forward that excites rugby league and the IRL.”

South Africa and Qatar are the other nations to express an interest in hosting the World Cup, but there are significant issues with both countries.

Despite a number of attempts, league hasn’t taken off in South Africa and their men’s team are currently ranked 25th in the world, behind Nigeria, Germany and Brazil.

Qatar has plenty of money and the stadiums for the tournament, having recently hosted the Fifa World Cup, but the country doesn’t have a national team, no heritage in the sport and would rely on fans flying in from the UK or this part of the world to fill seats.

“I’m sure there will be parties expressing an interest,” Peters said.

“One of the things with our concept is that it’s about rugby league and celebrating the cultures involved in rugby league. In a part of the world that has seen signifiant growth, not only with on-field performance, but with interest in rugby league.

“There has been the rise of the likes of Tonga, Samoa, Fiji, Papua New Guinea and the Cook Islands, and it’s not too long ago that New Zealand and Australia were beating Tonga and Samoa by significant margins, but now it’s not like that.

“That’s what we want to see from a sports perspective through this and you don’t get that in Qatar.”

If the NZRL go ahead with the bid, Peters also wants to include the same number of nations competing as there was in England last year. So a 16-team men’s World Cup and eight nations for the women’s and wheelchair World Cups.

“If you’re true about wanting to host pools in the islands, you need a certain number of games to do that,” Peters said.

“We want the bigger games to be back in the New Zealand market because of commerciality and fan base, but you need a certain number of matches to spread this around the Pacific.”

https://www.stuff.co.nz/sport/leagu...e-world-cup-bid-that-includes-pacific-islands

The IRL have rocks in their heads if they go for this. It'd be a feat to pull off at the best of times, but to trying to do it on such short notice is insane. RL hasn't even been able to get one-off games in the PI's off the ground outside of PNG, so trying it in the only international competition of any value left to the sport, and at short notice, is a big ask.

I'd love to know which broadcasters they think are going to be willing to eat the cost of producing games in all those nations over such a short period for a start. Or are they just accepting that some of the games will be broadcast at lower quality?

And who's going to subsidise these matches? Sure PNG will throw money at it, but money will have to come from somewhere for the rest otherwise they'll be running them at a significant loss. I'm not even convinced that there'd be many serious bidder in NZ, let alone in Tonga for example.

Speaking of Tonga, a lot of work would have to be done on Teufaiva Sport Stadium before Tonga could host as well.

I find it funny that the Kiwi's expect to be joint hosts in any WC held in Australia but are loath to return the favour when roles are reversed as well.

 

[Perth Red]

Given we didn’t have the past RLWC until,’22 they should just bite the bullet and move it to ‘26 giving nz and pi the time they need to plan it properly.,

 

[The Great Dane]

Given we didn’t have the past RLWC until,’22 they should just bite the bullet and move it to ‘26 giving nz and pi the time they need to plan it properly.,

That'd still be a tight turnaround even if the IRL got their shit together and announced the new hosts in the next month or so. Nah, it's a stupid idea.

If the IRL are interested in this bid then give 2029 to NZ and the PI's now, that'll give them time to work through everything and dodge all the pitfalls in their plan, and some time for one-off trial runs to gauge interest in some of these nations. Trying to work it out for 25/26 is just setting it up for failure, and that will hurt the chances of future RLWCs being held outside of Australia or England going forward.

Play 25 in either Aus or Eng, keep costs as low as possible and maximise profit.

 

[Ideas Man Stephen]

W

That'd still be a tight turnaround even if the IRL got their shit together and announced the new hosts in the next month or so. Nah, it's a stupid idea.

If the IRL are interested in this bid then give 2029 to NZ and the PI's now, that'll give them time to work through everything and dodge all the pitfalls in their plan, and some time for one-off trial runs to gauge interest in some of these nations. Trying to work it out for 25/26 is just setting it up for failure, and that will hurt the chances of future RLWCs being held outside of Australia or England going forward.

Play 25 in either Aus or Eng, keep costs as low as possible and maximise profit.

When you say it’s preferable to wait in order to gauge interest, gauge interest from who exactly?

You don’t think a Fijian, Samoan, PNG or Tongan home WC fixture would sell out?

 

[The Great Dane]

W

When you say it’s preferable to wait in order to gauge interest, gauge interest from who exactly?

You don’t think a Fijian, Samoan, PNG or Tongan home WC fixture would sell out?

I think whether they sell out or not would depend entirely on the price point of the tickets, which is why they need the time to gauge interest from governments, broadcasters, sponsors, and corporates to see just how much they can make from them in order to subsidise the price of the tickets.

PNG would be fine to host at least a few games, but the rest are a bit of an open question as to how profitable they'd be, if at all, and whether they'd be commercially competitive with simply hosting those games in NZ or Aus for that matter.

Sure it's a bit different to internationals, but I have it on good authority that for the most part both Moana Pasifika and the Dura's games that have been played in Samoa and Fiji respectively have run at significant losses despite drawing strong crowds (same is true of the Hunters BTW) and the IRL simply can't afford that when the WC is their only significant source of income. So like Super Rugby has done for MP and the Dura, they'd need to find ways to eat those costs if they're going to play games in those nations, and that's what they need to gauge interest in.

In the case of Moana Pasifika and the Dura multiple government agencies from NZ, AUS, Fiji and Samoa themselves, World Rugby, and other sponsors and the like, all chip in to make Moana Pasifika and the Dura viable, similar support would have to be sourced for any RLWC games held in the PI's and it'd be a big ask to get that all done in multiple nations in under two years whilst still organising the rest of the competition.

Ideally they'd also get repair work and upgrades done on Teufaiva Sport Stadium before they even started seriously discussing Tonga, and that definitely isn't going to happen within a couple years.