WHILE not securing the NRL Manly Sea Eagles verse Canberra Raiders game for Dubbo, it is great to see council taking a keen interest in where ratepayers money is to be spent.
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Dubbo lost out to Albury, with a private backers putting a bid in excess of $200,000 to secure the game.
The topic was spoken about at length during Monday night's council meeting with councillors agreeing that they wanted to spend the $200,000 it would have cost to see the game at Apex Oval elsewhere in the community.
While a game is great for the local community, there are other ways to entice the NRL clubs to Dubbo.
As the mayor pointed out at the meeting the deal was a smaller up front sum from Group 11 and a share of the gate-takings which with a healthy crowd would have guaranteed a larger sum than that provided by Albury up front.
It's great to see how much was generated through a previous Canterbury verse Canberra Raiders game, with funds going back into the game locally, including funding Group 11 player registrations for the following two years.
Over in Bathurst the Penrith Panthers game each year is costing ratepayers in excess of $250,000. Is the exposure they receive worth a quarter of a million dollars each year?
There are other ways to get large events such as these, without throwing that amount of money behind them. Lets hope we can see the clash between Manly and the Brisbane Broncos played here in late July.
