Crowdwatch 23

[fieldofclothofgold]

It will be interesting to see the super 8 crowds

[Dunbar]

So am I right in thinking that if you add in the Magic Weekend attendances (which had one fewer fixture this year), the overall aggregate and average attendances for the 12 Super League clubs has gone up this year?

[BilboJeggings]

A bit more crowd watch analysis...

 

Top 10 SL attendances of the season, outside of Magic Weekend are

 

1....24054 Wigan.....v St Helens
2....20507 Hull FC...v Hull KR
3....18514 Leeds.....v St Helens
4....18350 Leeds.....v Wigan
5....17608 Leeds.....v Wakefield
6....17430 Leeds.....v Warrington
7....16692 St Helens v Wigan
8....16203 Leeds.....v Hull FC
9....15534 Leeds.....v Catalan
10...15206 Leeds.....v Hull KR
11...15089 Leeds.....v Castleford
12...15022 Wigan.....v Castleford

 

 

The biggest and smallest attendances by team are...

 

Castleford.........v Leeds........11323 (Easter Fri).......v Huddersfield.....4634 (Thu)

Catalan.............v Wigan........10423 (Sat).................v Castleford.........6584 (Sat)

Huddersfield.....v Hull FC........7737 (Sun *)..............v Catalan.............4404 (Sun)

Hull FC.............v Hull KR......20507 (Easter Thu).....v Widnes.............9295 (Fri)

Hull KR.............v Leeds........11811 (Sun *)..............v Salford..............6717 (Tue)

Leeds...............v St Helens...18514 (Fri)...................v Huddersfield..12878 (Thu)

Salford.............v Wigan...........6561 (Easter Mon)....v Huddersfield.....1972 (Fri)

St Helens.........v Wigan........16692 (Fri)...................v Wakefield.......10001 (Fri)

Wakefield.........v Castleford....6108 (Sun).................v Catalan............3015 (Easter Thu)

Warrington.......v Salford.......11864 (Sat *)................v Wakefield.........8036 (Sat)

Widnes.............v Wigan..........9286 (Thu *)...............v Catalan............4822 (Sun)

Wigan..............v St Helens....24054 (Easter Fri).......v Wakefield.......10787 (Fri)

 

 

* indicates the first home game of the season.

 

Interesting mixture of game days showing for both biggest and smallest crowds.

[Wellsy4HullFC]

Warrington's biggest crowd was against Salford? That's surprised me. Were both the Saints and Wigan games on Thursdays? They used to sell those out every year.

[BilboJeggings]

Warrington's biggest crowd was against Salford? That's surprised me. Were both the Saints and Wigan games on Thursdays? They used to sell those out every year.

 

Warrington Top 5 Attendances:

 

11864 Warrington v Salford (Sat 07/02 - first game of season)

11618 Warrington v St Helens (Thu 16/07)

10856 Warrington v Widnes (Sun 03/05)

10504 Warrington v Wigan (Thu 02/07)

10075 Warrington v Leeds (Fri 13/03)

 

Saints and Wigan games both on Thursday - also I think the Salford game being the first game of the season may have been significant - big things were expected of Salford this season by some.

[Padge]

Warrington Top 5 Attendances:

 

11864 Warrington v Salford (Sat 07/02 - first game of season)

11618 Warrington v St Helens (Thu 16/07)

10856 Warrington v Widnes (Sun 03/05)

10504 Warrington v Wigan (Thu 02/07)

10075 Warrington v Leeds (Fri 13/03)

 

Saints and Wigan games both on Thursday - also I think the Salford game being the first game of the season may have been significant - big things were expected of Salford this season by some.

 

Wigan v Saints was a Friday afternoon, its the traditional Good Friday match.

[audois]

Many thanks. Any idea why these problems happen?

 

Not really.

 

The official figures are announced at the ground and the club's media manager Yannick Rey includes the figure in his match report posted on the web site soon after the game.

[BilboJeggings]

Wigan v Saints was a Friday afternoon, its the traditional Good Friday match.

This is referring to Warrington v Saints and Warrington v Wigan - in response to Wellsies question about why Warrington v Salford is their biggest crowd of the season so far.

[Padge]

This is referring to Warrington v Saints and Warrington v Wigan - in response to Wellsies question about why Warrington v Salford is their biggest crowd of the season so far.

Ah, makes sense now ta.

[Maximus Decimus]

I'm not going to spend a long time on it but you have to be very careful when looking at these figures and using them to draw any sensible conclusions. The reality is that it is nearly impossible. 

 

The reality is that crowds have been going down over the last few years. According to Wikipedia:

 

2012: 10,151

2013: 9,048

2014: 8,365

 

This is a drop of nearly 20% with the same clubs and the same number of clubs each year.

