Finally managed to get a time to reply. I'm not going through point by point, I think we were just going back and forth there so I will concentrate on some major points and clarifying my argument a little. Hope I haven't taken anything you've said too out of context.
First off, I'm a bit blown away that you don't think the 2003 RUWC was a massive success. I don't accept for one minute that the lack of competitiveness of 2003 damaged the RUWC in future years, which is the core of your argument. The 2007 RUWC will be a huge event, with lots of big companies already signed up for multi-million dollar sponsorships. It is if anything just getting bigger.
With the 2003 World Cup, a better quality of teams and a better quality of matches wouldn't have made much difference, as people weren't actually there to watch the rugby union.
The main thrust of my argument is in terms of the overall makeup of the tournament, so talking about the marketing of any match in isolation is not that meaningful, although I do think there is going to be some curiosity/underdog factor for matches involving the exotic minnow nations.
So I'm not saying that they went to see those two teams at the RUWC in particular as opposed to any other two teams because they were "exotic". My argument is a little more nuanced than that and I want to get across exactly what I mean. The appearance of a diverse range of "exotic" (for want of a better word) teams at the WC adds to people's perceptions of the WC as a whole being something interesting and international, and a real carnival and event, so people will be more likely to go and see any two teams.
I think you had a good word for it, it is about the vibe of the world cup. If the vibe of the world cup is interesting, international and exotic than more people will be interested in going. For the most part, they won't be going to see a good rugby league game. And that's actually a good thing because most of the rugby league games there won't be that good. NRL games each week serve up much better quality than most of what the RLWC will be able to give us.
So we have to give potential customers something different to just a game of rugby league, we need to give them an international carnival and event that they don't get every day. To give them that interesting international carnival we need some colour, and a broad range of international teams will provide that. If we end up with something which is largely the British Isles nations and a lot of Pacific Islands, then we have a lot less diversity, less cultures, less languages, and an event that is a lot less attractive and interesting.
I don't expect everyone to agree with that because it is probably a complex argument to get across (it's probably taken me 5,000 words to finally get it out), but the evidence is there to support that.
Big Bunny said:
Would it have been seen as international without the regions you suggest have auto inclusions? Well that depends on just how we market the tournament.
Maybe, but it makes the marketing much more difficult. If on one hand you are trying to market the World Cup as an international event and carnival, and on the other hand the World Cup is not as international as it might be, you have shot yourself in the foot and all the marketing in the world isn't going to be able to make a silk purse out of a sow's ear. As someone in the industry yourself, you shouldn't be overestimating the power of marketing, particularly with the very limited budget that the RLWC will have.
As an aside how would you market the tournament? As a series of competitive RL matches or as an international carnival? If people go expecting a series of competitive RL matches they will be seriously disappointed. It has to be marketed as an international carnival and therefore the competition should be made up of teams that will give us that international carnival we are trying to market.
Do we sit on our hands and allow the media to perceive rugby league in any way they want, knocking every positive and including your exotic teams? Or do we make sure they are informed, we kept them well fed in terms of feel good stories and with the back story of the road to the world cup for those teams that missed out?
Of course we don't have a World Cup with more of a variety of international teams and then sit on our hands and don't have a good PR strategy.
I think we have to be realistic here about how much play the world cup qualifiers are going to get. Certainly not enough for the wholesale public attitude change towards international RL that we need to make the WC successful.
How much coverage did (non-Australian) world cup soccer qualifiers get in Australia? Hardly anything if at all. Well RLWC qualifiers are going to be 10 times less coverage than that. People (particularly the general public) will only start taking notice when the 10 teams are finalised and the World Cup is a few weeks away.
A World Cup with a team like Russia at it will have more diversity and therefore be a much richer vein for feel good stories to feed to the media.
If it doesn't negatively influence how the RLWC was perceived and would make it more successful, I have no problems whatsoever with doing anything in the qualifiers short of match fixing. Of course I'm not suggesting anything of the sort, I am just suggesting fair dinkum regional qualifiers so that each region is represented at the World Cup, not semi-regional qualifiers who then have to battle through to certain losses in a repechage.
On profits - do you remember a few years ago in
Rugby League World they had the financial statements for the 2000 RLWC? There are a lot of costs in there. I agree $14-15 million on the income side for the 2008 RLWC in Australia is a reasonable estimate for a successful tournament. But the costs for ground hire, staff, consultants, drug testing, security, insurance, medals, entertainment etc would easily add to about 12 million. Doesn't leave much for appearance fees and prize money, let alone a profit at the end of the day. I can't really see income rising from $15m to $35 million in four short years time.
I believe that it's a matter of balance. 10 teams is good because it forces a number of teams of a similar quality to fight out the 5 qualification slots. 12 is a bit worse, 16 is terrible. 8 is probably too small and comes within the realms of creating poor perceptions within the public, but if we only had 8 or less competitive teams then it would be madness to go with 8 or more in the tournament.
We actually only have 3 competitive teams in the tournament. RU has about 4, soccer only has maybe 6. But that doesn't mean we should have a 3 team World Cup. Scotland or Samoa don't add an awful lot in terms of competitiveness. Neither do they add nearly as much colour as Russia or Lebanon or the USA. We will already have Ireland and Wales and Tonga and Fiji there, so Scotland or Samoa don't really give us anything new.
The success of the RLWC will depend on the perception it can create with the public, either directly or via the media. Media partners or a massive advertising budget won't change that perception anywhere near as readily as a couple of little changes to the tournament line up.
The actual quality of a product is secondary to people's perceptions of it. Look at New Coke, lots of development and testing and focus groups proved that it was a better tasting product. Even a better product with a massive marketing and media campaign still didn't convince people because they didn't see it as the real thing. We need for people to see the RLWC as the real thing, and it is not about a better quality product or about a marketing and media campaign. It is about making the RLWC seen to be more genuinely international by having a greater level of diversity.
