Championship deserves a neutral Grand Final

[Archie Gordon]

The Championship play-off final gets huge TV numbers so it obviously attracts neutral eyes. It would be surprising if this interest was only at the level of TV viewers.

[Spidey]

Is one off crowd over 10 years ago really proof of anything?

[Damien]

12 hours ago, Archie Gordon said:

The Championship play-off final gets huge TV numbers so it obviously attracts neutral eyes. It would be surprising if this interest was only at the level of TV viewers.

What are these huge numbers?

[Archie Gordon]

30 minutes ago, Damien said:

What are these huge numbers?

I should have said huge relative to SL viewing on Sky Sports. The Championship final has been the 2nd most watched RL game across the year on Sky a few times, including 2018's Toronto-London game. So bigger than the opening game of SL, a SL final eliminator, or a Wigan-Saints Good Friday game.

Source: BARB

Edit: Switched 2019 final to 2018.

[Damien]

43 minutes ago, Archie Gordon said:

I should have said huge relative to SL viewing on Sky Sports. The Championship final has been the 2nd most watched RL game across the year on Sky a few times, including 2018's Toronto-London game. So bigger than the opening game of SL, a SL final eliminator, or a Wigan-Saints Good Friday game.

Source: BARB

Edit: Switched 2019 final to 2018.

Have you any links or figures?

[Archie Gordon]

55 minutes ago, Damien said:

Have you any links or figures?

BARB is hard to navigate and grab links from but so far as I can work out, here's a flavour from the end of 2018, start of 2019.

Oct 18: SL semi-finals - 166k and 91k

Oct 18: Champ final - 204k

Jan 19: SL season opener - 172k (well above SL average across the year)

Feb 19: WCC - 209k

[Damien]

21 minutes ago, Archie Gordon said:

BARB is hard to navigate and grab links from but so far as I can work out, here's a flavour from the end of 2018, start of 2019.

Oct 18: SL semi-finals - 166k and 91k

Oct 18: Champ final - 204k

Jan 19: SL season opener - 172k (well above SL average across the year)

Feb 19: WCC - 209k

That's strange because I can see the million pound game for 2018 showing as 139,200. The SL Grand Final the week after was 227,033:

LIVE SUPER LGE- MILLION POUND GAME (SUN 19:00)

Sky Sports Main Event

SKY

0

139,200

0

139,200

LIVE SUPER LEAGUE GRAND FINAL (SAT 17:00)

Sky Sports Main Event

SKY

0

227,033

0

227,033

 

Then once we get into 2019 and the opener:

LIVE SUPER LEAGUE (THU 19:31)

Sky Sports Arena

SKY

0

181,079

0

181,079

 

 

[Archie Gordon]

This is what I mean by BARB being hard to navigate.

You actually need to add viewers on SS Main Event and SS Arena together when they are on both channels simultaneously. 

[Trojan]

On 17/03/2021 at 09:21, Martyn Sadler said:

I've always said it.

Headingley has always been my preferred venue for a Championship Grand Final.

I don't recall you making much of a fuss when Fev had to travel to France and three days later travel to Toronto for the most vital game in their recent history.  It was an absolute farce.  But it was Fev so it didn't matter

[Martyn Sadler]

1 hour ago, Trojan said:

I don't recall you making much of a fuss when Fev had to travel to France and three days later travel to Toronto for the most vital game in their recent history.  It was an absolute farce.  But it was Fev so it didn't matter

There's not much point in making a fuss about something you can't change.

But the fact that Fev had to travel to Toronto at such short notice makes my point quite nicely that the Championship Grand Final should have been at a neutral venue.

[Trojan]

23 hours ago, Martyn Sadler said:

There's not much point in making a fuss about something you can't change.

But the fact that Fev had to travel to Toronto at such short notice makes my point quite nicely that the Championship Grand Final should have been at a neutral venue.

why didn't you say so on here or in LE instead of the usual "suck it up" stuff you get from the notorious anti Fev lot on this forum

[Griff]

On 19/03/2021 at 17:27, Martyn Sadler said:

But the fact that Fev had to travel to Toronto at such short notice makes my point quite nicely that the Championship Grand Final should have been at a neutral venue.

It doesn't really, though, does it ?  It could quite easily have been Toulouse having to travel to Toronto and then to Headingley three days after returning.   You're relying on the right teams playing the right games at the right time.

There are a few instances of teams having to travel to Toulouse in quick succession. Toulouse, of course, do it all the time. It's a weakness of the combination of (largely) part time teams and international travel.  Even before Covid - which has rendered the situation little short of unmanageable.

[JonM]

On 18/03/2021 at 14:28, Tommygilf said:

Do we see a major rise in play off attendances?

We certainly don't in SL. They're some of the worst attended games of the season.

[Tommygilf]

10 minutes ago, JonM said:

We certainly don't in SL. They're some of the worst attended games of the season.

Quite!

[GUBRATS]

6 hours ago, JonM said:

We certainly don't in SL. They're some of the worst attended games of the season.

