The football World Cup will dwarf the live viewing figures of both rugby codes.

That goes without saying. However, it will be fun watching Rimmer & his mates claiming the RLWC is an outstanding success when its only a 3 horse race with 1 odds on favourite.

The point is something like
Premier League => Football
Championship => Union, NFL
League one => Cricket
.....
......
.....
National League north => Rugby League

We are not even playing in the same sphere as Union. Quins vs Wasps / Saints vs Leicester double header at Twicks would sell 100K at Twicks if it had the capactity, yet we can't even pull 50K for one day of summer magic weekend, when we have 4 games on offer

Twickenham in mid winter for Harlequins in December 2021 v Northampton got 72,785......Magic weekend even with 7 games hasn't beaten that.

What I have noticed this year is the PR machine at the RFL has upped it's game......nothing but positive spin and a huge effort to smash attendance records on opening weekend. C4 is huge.....decades too late, but still huge and on at a time where it'll be shown in pubs too....this could be the green shoots of the game realising that copying union instead of slagging it off might be a good idea

Be interesting to see if the C4 coverage raises the profile of the game. Saturday lunchtime is not a bad slot.

If you'd offered me a blank calendar, I'd have taken that every day. Viewing figures for FTA will be lowest at that time and back in the 70's there was a huge market for FTA sports on both major channels starting at 12pm....Grandstand and World of Sport. Casual sports fans is the target....let's hope we hit it!