Rugby league tour receipts exceed SIM

Press, 25 July 1989, Page 44

Rugby league tour receipts exceed SIM

By

JOHN COFFEY

Gate receipts and television fees from the sixmatch Australian tour of this, country will exceed $1 million, the New Zealand Rugby League president, George Rainey, said yesterday. Both Mr Rainey and the manager of the Australian team, Peter Moore, were delighted with the public response to the three tests and three other fixtures.

Although final figures from the third test at Mount Smart Stadium, Auckland, were not completed yesterday, takings at the tour turnstiles were more than $BOO,OOO.

To that can be added $150,000 from Television' New Zealand for coverage of the test series, plus another $lOO,OOO from Australian television. Mr Moore said that Australia’s half of the financial windfall, amounting to about $550,000, was almost double the previous record of just over $300,000, set from the sixmatch tour of 1985. “It just goes to show how much interest there is

now in rugby league over here,” said Mr Moore. It is expected that the third test revenue would be on a par with the $208,000 taken at Queen

Elizabeth II Park and the $190,000 derived from the second match at the Rotorua International Stadium, where there was considerably less covered seating. Christchurch and Auckland were “certainties” to be test venues when Great Britain visited New Zealand next season, said Mr Rainey.

“There were some critics in Christchurch and Auckland when we scheduled the tests for new venues, and the cynics doubted we would draw a crowd at Rotorua. I think we have been justified in finding new stadiums,” he said.

Much was made in Auckland of the Kiwis missing the sideline support of Carlaw Park spectators, particularly after Auckland had upset Australia at rugby league’s traditional headquarters.

There were hints of “consumer resistance” against .'i Mount Smart Stadium because the Auckland Rugby League had not been consulted. Some clubs apparently hired large television screens to get “closer” to the action than was possible at the Commonwealth Games venue.

Hugh McGAhan, the Kiwi captain,

an “updating” of Carlaw Park, though the possibility of developing a new football stadium at Western Springs — dependent on the sale of Carlaw Park — is still very much alive.

Mr Rainey hinted that yet another new test venue might soon be chosen.

“Where we play the other test next year will not be decided until we know whether there are also home-and-away matches against Australia, and if Wellington can obtain Athletic Park for one game. Hawke’s Bay is another area worth investigating because of the game’s development in recent times,” he said. Australia’s other fixtures realised $98,000 at Auckland, $74,000 at Palmerston North (where the tourists played a President’s XIII), and $38,000 from a midweek afternoon match at Wellington. “I’d say we will definitely keep the President’s XIII match. The selectors want that type of game, and if you compare $74,000 at Palmerston North to $98,000 at Carlaw Park it was relatively the most successful financial result of them all," said Mr Rainey.