That's because RL fans are tight fisted bstards

[bobbruce]

On 19/03/2021 at 17:27, Martyn Sadler said:

There's not much point in making a fuss about something you can't change.

But the fact that Fev had to travel to Toronto at such short notice makes my point quite nicely that the Championship Grand Final should have been at a neutral venue.

It wasn’t really short notice as Fev must’ve had a good idea they would be travelling to Toronto as soon as Toronto finished top. If that situation was so bad for fev if we went with your idea of games at Leeds back then then Toronto would’ve had to make virtually the exact same trip with the same notice. 

[Martyn Sadler]

On 20/03/2021 at 16:30, Trojan said:

why didn't you say so on here or in LE instead of the usual "suck it up" stuff you get from the notorious anti Fev lot on this forum

I'm not quite sure what you mean by this. I've constantly said that the Championship Grand Final should be at a neutral venue, whether on here or in League Express.

[Martyn Sadler]

On 20/03/2021 at 18:31, Griff said:

It doesn't really, though, does it ?  It could quite easily have been Toulouse having to travel to Toronto and then to Headingley three days after returning.   You're relying on the right teams playing the right games at the right time.

There are a few instances of teams having to travel to Toulouse in quick succession. Toulouse, of course, do it all the time. It's a weakness of the combination of (largely) part time teams and international travel.  Even before Covid - which has rendered the situation little short of unmanageable.

There's no doubt that the rationale of a cross-border competition has been weakened by Covid.

Nobody is pretending that any solution is ideal, but an established venue with the date being set at the start of the season is the least worst option.

[Martyn Sadler]

1 hour ago, bobbruce said:

It wasn’t really short notice as Fev must’ve had a good idea they would be travelling to Toronto as soon as Toronto finished top. If that situation was so bad for fev if we went with your idea of games at Leeds back then then Toronto would’ve had to make virtually the exact same trip with the same notice. 

Toronto would have had a couple of weeks notice, but they would have had ten months notice of when and where the Grand Final would be played.

[Chris Taylor]

1 hour ago, bobbruce said:

It wasn’t really short notice as Fev must’ve had a good idea they would be travelling to Toronto as soon as Toronto finished top. If that situation was so bad for fev if we went with your idea of games at Leeds back then then Toronto would’ve had to make virtually the exact same trip with the same notice. 

Featherstone beat Toulouse on the Sunday evening, got back to Bristol (of all places at 6am) - coach journey back to Featherstone, then out again on Thursday morning. 

It was short notice as we only knew where the final was 2 weeks before the final after Toronto beat Toulouse. 

[bobbruce]

31 minutes ago, Chris Taylor said:

Featherstone beat Toulouse on the Sunday evening, got back to Bristol (of all places at 6am) - coach journey back to Featherstone, then out again on Thursday morning. 

It was short notice as we only knew where the final was 2 weeks before the final after Toronto beat Toulouse. 

So two weeks notice but with a heads up of a couple more weeks that there was a good chance you would be going there. I’m not disputing the travel was a disadvantage. All I’m saying is if Martyn’s neutral venue idea was in place then Toronto as league leaders would’ve faced that same disadvantage. 

[bobbruce]

43 minutes ago, Martyn Sadler said:

Toronto would have had a couple of weeks notice, but they would have had ten months notice of when and where the Grand Final would be played.

They’d still as league leaders have the same travel issues that Fev fans are telling us was such a disadvantage that hardly seems a fair reward for topping the league. I suppose with Toronto out we aren’t going to get such extreme travel issues. 

[Harry Stottle]

On 20/03/2021 at 16:30, Trojan said:

why didn't you say so on here or in LE instead of the usual "suck it up" stuff you get from the notorious anti Fev lot on this forum

I complained at the time Trojan, but it fell on flat ground on these pages such was the support for the Wolfpack to attain SL status come what may, surely that didn't by pass you?

[Harry Stottle]

15 hours ago, bobbruce said:

Toronto would’ve had to make virtually the exact same trip with the same notice. 

Wrong Bob, being the League Leaders Toronto got the privaledge of playing their games at home, they they qualified for the final on the 22nd September for the final scheduled on the 5th Oct, if it had been at a UK Neutral venue they would have had plenty of time to prepare, the elimination semi was on the 29th Sept between Fev and Toulouse not very ideal for the victor travelling to Canada is it.

[Trojan]

16 hours ago, bobbruce said:

They’d still as league leaders have the same travel issues that Fev fans are telling us was such a disadvantage that hardly seems a fair reward for topping the league. I suppose with Toronto out we aren’t going to get such extreme travel issues. 

Toronto pleaded a special case so that they could play their fixtures in blocks, home and away.  Why couldn't this apply to their final opponents, to give them a breathing space between travelling to France and then travelling to Canada?  I'll tell you why, because as Harry says, the RFL were all on fire to have Toronto in SL. 

In exactly similar circumstances they fell over themselves to let in Celtic Crusaders regardless of all the shenanigans they were up to with player on tourist visas etc.  For me having a team in Toronto 3000 miles away was never going to make sense.    If people in Canada want Rugby League, let them set up their own league from scratch.