 

They have pretty much stabilised this year but with fewer clubs. Would they have continued going down if we'd kept licensing but the new system has arrested this decline? Were they actually due to bounce back but the new system has prevented this? Anybody who thinks you can draw conclusions from these figures is either naive or biased against one system or the other. 

 

Crowd figures aside, IMO there has certainly been a more vibrant feel to the league this year across both SL and the Championship. Licensing had turned the sport into something of a procession and outside the top 5/6 was bad for the sport. 

[scotchy]

You have to remember Bradfords and London crowds have dropped substantially as well this year, so even 'stabilised' is an ambitious claim.

It seems there is a position being taken where criticising these figures is being biased, but that we should just accept positive and unsubstantiated claims like 'more vibrant' or 're-energised' or criticism of franchising like 'boring' or 'procession' without question.

[Maximus Decimus]

You have to remember Bradfords and London crowds have dropped substantially as well this year, so even 'stabilised' is an ambitious claim.

It seems there is a position being taken where criticising these figures is being biased, but that we should just accept positive and unsubstantiated claims like 'more vibrant' or 're-energised' or criticism of franchising like 'boring' or 'procession' without question.

 

Utter nonsense.

 

Of course their crowds have dropped, they've been relegated! This happens to almost every club in every sport and the inverse is also true. The comparison that was made above was like for like for the 12 clubs that have stayed in SL so all other clubs are irrelevant including the increases or decreases in the Championship. 

 

In case you didn't notice I said that drawing any conclusions is next to useless. That includes saying that it has been an overwhelming success like the RFL are. That said, you'd expect and want the mouthpiece for the game to be positive. 

 

The 'without question' part is all in your head, probably as part of some victim complex you're developing in response to criticism of your position. In case you didn't notice I wrote IMO which means 'in my opinion' before I said it has been more vibrant and licensing was becoming stale and boring. You have your opinion and other people have their opinions. It's really forum 101.

 

I actually think I have a good perspective on this as a Widnes fan. I was a 12 when we were first relegated in 1995 so most of my life has been as a fan of a club trying to get into Super League, sometimes succeeding and sometimes failing. I've seen promotion battles, relegation battles, licensing in the lower division, a successful licensing application and then licensing as a SL team. In my opinion (that phrase again) the years in the lower division under licensing were pretty joyless and the last couple of years in SL had seen stagnation across the lower half of the league. Games were much more missable and less urgent and even making the 8 last year didn't help.

 

There was more urgency is beating Salford to finish 9th than almost any games under licensing. 

[scotchy]

Yes they have gone down because of relegation. An intrinsic part of this system. We can just lop those two off and pretend they didn't exist because they do and this has had an effect on them.

If every other side got exactly the same you would be claiming attendances have stabilised but they wouldn't about 6k people per week fewer would have been attending. That isn't bias. It is what it is.

Conclusions can be drawn from these figures. The battle to avoid the bottom 8 or qualify for the top 8 didn't attract people. That isn't bias its just what the figures tell us.

I'm not actually talking about just you. I'm talking about many within the game, journalists, the rfl, and a section of the fanbase who have moved to words like urgency or exciting or re-energised because they are unquantifiable because the quantifiable things are telling us fewer are watching in grounds and fewer are watching on TV.

[Krytensmate]

Utter nonsense.

 

Of course their crowds have dropped, they've been relegated! This happens to almost every club in every sport and the inverse is also true. The comparison that was made above was like for like for the 12 clubs that have stayed in SL so all other clubs are irrelevant including the increases or decreases in the Championship. 

 

In case you didn't notice I said that drawing any conclusions is next to useless. That includes saying that it has been an overwhelming success like the RFL are. That said, you'd expect and want the mouthpiece for the game to be positive. 

 

The 'without question' part is all in your head, probably as part of some victim complex you're developing in response to criticism of your position. In case you didn't notice I wrote IMO which means 'in my opinion' before I said it has been more vibrant and licensing was becoming stale and boring. You have your opinion and other people have their opinions. It's really forum 101.

 

I actually think I have a good perspective on this as a Widnes fan. I was a 12 when we were first relegated in 1995 so most of my life has been as a fan of a club trying to get into Super League, sometimes succeeding and sometimes failing. I've seen promotion battles, relegation battles, licensing in the lower division, a successful licensing application and then licensing as a SL team. In my opinion (that phrase again) the years in the lower division under licensing were pretty joyless and the last couple of years in SL had seen stagnation across the lower half of the league. Games were much more missable and less urgent and even making the 8 last year didn't help.

 

There was more urgency is beating Salford to finish 9th than almost any games under licensing.

Good post , it reinforces the question ' Why do people watch sport and follow a particular team ' ?