The Wallabies have agreed to play the Great Britain rugby league team in a $10 million hybrid-game spectacular at Wembley Stadium next year. London’s most famous football venue has been booked for December 6, a week after the Wallabies’ last game on their 2014 spring tour.
dailytelegraph
The game will pit the likes of Israel Folau and Quade Cooper against the Burgess brothers, Gareth Widdop and Sam Tomkins in front of an anticipated full house of 92,000 fans.
All up, organisers are expecting to raise $20 million (AUS) through gates, corporate sales, TV, sponsorship and merchandise. An agreement was reached between the two football codes at a secret meeting in London last month. The codes will be paid $5million each and the players will earn around $50,000 each for a one-off appearance.
On November 11, English Rugby League boss and World Cup tournament director Nigel Wood secretly met with Wallaby supremo Bill Pulver at London’s swish Grange Holborn Hotel. They both agreed to the game, subject to commercial terms, which will be finalised by the new year.
Wood was desperate for the opportunity to promote rugby league in London on the back of the recent World Cup. The London Broncos are struggling to stay afloat in the Super League because of lack of interest.
A global media company is in the process of selling world-wide television rights and major sponsorships.
A consortium of Australian businessmen and rugby legends Bob Dwyer and Mark Ella were involved in the talks in London that secured the historic agreement.
One half will be played with 15 players with rugby union rules and the other half with 13 players with NRL rules.
The plan was to originally stage a Wallabies v Kangaroos game at ANZ Stadium in December. NRL chief executive Dave Smith met with Pulver and the promoters but, after showing initial interest, knocked it back. So the promoters took their $10 million proposal to England.
London based promoter Steve Berrick has been hired to oversee the game. He has previously been in charge of Barbarians games and major events in the UK.
This will be the first of what organisers believe will become a regular showpiece on the football calendars.
The All Blacks have also been approached and showed initial interest in a game against the Kangaroos.
Previously, Wigan played Bath in a hybrid game in the UK and two Australian school teams played in a trial game at Brookvale Oval.
Interesting. Will the league guys be able to handle the scrums, and will the union guys remember that rucks and mauls do not really exist in league?
I would normally suggest that in this kind of game apart from scrums and lineouts that the League guys would come out on top as think they are generally more rounded skilful athletes, we have seen countless examples of league players who have converted successfully to union but am not sure of many union players who have gone the other way. But with the Wallabies have some former league experience in their ranks this may make it a more interesting even match up.
1 @ Lion4ever:
Hello Lion4ever this will be an interesting novelty game hopefully either side will master the basics of the other code before the game otherwise it could end up being a boring stop start affair littered with errors. But full marks to the Australian rugby authorities for exploring this extra avenue to generate good extra money for themselves.
On another note – looking at the advert that appears at the bottom of the page and the other articles for a few days – why are the Bulls advertising next season’s tickets with a player wearing last seasons top, surely as they have released the new gear they should be combining the marketing of that with the tickets. Or would it be counter productive to attach a garment that they have not yet sold as widely as the old top to the season ticket advert, ie. the punters they are hoping to attract for season tickets are more familiar at the moment with last seasons top so more likely to sign up? GBS what would your marketing guru make of this? I would go for the first option being better surely that what is on.
I am not impressed with this cross-league type of bullshit!
So, if there are no proper scrums and Rugby Union set pieces or no strong suits of League for that matter… and a hybrid lot of nonsense is dished up… it will be a farce and nothing else!
It’s become 2 totally different sports… same as saying that we should cross Cricket and Rugby (play a 50 over game with scrums inbetween overs) or Rugby and Soccer (with tries and goals) for that matter.
No man, this is just freegin stupid!
4 @ Bullscot:
It is the official Blue Bulls Season Ticket advert, which I’ve agreed with the Blue Bulls (not Bulls) to put on Rugby-Talk.
5 @ grootblousmile:
May be but as a rare occurence and potentially $20 million later…
6 @ grootblousmile:
Hi GBS, yes did see it as an official external advert, as you say from the Blue Bulls, although it does promote Bulls ala Super Rugby tickets as included in the deal and the man is wearing a Bulls top. But what are your thought about them using a jersey in it that is ‘so last season’, was just wondering about this from a marketing point of view and gave my opinion on how I think it could be better and also my devil’s advocate point on possible why it was done that way? Maybe it’s total over analysis on my part and far less thought went into the actual design of the advert although that would surprise one.
@ grootblousmile:
Actually thinking about it, maybe it would be better to have 2 games. One for union rules, and one for league rules. That way, its not a hybrid game, and each code can see how the other would fare under their own rules. Personally, I find the league format rather bland. I like the scrums, lineouts, mauls and rucks that union gives.
The Wigan / Bath series wasn’t actually a “hybrid”
They played one game of league, and one of Union.
It must be remembered though that it was in the 1980’s so was effectively a professional League team v an amateur Union team.
Wigan won the series even though they lost the Union match.
I think it would be a lot closer in this day and age, but personally I have no appetite for the affair.
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