NRL Possibly to buy the Super League

[josie andrews]

I personally hope they have the WCC in Vegas next year as that's the fairest option in my opinion,

Fairest option for who?

[kitt green warriors]

Both sets of supporters as it's half way for both teams plus shouldn't a final be at a neutral venue?

[josie andrews]

Both sets of supporters as it's half way for both teams plus shouldn't a final be at a neutral venue?

I don’t think this game should be at a neutral venue.

It has been amazing the three times when played at the home of Wigan Warriors & I’ve been to all three. I enjoyed it at Anfield but not as much.

I enjoyed watching St Helens v Sydney Roosters at their stadium too.

A lot of fans can’t afford trips, for one reason or another, to another venue never mind to Las Vegas of all places!

[Mike]

Both sets of supporters as it's half way for both teams plus shouldn't a final be at a neutral venue?

I don’t think this game should be at a neutral venue.

It has been amazing the three times when played at the home of Wigan Warriors & I’ve been to all three. I enjoyed it at Anfield but not as much.

I enjoyed watching St Helens v Sydney Roosters at their stadium too.

A lot of fans can’t afford trips, for one reason or another, to another venue never mind to Las Vegas of all places!

Its true about being expensive. But is it fair if you're - say - a NZ Warriors fan and your team won its once in a blue-moon grand final and the WCC is in the UK you can't go due to expense. Its your one chance to see the game and you can't go. But the home team fans can go cheaply - that's not fair either. So a venue half way is more "fair" for both sets of fans. However, I admit, its also basically pricing everyone out, but there is no solution to make it cheap for both sets of fans.

For the clubs, don't we (i.e. the SL team) always have to pay for the Aussie team's travel costs, and we also pay for our own costs when we go over there and gaurenteed some sort of income level for the Aussie team? It was like that for some games, I'm not sure if that's changed now. I doubt it. A neutral venue would at least even up costs and guarantees.

[ancientnloyal]

Both sets of supporters as it's half way for both teams plus shouldn't a final be at a neutral venue?

The city at the geographic halfway point from Wigan, United Kingdom to Sydney, Australia is Yibin, China.

[kitt green warriors]

Las Vegas is closer to you by 200 miles than Yibin Ancient, Mike is the lucky one as he can get to Wigan in 6 hours, Vegas in 6 hours and 22 hours to Sydney, Vegas was 14 hours for me, Wigan is 22 hours, Vegas for my mate was 13.5 hours.
In all seriousness though I do truly believe it being in Las Vegas is the most fair place for both teams and fans and I do believe it should be in a neutral country. The game won't grow if we stick to Lancashire, Yorkshire, NSW and Qld. We know it's the best game so let's shout it to the world.

[kitt green warriors]

Also and most importantly it sounds like Rads wants it in Vegas!.

[moto748]

God help us. I don't see the need to do anything drastic with the WCC, except the few obvious things:

Alternate years in Oz

and UK.
An English ref for games in Oz, and an Aussie ref for games in the UK.

(Personally, I'd like an Aussie ref every time, but I think the above is 'fairer' )

[morley pie eater]

so true.

I mean there is talk of an ownership deal from an organization with 10x our revenue. Wouldn't it be a bit odd to not even explore that? I imagine IMG would want the SL to have representation at this event.

BTW I think average income in Aus is less than in the UK. No idea how that equates to cost of living etc. but I imagine travel expenses to a Vegas game will be somewhat similar in terms of proportion of income. Not a trip most can do every year on either side of the world I wouldn't have thought.

There is random talk of it yet SL have denied even knowing anything about it, it was Matty Johns I believe who first mentioned it with no substance.

Unless the NRL suddenly want to just inject loads of cash into our game for no reason in particular what would we hope to gain, we would be dictated to be the NRL, potential move to winter rugby, our players going over there and never having an off season (leading to potential burn out), all these have been mentioned, so what is our gain, we may have more cash to spend but what will we spend it on?, giving our players more money will not all of a sudden turn them into far superior players.

What do SL gain from having someone there other than to see how it should be done, but isn't that what IMG are supposed to be doing, unless I have misunderstood their involvement, but SL reps can go there and see how a showcase weekend should look, but that will probably be lost on them with the budget they have.

I actually thought the average income was higher in Aus and also the cost of living was higher but I could be wrong, I did look into it many moons ago and thought it looked a lot more expensive over there.

Googled "GDP per capita" for Aus and UK:

(In US dollars)

Australia $66,000
UK $46,000

It's not based on wages, as such, but is the most commonly used comparison between countries. Broadly speaking you'd expect incomes/wealth in Aus to be about 40% higher than ours on average.

I'd guess it may be more evenly distributed down under, so your average worker there could be 60% better off than ours, with our top end possibly equal to theirs.

[moto748]

Living standards may well be higher in Australia than the UK, but what's that got to do with anything? It doesn't demonstrate that this idea has any advantage to SL. Perhaps we should encourage the Saudis to buy SL? They're even richer.