nadera78 wrote:
There's no profit because after the hosting rights have been paid to the International RL, the tournament is running on a cost-basis.
Correct. The hosting rights are essentially "anything that is left after the bills are paid goes to development"....so if cities bid to host games and TV companies paid for rights etc, all that money, less operating costs are the fee.
nadera78 wrote:
And we're playing this thing in the midst of a major economic situation.
As often is the case, when times get tough, Rugby League fans think they are the only ones feeling the pinch...try and buy a ticket to England v the All Blacks at Twickenham later this month...even the £3k hospitality is all gone. QATAR will not be deemed "too expensive" and neither will a Tuesday Champions League match for the thousands of soccer fans from the UK who regularly make mid week trips, but ask someone from Hull to go to Leigh to pay £25 to watch top class international players and it becomes a "cost of living" excercise.
Christ. FIFA USA 94 cost me the better part of £20,000 and I wouldn't have had it any other way!
nadera78 wrote:
Those are the only things I'll defend Dutton on.
...sorry, but compared to 2013 there's little to redeem anyone associated with this comp so far. England winning it might be his only hope
nadera78 wrote:
Meanwhile...the website is a joke, buying tickets is ludicrously difficult (you can't even pick a bloody seat!), prices are too high
If it were just pricing then the cheaper seats would sell out. This is supposed to be the pinnacle of the sport...£15 or even £25 isn't a lot to ask.
nadera78 wrote:
when you consider you're playing most of the games in the same handful of towns and therefore asking the same people to fork out for each game,
The same RL fans in the heartlands who have been screaming and whining about the lack of Internationals are now not going because they won't pay £75 to sit on half way nor £25 behind the sticks. No pleasing some, especially northerners
nadera78 wrote:
and the placement of fixtures is insane (Tonga v Cooks at Boro?).
from wiki
Tributes also abound in post-industrial Middlesbrough, including a primary school,[108] shopping square[109] and the Bottle 'O Notes, a public artwork by Claes Oldenburg, that was erected in the town's Central Gardens in 1993. Also named after Cook is James Cook University Hospital, a major teaching hospital which opened in 2003 with a railway station servicing it called James Cook opening in 2014
from the captain cook society:
As it was, Cook did not encounter the Tongan islands until his Second Voyage, when he stopped at both 'Eua and Tongatapu (or, by Tasman's nomenclature, Middleburg and Amsterdam respectively) in October of 1773. Here he was "welcomed a shore by acclamations from an immence [sic] crowd of Men and Women not one of which had so much as a stick in their hands".3
Indeed, Cook found the islanders to be so accommodating that he returned to the archipelago in 1774 on his way back from New Zealand. Stopping at the island of Nomuka, Cook was sought out by name, and with this "proof that these people have a communication with Amsterdam ", the cultural unity of the islands was established.
It was at this time that he famously named the island group the Friendly Archipelago, "as a lasting friendship seems to subsist among the Inhabitants and their Courtesy to Strangers intitles [sic] them to that Name." 4
Cook's Third Voyage also included a visit to Tonga, this time for a stay of several months. Cook first dropped anchor at Nomuka in May, and then, at the invitation of the great chief Finau, travelled to another island, Lifuka. Here, Cook and his men were treated to such entertainments as "whould [sic] have met with universal applause on a European Theatre ".
Might be that Middlesbrough actually Bid for the games because they felt that there was a direct link between one of their own really liking one country, whilst the other was named after him?
nadera78 wrote:
All of that falls at Dutton's feet. He's not done a good job at all.
Agreed.
