Have Coventry city council offered us the stadium? any money to move it there? do you think people would be more likely to want to spend a weekend in coventry or Edinburgh?

You've backed nothing up at all and made a fool of yourself by saying no non football events have been held at COM since a couple of months after it opened!!



Show me proof of how much the RFL is paid for the event. Show me proof of when the COM has turned down RL events. Show me proof of the limit on non football events. Show me proof of the COM saying all those games off season would do too much damage, damge you can't quantify.



Tell me why there is expansion going on in london given the previous failures and struggle of Quins RL, shouldn't be happening according to your theory of why the heartlands should be ignored.



I bring nothing new? Did you come up with anything new? An event like this is Manchester would blow anything else away attendance wise and be a massive boost for the game on it's own doorstep. Manchester is a major UK city and what RL presence does it have? Around 2m people live in the AGMA region. If you really don't think that putting major effort into the heartlands is worth it, then you are clearly not very bright at all.

It seems to me that the only credible alternative stadium is St James Park Newcastle



1. City Centre location, close to what is widely regarded as a great place for a night out - certainly compared to places like Manchester, Sheffield, Bristol etc that have been mentioned



2. Away from the heartlands of the game but not so far as Edinburgh or Cardiff, which would help with travel costs



3. A sports mad local populace who could be targetted with a huge advertising campaign, free tickets for schools etc. Might also help Gateshead.



4. A cracking stadium that would look full with 40,000 there, which I think is very achievable



Howay the lads

A fan said Midlands, I said Coventry. Nowt more to it than that. On the road games have been done before, and given the interest their was to get an NL3 title winning side there why not look again at such a thing??



Union has taken games there and done very well for crowds.

Agree that St James' is a stadium worthy of the event, and is bang in the city centre. There's also the slope on the pitch to make some fans feel even more at home.

Nope, read the thread.



By the way did you go to Edinburgh or Cardiff?

Back up all you have said with proof or wind yer neck in I'll carry on tying you up in knots any time you like.

So when has MCC been approached and said no. How much did Edinburgh get paid? How much damage does a game of RL do? How many non football events can be held at COM? Howm many have been held since it opened? Is 2m not a big enough target area for development? How many live in Edinburgh??? Why London, as it does not qualify under your criteria?



Come on mouth almighty let's hear it.................................

I'll take that as a no then.

Suggest you read the thread and others on this topic, you'll find your answers.

Leaving to one side all debate over the stadia within Manchester and whether the resident clubs/ stadium owners would want this event on their pitches.



Manchester for the fans of Wigan, Wire, Saints, Salford, Crusaders, Cas, Wakey, Bradford, Leeds, Huddersfield is within a very easily commutable distance meaning that they would almost all drive to their game on the day and go back home after it. Even those that watched all games on any given day would not need to stay over. At most the Hull, Hull KR, Quins and Catalans fans would have to stay over for the weekend and I think that the Hull clubs fans would be equally likely not to stay over in Manchester and to attend their own clubs' games and go home.



As a consequence the potential for income to local businesses would be much poorer (they would make the same if not more when City or United are at home than they would from this event) in Manchester than it would be for those in cities where most fans had to travel a long distance to get to. There is less incentive for Manchester's tourist board therefore to put in a large bid to stage the event. So even if Manchester have submitted a bid to host it (Richard Lewis said on Thursday on BBC Radio Manchester that a number of cities are interested but didn't name any) their bid is unlikely to be equal to the amount bid by cities such as Edinburgh, Cardiff, Newcastle, Dublin, London (used as examples due to posters suggesting them) that would stand to make much more from tourism while hosting this weekend.



A Manchester bid would be unlikely to be accepted therefore over other bidding cities even if one was made as it would mean less profit for the RFL so less value in holding the event.

The popular suggestion seems to be take it to Newcastle, however IIRC I'm sure I read somewhere that Newcastle has a surprisingly low number of hotel beds available for a city of it's size. That may be a problem for an event like this.

I do know it is pretty hard to get room discounts on a weekend, weather that is down to lack of rooms or hoteliers just determined to keep prices close to rack rate. There are a number of options though with a couple of campsite/caravan places just up the coast.

Or you could travel in?

So you haven't given any answers yet again. Are you a politician?

