Big Bunny said:
You're advocating a half measured process because on one hand you're spruiking the importance of including sub par teams with money, the population or both, whilst also including teams the that would fight out the finals based on nothing but ability. Basically you want to have your cake and eat it too, when it makes your ideas stand out not only half pregnant but hypocritical as well. Where do you draw the line?
You draw the line at the point that maximises the success of the World Cup and that maximises the benefits to international RL.
I can't agree. A competitive world cup would be beneficial as it would increase awareness for the international game, allowing it to be seen in a light that is positive and in turn increased revenues would be made and the roll-on effects longterm to the next world cup would be far greater. Building a stronger, better recognised and patronised cup should be our primary goal. The revenue generated would far outstrip that which would be available to developing nations under your proposed concepts. Russia and the US deserve more help, but your idea for them is window dressing and it really is little more than a short term answer and a bad one at that.
Not true, if anything we should have learnt from the 2000 RLWC debacle and the stunning success of the 2003 RUWC is that trying to have a competitive world cup has much less influence on how successful the tournament is than other factors. There were about 50 games at the RUWC and only about 2 were in any way competitive. What is much more important are people's perceptions of how truly international it is.
Case in point: authorities wanted to make Russia more competitive at the 2000 RLWC. A few ring ins from Australia went to play for Russia. Australia beat the Russian team with a few ring ins 110-4. Russia's only try was scored by (wait for it) Bob Campbell from Redcliffe. Without Aussie ring ins Australia might have beaten Russia 130-0. But the mere fact of having Bob Campbell playing meant that everyone thought that Russian RL, the RLWC, and the whole of international RL was a complete sham. He made them more competitive, but in doing so made international rugby league a joke.
In having a successful World Cup, authenticity beats competitiveness every time.
Do you really think 40,000 people in Brisbane went to see Japan vs Fiji because it was a high quality, competitive game of rugby in a high quality, competitive tournament? No, they would get much more high quality competitive games of rugby in the local Brisbane comp. They went because seeing two contrasting nations in a truly international competition doesn't happen in your home town every day and they were being part of something.
People don't go to rugby world cups (either code) to watch a good game of football, they go there to be part of a truly international event.
No they aren't. Some are strategically attractive as places for sustainable longterm development with rewards, but then if you were serious about that you'd look to Wales, Ireland and Scotland first.
Just what is your criteria for throwing lifelines to the US and Russia? Tell me, just how soon do you honestly see either nation providing competitive teams against the likes of a full strength Tonga or Wales? If you're honest you'll realise just how far off the dream is and note how you're disadvantaging deserving nations in order to give a leg up to what are longterm projects that won't be due to provide fruit for several decades.
Having the USA at the World Cup for the first time would increase media coverage in the US and provide some exposure for RL outside the mid-atlantic states and possibly convince a small proportion of the tens of thousands of RU players to give RL a go. Having Russia at the World Cup would stem the flow to RU and attract more interest from government authorities and sickeningly rich oligarchs. I wouldn't think they would be competitive against a full strength Tonga or Wales, but neither would most other teams. I think the benefits would bear fruit fairly quickly, but even if not the potential upside of USA and Russia means they need to be encouraged to a greater extent than some other countries.
But if not more importantly having countries like USA or Russia at the World Cup also provides a boost to the World Cup as a whole. As we have seen with the RLWC and RUWC, to be successful the event needs to be perceived as being truly international. Having Russia or the USA there would create that perception. Leaving most of the world unrepresented because there are islands in the Pacific that are marginally more competitive creates the entirely opposite perception.
You really don't know what difference that makes? I take it you really don't care much for the economics of your ideas. What do you think sponsors want to see, the worst team in the comp losing by 50 or 110? It's nice to be able to imagine that the media will do us favours, but that's just not realistic. The poorer the results in the world cup the worse we are going to be hammered and be portrayed in our key markets and ignored elsewhere.
It won't make any major difference to the on-field competitiveness of the WC, as the poorer teams have no prospect of winning and will get thrashed anyway. The only difference is the scale of the thrashing. There are not going to be any more sponsors lining up to sponsor the thrilling prospect of a bunch of teams from the Pacific islands being beaten 60-0.
On the contrary, the economics of the ideas are what it is all about. Russia or USA or Lebanon being there instead of yet another Pacific island will bring in more interest and more sponsorship because they are just much more interesting and marketable sides and add more variety and offer something different.
The poorer the results in the World Cup really don't really matter as long as the nations are seen as authentic. Namibia got beaten 130-0 by Australia in the RUWC, Uruguay and Georgia also got smashed by similar scores. But it didn't really matter because they were seen to be the authentic national team of those particular nations.
If you want to develop the smaller nations then you've got 4 years in between world cups to do it. A successful and attractive WC tournament would allow for such development work. Your idea of turning the showpiece event into a development series is however a millstone around the neck of the WC and simply not viable fiscally in any real sense.
