moto748 wrote:And on Toronto, why not there? Yes, good point. I suspect the prosaic answer is, IL has the contacts in Oz that he doesn't have in Canada. And I can't imagine any branch of the Canadian government dipping into their pockets to help out. For the NSW govt, with the massive profile of the sport over there, the situation is completely different.
I agree. For NSW tourism I think the potential benefits easily justify the expense. They have got two high profile teams with quite a few potential RL tourists from the UK plus the chance of domestic Aussie RL supporters popping along to make the investment by NSW tourism worth the punt.
In contrast what Wigan have stated they hope to get out if it seems far more less tangible and much harder to realise. There is nothing in the actual game financially, the sponsorship is just covering the cost.
Who has told Wigan that playing a game there will put the club at the front of the queue for Aussie players who might want to come to the UK? Why would this make any difference and why with the disparity in wages will it make any decent ones more likely to come? It seems more like a wish than a well researched potential outcome. Likewise what market research has gone into the likelihood of the club picking up potential sponsors in Australia? How many new fans have been predicted and what is the likelihood of them spending enough to make this worthwhile?
All these sorts of questions are the ones you ask
before you do something like this and there is no evidence I can see of the club employing market research companies and so on to answer them. All we know is Rads went over to arrange the game and the NSW tourism deal.
As I said in my other post you then have to capitalise on this going forward to help realise your projections. I just can't see it happening. Instead it looks completely speculative to me.