SL Club Attendances 2018

[Dave T]

5 minutes ago, Oliver Clothesoff said:

Mental that you’ve drawn that conclusion from that. Literally just an example and you’re taking it as if I’ve said the north still has outhouses and live on bread and water. 

If you can’t grasp the concept that floating fans are vitally important to the game and specifically to Super League clubs and believe that Football clubs, who are actively reducing and/or freezing ticket prices, aren’t a potential danger to Super League clubs, then I despair. 

 

The reason some football clubs are taking action is because they pay double or treble what it costs for an RL game, so not sure that is helping your argument.

RL has held or reduced prices for years

[Toby Chopra]

So I did a quick Google. Single adult match tickets for Wigan and Hull are roughly the same price as for the Championship football teams they share grounds with. Huddersfield is a bit cheaper than Premier League Town. 

That sounds about right to me. If we price ourselves lower than even Football League level clubs in the same vicinity, then we're really branding ourselves as the poor man's sport, rather than 'the best rugby competition in the northern hemisphere' 

It's a fallacy to say that football's all middle class now, I go to Spurs sometimes and I can guarantee that although the mix has changed, the vast majority are traditional fans. Surely it's the same in the north and we should be competing for the same fans. 

Rugby season tickets are cheaper (although for fewer games) but I did notice that some of the football clubs let kids in for as little as a fiver, even on a match by match basis. If we're going to cut prices, that's where we should look. 

[Toby Chopra]

1 minute ago, scotchy1 said:

The price aspect is utter nonsense compared to football or Union or a gig or the boxing or the NFL at wembley the prices are bargain basement.

People don't bat an eyelid at £20-£30 for a ticket to anything, its £13.50 to go to the cinema these days.

True but most of those, even a trip to the cinema, are a 'special event' which people are happy to splash out for a few times a year. 

We're looking at what is a reasonable prices to attract people to walk-up to a Superleague match whenever they fancy it. I reckon it's about right. However the clubs should really max out their 'special event' days: one of Wigan vs Saints fixtures should alternate between Anfield and Ethihad

[kiwis 13 6]

Havent heard it before and i am not form the UK but with Salford crowds so low and potentially facing a promotion/relegation game. Has it ever been suggested that Salford & Swinton Merge? they are right next to each other or Swinton is an area in Salford? Salford-Swinton Red Lions?

[hunsletgreenandgold]

1 hour ago, Oliver Clothesoff said:

Mental that you’ve drawn that conclusion from that. Literally just an example and you’re taking it as if I’ve said the north still has outhouses and live on bread and water. 

If you can’t grasp the concept that floating fans are vitally important to the game and specifically to Super League clubs and believe that Football clubs, who are actively reducing and/or freezing ticket prices, aren’t a potential danger to Super League clubs, then I despair. 

 

Don't spout utter nonsense and I'll try not to draw mental conclusions - deal? 

[jpmc]

3 hours ago, Oliver Clothesoff said:

Well done for missing the point. 

I’m talking general admission tickets, not season tickets. 

Also, you could get 1,000 general admission tickets for any given Super League game at £22, equating to £22,000 in income for said club or 1,500 at a lower price of £18, equating to £27,000 of income for said club. Less is more sometimes. 

 

Theres evidence out there in the land of superleague  that tell us your strategy doesn't work

[jpmc]

5 hours ago, Konkrete said:

10yrs is a long time isn't it...

Sure is

[Chris22]

I do think we sat our bar too low as a sport at times. For licensing, did you get credit for having a stadium regularly over 40% capacity? That's not something that should be credited.

Even in the last two weeks, I've seen RL journalists praise a crowd of 16,000 at Wigan for the match against Saints, and 12,500 for the Saints match against Warrington. Admittedly, they were Thursday's but these crowds aren't worthy of praise.

I've been critical of my own team Saints for their marketing recently. At Knowsley Road, we drew crowds of around 8,000 or so for lesser games, and 14,000+ for the likes of Leeds and Warrington, and on a couple of occasions sold out the Warrington game.