Well the WC is actually one of the very few things that RL can do to encourage development. But of course the WC has to be successful and attractive. It will be much more successful and attractive if we learn the lessons of 2000 and 2003 and realise what actually will make it successful and attractive. It may seem counter-intuitive, but the success of the comp has very little to do with how competitive some of the lesser teams are.
My idea is actually about making it much more viably fiscally rather than just making it amongst the x most competitive RL nations.
The AFL was a running joke until those teams in NSW and QLD started to perform, and they perform on the back of Victorian players, with the indigenous talent not being sufficient to go it alone.
Exactly, the "national game" argument is essentially a myth, but the competition's
geographic coverage makes it perceived to be more of a national game and therefore get more sponsors etc on board than by rights it actually should. So my argument is that when it comes to people's perceptions, geographic coverage counts. Greater geographic coverage will lead to people perceiving RL to be a more international sport, which will create a more successful World Cup.
People deride RL as only being played in Eastern Australia, the north of England, and Auckland. Having a much greater geographical coverage in the WC would reverse this perception.
The RUWC has the luxury of having the media give them a leg-up in all they do. You can do one thing the same in both games and have it reported as complete opposites, with rugby league of course taking the negative. Whilst the RUWC may appear more global it does include teams that have at one time or another during the qualification process been competitive against some of the established stronger nations. The US and Canada in rugby union are only a minor step behind the likes of Ireland, Scotland and Wales and that is because of the overall weakness of their major powers. They aren't token teams like you are advocating.
Australia in union for much of its history drew from a pool of less than 50,000 players and Ireland has beaten NZ perhaps once in the last 30 years. Such truths are quickly neglected by the union fraternity. The fact is rugby union is nowhere near as strong as rugby league at its apex and for that code its a luxury.
Well the US have never won a RUWC match against anyone. Canada may have scraped through in a couple. They still are nowhere near competitive.
Japan made it to the World Cup solely by beating some token Asian opposition. Even though they weren't as competitive at the WC as some other teams may have been, organisers knew that having an Asian team at the WC would make it seem like more of a global sport and it would be good for the game in Japan.
RU didn't suddenly get a free ride from the media. They spend a hell of a lot of time and money on clever media strategies. What they did was start to actually understand how perceptions work and how the media works.
We shouldn't say that "oh well RL gets a sh*t time from the media, they are all against us, woe is us, we better not have teams at the WC that get beaten 100-0 instead of 60-0 in case we get criticised". RL has to manage perceptions better and manage the media better. We can learn a lot from how a sport that no-one in Australia much cares about went from nowhere to selling out games between crappy nations in cities that don't even like rugby.
So what would be your alternative, an automatic berth for Japan? Lebanon are hardly flying all around the world when Serbia can drive there for a game and the Russian league has away games that are of comparable distance. South Africa are isolated so there's not exactly a way out of flying unless they are hosting, but then that will still be a drain on resources. Like every team though they should have to prove their worth and fight for a World Cup place.
No, just having cheaper regional qualifiers that are going to be more meaningful as there is not going to be the certainty of being smashed by a much stronger team in the repechage.
Instead of the Atlantic (sic) group that has been proposed for the RLWC 08 qualifying, it would have been more economic to have a more regional qualification, with the winners of these regional qualifications then playing each other to qualify if need be.
Oviously Lebanon would be a positive, but then I'm not one who is prepared to create a rigged playing field in order to get them into the cup. I really wouldn't be surprised if they do make it. It's true that Lebanon would be easier to market, but then that's only because we're dealing with the ARL. With professional management the stadiums, host cities, ticket prices and fixtures would be announced on a continual roll-out, having started this year and being well sorted by 3/4 into 2007. That's what a no brainer should be, not surrendering and ignoring the fact that Scotland vs Fiji could not only sellout, but would provide just as interesting a fixture.
It isn't really rigged, as they still would have to qualify to get there. It is just having a slightly different qualification system. Really even 95% of rugby league fans don't know how the qualifying works, so to the general public it doesn't really matter how exactly they got there as long as we can point to the fact that all teams have actually gone through some form of qualification to make the WC.
I would seriously have to question if you've ever written a business plan before, let alone a successful one because whilst you have some interesting ideas, they really don't appear to be backed by a lot of thought, concrete logic or appreciation for finances.
It is all about finances, but backed up by the knowledge that financial success is going to be influenced by perceptions about the WC more than the finances are going to be influenced by the quality of RL on display. I do have a pretty solid appreciation for finances as it happens.
Whilst the WC organisers lack vision I certainly would make no apology for their efforts, nor would I applaud the ability of all their detractors.
WWJOND. What would John O'Neill do? Love him or hate him he knows how to change people's perceptions about sport. He would be proposing something a lot more like what I am and less like what you and the current organisers are, as for whatever reason he understands how to influence the media and the general public and to make events successful.
