WARRINGTON Wolves and Wigan Warriors are taking their age-old rivalry to Las Vegas for a ground-breaking fixture in March.
And Wire chairman Stuart Middleton hints that may be just the start, saying there are plans in motion to take a home fixture against the Warriors abroad in 2026.
The history-making Vegas trip is among the topics of conversation of the final part of our Warrington Wolves reporter Matt Turner’s extended Q&A with the club chairman.
READ MORE > Parts One and Two of our Stuart Middleton Q&A
In it, the club’s recently-revealed IMG score is discussed as well as the challenges rugby league as a sport faces…
MT: Your IMG score is now out and you scored 16.27, which ranks you fourth behind St Helens, Wigan and Leeds.
Of the seven clubs awarded Grade As in the indicative gradings last year, you have had the biggest increase in score so is it a score you’re happy with?
SM: It is – the aim was always to be a Grade A club, which we’ve got and we’re very pleased with that.
There’s a few things we could have done better on and obviously, our performances on the field over the couple of years before this one haven’t helped us.
Like everybody else, we’re striving to be the best so although we’re happy to be a Grade A, I want to be at the top and that’s what we have to strive for now.
It all goes back to finances. With things like LED floodlights, which would gain us extra marks – we don’t have them, we’d like them but they’re going to cost a fortune.
We’ve got a stadium now that’s getting a bit older and needs maintaining – we’ve just painted half of it so there’s the other half to do, which is extra cost.
With the gradings themselves, there’s some things I’m a bit unsure about.
For instance, we’ve had to increase our TV gantry size because it was deemed 80cm too short. We’ve had to change the TV studio as ours was deemed not quite right.
I’m not sure how things like that are going to improve the game, but they are things we have to do and they cost money.
Having said that, the gradings are important for raising the standards in the game.
MT: We’re a couple of years into a 12-year partnership with IMG, with this obviously being the first year in which their influence on how competitions look is absolutely.
There are people who will look at it and say we’re back to where we started, with Wakefield in and London out, but where do you feel like things are with IMG?
SM: They’ve done some good things – I think the sport is a lot more professional now with how it’s marketed and how it comes across.
Being honest, however, I’m disappointed that our revenues have gone down since IMG have come in when we were all hoping they would go the other way.
We were hoping for a better TV deal, for example, and we haven’t got one, so we’re feeling the pain.
It is early days still and I’m hoping those revenues will start to go up moving forward. They have to, because how can every Super League club be losing money?
Something’s got to change and we have to grow as a sport.
MT: You touched on it before but at the end of the day, you’re a fan of both Warrington Wolves and rugby league in general that doesn’t want to see the sport as whole suffer as you feel it is doing.
But like you say, there are challenges so how are these mountains climbed, in your view?
SM: It’s one of the best sports in the world, but it needs that growth.
If you look at Formula One for example, it’s been reinvigorated in recent years. It’s the same as other sports like cricket and darts.
How we get that growth is the million-dollar question and there’s no easy answer.
We have to look at the NRL – they went through a bad patch but now, they’re doing fantastically revenue-wise.
MT: Do you think it’s going to take someone taking a bit of a swing to change things?
Like for instance, Vegas – that’s a Wigan and Warrington thing rather than a Super League thing?
SM: You’ve got to think outside the box.
We can’t bury our heads in the sand and just hope things improve. We’ve got to do something about it.
Hats off to Karl Fitzpatrick and Kris Radlinski at Wigan – they went to the NRL and expressed that we want to be involved.
It is a bit of a gamble – we did the numbers and if it washes its face, we’ll be happy but it creates interest and puts us on the world stage.
We’ll probably do something the following year with our home game against Wigan, whether it’s Dublin or somewhere else, but we’ve got to showcase our sport.
We’ve done that off our own backs but as a collective, we’ve got to do that as clubs. We’ve also got to challenge IMG and Rugby League Commercial as to how we grown this sport.
MT: So taking a Warrington vs Wigan game abroad could become if not an annual thing but a more common thing?
SM: Yes, I think it’s crucial. I hope other clubs do the same as well.
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