We now seem to have levelled off, with crowds always around 10,000 for the lesser matches, with crowds of 12,000 or so for Leeds and Warrington. We need to do more to sell them out. Saints, to their credit, did push the Warrington game with cheap family tickets and more entertainment, but didn't get much of a return, so maybe it's a harder sell than I suggest.

But there's so much we can do. I use Saints as an example as their my team. This year our first match of the season fell of the 150th anniversary of being established as a town. The marketing opportunities are obvious, but we didn't do anything. As it was the first game, we still drew a healthy 13,000. But tap into that event, and I would hope you could have at least drawn another 1,000 in. 

There's so much more we can do. We could have a competition for youth teams and community groups. Give them all tickets to sell for the match like Catalans when the away end is closed. The group who sells the most tickets could win a training session with the first team, or the chance to train on the pitch etc. The cost of things like this are minimal, but the return could be large.

I'm no marketing expert, but it seems to me that getting people to part with money now is harder, particularly in an era where attention spans are shorter and entertainment is sourced from mobile phones rather than live experiences. We therefore need to try even harder than ever to get people in to our stadiums, and make the sport seem like an occasion that you can't miss out on and something worth parting with your cash and time for.

[Mumby Magic]

Couple of points.

Price of tickets. We charge (too much in my eyes) £20 a game in league 1 and are averaging nigh on 4000.

Salford. Don't move your ground nearly 8 miles from your original home is key.

[paulwalker71]

5 hours ago, AB Knight said:

These are the figures I have from League Express this year, with a few corrections along the way. Well aware some will disagree with these stats, doubt how real they are etc but here we go:

 

Bradford 3816 (3913) -2%
York 1531 (1088) +41%
Newcastle 1149 (910) +26%
Doncaster 873 (562) +55%
Keighley 823 (808) +2%
Workington 759 (654) +16%
Whitehaven 740 (674) +10%
Hunslet 638 (413) +54%
Oldham 474 (792) -40%
Coventry 416 (366) +14%
London 333 (443) -25%
North Wales 331 (342) -3%
West Wales 284 (229 as S.Wales) +24%
Hemel 200 (118) +69%

Yeah, the % increases are effectively meaningless as season-on-season comparisons, due to the 'Bradford effect'.

Arguably the most impressive figure of the lot is the fact the our crowds have only gone down by 2% despite last season's relegation!

I'd like to see averages for League 1 with all the Bulls games taken out. That would give a better sense of whether clubs are actually progressing

[Rupert Prince]

6 hours ago, Toby Chopra said:

So I did a quick Google. Single adult match tickets for Wigan and Hull are roughly the same price as for the Championship football teams they share grounds with. Huddersfield is a bit cheaper than Premier League Town. 

That sounds about right to me. If we price ourselves lower than even Football League level clubs in the same vicinity, then we're really branding ourselves as the poor man's sport, rather than 'the best rugby competition in the northern hemisphere' 

....

 

 

6 hours ago, Toby Chopra said:

 

Yes I would go with that. In the end, no matter how you encourage a horse to the sweetest water, it's up the the horse to drink it. 

May be we need not so many matches, which would encourage more fans to front up per game but limit their own season costs. The help would come from having a bigger tv cake. Big tv money to football helps them limit ticket prices. RL cannot sustain the numbers for top tier clubs right now for the available tv money.

There is of course a dichotomy  on these views on this board...

 

[Snowman123]

20 hours ago, RayCee said:

2018 experienced a drop in attendance numbers. If I was in media, the click bait title would be "RL in crisis as attendance numbers plummet". However it is only a modest slip, but not a trend the game can absorb for too long. Total attendees have dropped 6.4% over the past two years. The 2018 list is below

Leeds	12,807
Hull FC	12,175
Wigan	11,773
St Helens	11,479
Warrington	10,088
Catalans	8,354
Castleford	7,848
Hull KR	7,965
Huddersfield	5,721
Wakefield	5,244
Widnes	4,898
Salford	2,966
Magic W/E	64,319
Total	1,178,800
Avg	8,542

For more detail and stats go to https://rugbyl.blogspot.com/

Crikey,  the bigger suburban community RL games in Australia in the park get 1500- 5000. The bigger games in the Newcastle NSW competition area, like a final,  get 7-10,000. 

