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Cheap tickets and empty stadiums


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5 hours ago, gingerjon said:

Twitter is for yelling about matches.

This for yelling about everything else.

You mean this is for yelling about empty seats - nothing else really gets a look in. I wonder how many people on here will be counting all the empty seats at all the games this weekend? ?

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7 hours ago, DiH68 said:

You mean this is for yelling about empty seats - nothing else really gets a look in. I wonder how many people on here will be counting all the empty seats at all the games this weekend? ?

Far fewer than there used to be. The heartland traditions of counting empty seats are dying out. The young people are too into the Spice Girls and Nintendo to care.

Build a man a fire, and he'll be warm for a day. Set a man on fire, and he'll be warm for the rest of his life. (Terry Pratchett)

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33 minutes ago, Sir Kevin Sinfield said:

How much are tickets to the Women’s Super League Grand Final? How much are tickets for England v Jamaica? Will either be a sell out? 

But who's going to pay to watch women trying to play RL ?

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36 minutes ago, GUBRATS said:

But who's going to pay to watch women trying to play RL ?

I hope that's tounge in cheek 

Women's RL has the potential to be more free flowing and fast, as they will have fewer endomorph body types built up 

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22 minutes ago, TboneFromTO said:

I hope that's tounge in cheek 

Women's RL has the potential to be more free flowing and fast, as they will have fewer endomorph body types built up 

Not completely no 

Most sports that require intense physical contact just don't suit the female species IMO , it's like watching an under 14s game standard wise , again IMO

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26 minutes ago, GUBRATS said:

Not completely no 

Most sports that require intense physical contact just don't suit the female species IMO , it's like watching an under 14s game standard wise , again IMO

Well that’s a bizarre thing to say. You don’t have to compare it to the men’s game, junior games or anything else - you could just enjoy it for what it is.

Should people not watch junior games because they’re not as good as adults? Should people not watch lower tier games because it’s not as good a standard as SL?

Of course you are entitled to an opinion, but it seems a very illogical one 

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9 minutes ago, DiH68 said:

Well that’s a bizarre thing to say. You don’t have to compare it to the men’s game, junior games or anything else - you could just enjoy it for what it is.

Should people not watch junior games because they’re not as good as adults? Should people not watch lower tier games because it’s not as good a standard as SL?

Of course you are entitled to an opinion, but it seems a very illogical one 

The point being discussed was ' Paying ' to watch a game , generally you don't have to pay to watch junior RL ? , Generally you pay less to watch lower tier sport of any kind compared to the best 

So not illogical at all 

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   For the last few years prices to attend Championship matches have increased for the casual fan who attends on match day.Early membership or season ticket for clubs regular supporters are OK but i would like to see away supporters paying a little less.However it is a fine line as Towcester Racecourse in Northhamptonshire only charge addmission at  Bank Holiday meetings on other race days it was Free.And they have just gone bust althought they are trying to save Greyhound racing,the track is opposite the stands in the centre of the course.The landowner at Towcester is Lord Hesketh who gave James Hunt his chance in Formula 1 That  folded in a couple of seasons due to lack of sponsorship.

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This is not a new problem but has been getting worse over the years.

People often like to compare it to the old playoffs but these were attended very poorly. In the final year of the playoffs, the entire attendance of the top 8 system was less than that of the SL Grand Final is now.

In the early years of the playoffs system, it was well supported and there was a lot of enthusiasm about the system. Even then, crowds were only relatively similar to SL games. For instance, the infamous wide-to-west try was a playoff game in front of 8,800 at Knowsley Road which is almost exactly what their average was that year. This however, meant that the crowds weren't noticeably appalling like they are now.

It's tempting to say that the move to a top-8 playoff is what caused the rot but things had started to wane before it. The top 8 simply accelerated the decline massively. Rather than it being the top teams fighting it out at the end of the season, it involved too many games with too many teams that had no right to be there. By the final year of the top-8, only one of the 8 playoff games broke 10,000. 10 years earlier all 5 games had broken 10,000 and 3 of them were above 20,000 - this was probably the peak playoff year.

I applauded the return to a top-5 system but unfortunately it has been too little too late. The playoff brand has been tarnished possibly forever by unnecessary messing around. Not only have we lost the excitement of the early days, but the games are populated by the worst crowds of the year which obviously has an effect on how the events are viewed and anticipated. Until the final, they feel low-key especially at the clubs who've been in these games for years and years. It's easy to criticise Wigan fans but a repeat game against Salford that they expected to win, even if it was a semi-final, just isn't that big a deal to them. Also, they would have also known all too well that it was going to have a low attendance. I can certainly sympathise with the idea of keeping your money and watching it at home.

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I thought I'd put the solution separate.

The only way to make the crowds on a par with SL games is to include them on the season ticket: no amount of cut price tickets or marketing is going to stop this rot. Instantly crowds would be like normal SL games with large away followings and over time they might even start to feel like bigger events again. Any argument about interest is absurd. To suggest that Wigan fans were only half as interested as they were about a normal league game against London or Wakefield just doesn't add up.

Sticking with fewer clubs is key, so that each of the games is actually important. We have been quite unlucky this year that Saints are so far ahead making the playoffs lack any real meaning. This won't always be the case. There will be plenty of years when any 3 or 4 could genuinely win it.

That said, a top 6 playoff might be better purely because it prevents repeat matches. Part of the problem was that we had Wigan-Salford twice and there was a certain inevitability to it. We shouldn't have the situation where Wigan have to beat a team they've already beat in the playoffs. Presuming we got the same finalists, this year we would have had:

Castleford-Warrington

Salford-Hull

--------------------------------------

St-Helens-Wigan

Salford-Cas

--------------------------------------

Wigan-Salford

-------------------------------------

St Helens-Salford

 

This seems a better balance to me.

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I think the likes of Salford and Toronto have shown that fans will turn out to play off games when they are special and mean something. I think the issue is the status quo of 4 or 5 clubs who regularly get to finals and who usually share the silverware. Fans of these clubs are just spoilt and these occasions have become the norm and meaningless.

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On 04/10/2019 at 09:47, sentoffagain2 said:

   For the last few years prices to attend Championship matches have increased for the casual fan who attends on match day.Early membership or season ticket for clubs regular supporters are OK but i would like to see away supporters paying a little less.However it is a fine line as Towcester Racecourse in Northhamptonshire only charge addmission at  Bank Holiday meetings on other race days it was Free.And they have just gone bust althought they are trying to save Greyhound racing,the track is opposite the stands in the centre of the course.The landowner at Towcester is Lord Hesketh who gave James Hunt his chance in Formula 1 That  folded in a couple of seasons due to lack of sponsorship.

How much of away supporters cost would say a £2 reduction in ticket price be? For many supporters going to an away fixture, a couple of quid less on the ticket price is meaningless in the grand scheme of total day out costs, IMO it would not have any significant affect on away fan numbers but will have a negative effect on income for home and away teams as well as the continued devaluing of the entertainment.

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2 hours ago, Damien said:

I think the likes of Salford and Toronto have shown that fans will turn out to play off games when they are special and mean something. I think the issue is the status quo of 4 or 5 clubs who regularly get to finals and who usually share the silverware. Fans of these clubs are just spoilt and these occasions have become the norm and meaningless.

Yes I'd agree with that , some are far too arrogant 

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