Given the ease of travel, i think you would get people staying longer and becoming more involved in the event itself. No day trippers rushing to get home because they have a long trip back. I don't know what the breakdown is of those who day tripped or bought tickets for both days.



Any potential drop in whatever payments are made could easily be covered by a huge increase in ticket sales. 52,000 tickets sold for Edinburgh, I can't see any reason why that won't top 80,000 in Manchester.



I personally think you'd get an awful lot of younger fans having a night out in Manchester and staying over, and it would make it a hell of a lot cheaper for families to go along.



No one knows what the deal RFL has with Edinburgh, but is this event primarily a money maker? Given the huge population around the AGMA region, and the complete lack of development that goes on, isn't it about balancing profit and development of the game?

I just said on another thread, Wire Catalans got 18,000 in Barcelona just last year.

Take the magic weekend there, I bet it wouldnt cost much more

More than what?

The current magic weekend.

To basically copy what I said in the other thread, Wire catalans played last year and got 18,000, if we market it to the Catalans public we could get a similar figure to that game, there's loads of space in a fantastic city, accomodation's cheap, flights arent bad and if the other teams took an average of 1000 each (topped easily by some) we'd have over 30,000.



Oh, and the weathers great. I'd be there; wouldn't you?

Carbon footprint?

You think we'd get around 35,000 fans out to Barcelona easily and cheaply?

Sleezyjet and Ryanair would jack the fares in an instant, at least Dublin has the ferry as an alternative.

For fans it probably wouldn't cost much more. For the RFL it would probably cost hundreds of thousands more. Would be nice though if Barcelona were willing to pay.

I know you're just trolling, but even so....



The COM planning permission at the time it was built specified a limit for the number of non-football events the stadium can be used for. They tend to use those slots for big pop concerts, which obviously generate a lot more cash than an RL event could. In any case, given the near 100 year history of playing internationals and championship finals in Manchester, it's kind of hard to see why playing a weekends fixtures would inspire the youth of Trafford, Tameside etc. to start playing RL.



"Visit Wales" stumped up half a million quid to get the RFL to hold the event in Cardiff. We don't know the terms of the Murrayfield deal (presumably much less advantageous), but I'd assume the RFL do get some money from Scotland for taking Magic weekend to Edinburgh. Can't see the Northwest tourist body wanting to spend big money on winning the event, as it's not exactly going to fill hotel rooms.

In a far off location almost all people that go will prefer to stay overnight (or at least in the eyes of a tourist board there is a greater likelihood). So close to home people will just go to the games and go home. Hotels in Manchester will not make money as ones in Edinburgh do and I don't think that any of the alternatives such as caravan parks and camping sites that persuade some people to stay around Edinburgh and Cardiff exist near Manchester. That decreases the tourism value for the city massively.



There is no evidence that people would attend in numbers much greater than they have at Cardiff and Edinburgh so that is just conjecture.



Families going along because it is cheaper are going to find it even cheaper to watch the games and drive home than to fork out for accommodation an hour away from home so they would go home.



The event is unlikely to make much more for Manchester than a single home game for United or City does as they would have attendances of 76k and just over 40k with one happening each week for every week of the football season. Given this and the fact that the city already hosts one large event (that it can base expected earnings on) I don't expect that Manchester will bid to host it. They will certainly not stand to earn as much from tourism as other cities so will not be willing to pay as much. Payment from a host city is guaranteed income for the RFL, a hoped for increased attendance is not guaranteed and I can only see them going for the guaranteed money from the host city's tourist board.

I wouldn't stay in Manchester as a Wire fan for 2 days. It's only 20 mins from my house. What would be the point.

i think they would struggle with the amount of airports within commutable distance to Barcelona. Im not sure 35k would be too much trouble for a city of barcelonas size considering over 5million people go there a year and they have hosted much much bigger events



the Estadi Olímpic Lluís Companys would be ideal in both size and infrastructure, it would also give us a fantastic opportunity to advertise to the people of Catalonia and southern france and give us a fantastic boost in spain.



Saying that, they dont seem to be offering us any money for it, and the Estadi Olímpic Lluís Companys would be quite expensive for us to pay to rent

Oh aye, I know that and I think it would be fantastic, but you can see the pound signs in Michael O'Leary's eyes at the thought of it.