Toronto recently pulled in around 9k for the Fev game. 

A derby in France or final can pull in 7-10000.

I know the weather can be a factor, but surely something can be done at community level to get people along now that it’s a summer game.

The RLWC in the UK shows that if you have excitement around say a multi national appeal, you’ll get bigger numbers. 

RL is not dead. It just needs a forward and expansive thinking community with a revived mindset. The marketing machine at the RFL and SL need to think about how to do that. 

Other codes are doing it well.Cmon folks think outside the box 

 

[AB Knight]

12 hours ago, paulwalker71 said:

Yeah, the % increases are effectively meaningless as season-on-season comparisons, due to the 'Bradford effect'.

Arguably the most impressive figure of the lot is the fact the our crowds have only gone down by 2% despite last season's relegation!

I'd like to see averages for League 1 with all the Bulls games taken out. That would give a better sense of whether clubs are actually progressing

Your wish is fulfilled!

York 1187 (1088) +9%
Newcastle 775 (910) -15%
Workington 684 (654) +5%
Whitehaven 666 (674) -1%
Doncaster 661 (562) +18%
Keighley 591 (808) -27%
Hunslet 538 (413) +30%
Oldham 474 (792) -40% ***
North Wales 331 (342) -3% ***
Coventry 298 (366) -19%
West Wales 284 (229 as S.Wales) +24% ***
London 268 (443) -40%
Hemel 120 (118) -2%

*** yet to play Bradford.

The thing is, it's not exactly a fair comparison now, as some clubs played Toronto last season at home which boosts their 2017 average - London got 1400 odd against Toronto, York had 2602.

Likewise if we pretend Newcastle never played Bradford (4137 crowd), in Bradford's place York would normally have played that fixture which would've got 2000 or so.

[East Coast Tiger]

15 minutes ago, AB Knight said:

Your wish is fulfilled!

York 1187 (1088) +9%
Newcastle 775 (910) -15%
Workington 684 (654) +5%
Whitehaven 666 (674) -1%
Doncaster 661 (562) +18%
Keighley 591 (808) -27%
Hunslet 538 (413) +30%
Oldham 474 (792) -40% ***
North Wales 331 (342) -3% ***
Coventry 298 (366) -19%
West Wales 284 (229 as S.Wales) +24% ***
London 268 (443) -40%
Hemel 120 (118) -2%

*** yet to play Bradford.

The thing is, it's not exactly a fair comparison now, as some clubs played Toronto last season at home which boosts their 2017 average - London got 1400 odd against Toronto, York had 2602.

Likewise if we pretend Newcastle never played Bradford (4137 crowd), in Bradford's place York would normally have played that fixture which would've got 2000 or so.

But Toronto don’t bring away fans so how can their away crowds be better than other teams’?

 

[paulwalker71]

3 hours ago, AB Knight said:

Your wish is fulfilled!

York 1187 (1088) +9%
Newcastle 775 (910) -15%
Workington 684 (654) +5%
Whitehaven 666 (674) -1%
Doncaster 661 (562) +18%
Keighley 591 (808) -27%
Hunslet 538 (413) +30%
Oldham 474 (792) -40% ***
North Wales 331 (342) -3% ***
Coventry 298 (366) -19%
West Wales 284 (229 as S.Wales) +24% ***
London 268 (443) -40%
Hemel 120 (118) -2%

*** yet to play Bradford.

The thing is, it's not exactly a fair comparison now, as some clubs played Toronto last season at home which boosts their 2017 average - London got 1400 odd against Toronto, York had 2602.

Likewise if we pretend Newcastle never played Bradford (4137 crowd), in Bradford's place York would normally have played that fixture which would've got 2000 or so.

Thanks

I take the point about how Toronto somewhat distorted things last season. Magic Night etc. But I think the new figures give a clearer sense of the 'ups' and 'downs'

From those figures I'd say that York and Doncaster appear to be making progress (and that's no surprise as both, in different ways, have been innovative) whilst Keighley, Oldham and London clearly have work to do.

[Arthur Crown]

5700 at huddersfield  what a joke they must all be away fans as whenever ive seen them theres been about 90percent of the ground empty apart from the away stand

[AB Knight]

1 hour ago, paulwalker71 said:

Thanks

I take the point about how Toronto somewhat distorted things last season. Magic Night etc. But I think the new figures give a clearer sense of the 'ups' and 'downs'

From those figures I'd say that York and Doncaster appear to be making progress (and that's no surprise as both, in different ways, have been innovative) whilst Keighley, Oldham and London clearly have work to do.

Not a dig at Doncaster, they are doing what they think is right to attract and get more of a connection with the people of Doncaster but I think those running the club will be disappointed with the crowds (Bulls match aside) after they launched the 'Challenge 1000' promotion:

Sell under 500 season tickets, and fans pay £60 for a season ticket
500 to 749 , fans pay £50
750 to 999, fans pay £40
1000+, fans pay £30

U16s - first 250 get free season tickets

The takeup on this offer was 366 adult tickets and 241 kids tickets. You really can't get a much better deal than that: giving away kids season tickets for free, and the most an adult will have had to pay was £60 which works out at £4.62 a match (less than a third of the normal matchday entrance at £15)!

I'll be interested to see what approach they make in 2019, whether they stick with this deal or increase prices.

 

[fevtom]

1 hour ago, Arthur Crown said:

5700 at huddersfield  what a joke they must all be away fans as whenever ive seen them theres been about 90percent of the ground empty apart from the away stand

In fairness the ground does have a capacity of 25,000 so even if it was 80% empty that's still 5,000. I really do wish they could move to a 10,000 capacity purpose built stadium but that's just not realistic. 

 

[Mattrhino]

4 hours ago, Arthur Crown said:

5700 at huddersfield  what a joke they must all be away fans as whenever ive seen them theres been about 90percent of the ground empty apart from the away stand

You are a bit weird, all your posts seem to be about Huddersfield's crowds. Funny thing to be obsessed with.

[meast]

On 8/2/2018 at 9:43 AM, Wellsy4HullFC said:

Thursday nights are killing the game for me.

This!

Although the paymasters aren't really too bothered about attendance figures

[Guest]

Broncos season tickets are as little as £99, including qualifiers. I got the wife a 4 for 3 deal on the four qualifier games for £60. Challenge cup final £40 each in the club Wembley seats just off centre.

 

If you plan then RL is a cheap sport to attend. A lot of guff written above. 

 

 

[Sparse Attendance]

On 8/2/2018 at 3:54 AM, RayCee said:

2018 experienced a drop in attendance numbers. If I was in media, the click bait title would be "RL in crisis as attendance numbers plummet". However it is only a modest slip, but not a trend the game can absorb for too long. Total attendees have dropped 6.4% over the past two years. The 2018 list is below

Leeds	12,807
Hull FC	12,175
Wigan	11,773
St Helens	11,479
Warrington	10,088
Catalans	8,354
Castleford	7,848
Hull KR	7,965
Huddersfield	5,721
Wakefield	5,244
Widnes	4,898
Salford	2,966
Magic W/E	64,319
Total	1,178,800
Avg	8,542

For more detail and stats go to https://rugbyl.blogspot.com/

Are these ave attendances from the regular season of eleven home game. Or are the 8’s included. 

[RayCee]

2 hours ago, Sparse Attendance said:

Are these ave attendances from the regular season of eleven home game. Or are the 8’s included. 

They are for the regular season with one round to go so half are accurate and the other half slightly different but not by much as they are averages. The playoffs bought all the averages down slightly.

I did a full list here, showing the 2017 season, including playoffs, the same for the 2018 season, the increase or decrease, then 2018 separated into regular and playoff. 

https://rugbyl.blogspot.com/2018/10/uk-sl-attendances-2018-season.html

[Bring back GB]

Average will be even lower next year when London come to the party with their 800 fans.

[fevtom]

13 minutes ago, Bring back GB said:

Average will be even lower next year when London come to the party with their 800 fans.

Even though this is quite obvious I can still see a meltdown on the forum next in 10 months time when the super league average as a whole has dropped.