Cup final tickets

[Spidey]

20 minutes ago, Dave T said:

I find stuff like this frustrating. 

This is someone who works in partnership with the RFL, but is just male genitals that continues to whip up the angry RL fans. 

We are competing with the British Grand Prix, British Lions, The Open, England t20 and so on. 

But we have mainstream BBC One coverage and will undoubtedly end up trending during today. 

I hope the RFL don’t hand 10p over to him now let alone £10k.  Friends like these

[Native New Yorker]

40 minutes ago, Padge said:

Hello from Club

Have a great day Padge and see you soon

[Scubby]

54 minutes ago, Padge said:

Hello from Club

Hope the drinks are free. Fun and sunshine there's enough for everyone.

[Padge]

2 minutes ago, Scubby said:

Hope the drinks are free. Fun and sunshine there's enough for everyone.

Tenner for a pint n half, no wonder they are all wearing masks. 

[yipyee]

8 hours ago, Dave T said:

I find stuff like this frustrating. 

This is someone who works in partnership with the RFL, but is just male genitals that continues to whip up the angry RL fans. 

We are competing with the British Grand Prix, British Lions, The Open, England t20 and so on. 

But we have mainstream BBC One coverage and will undoubtedly end up trending during today. 

We are competing with those events by choice though, and its the rfl choice so...

[JonM]

1 hour ago, yipyee said:

We are competing with those events by choice though, and its the rfl choice so...

Perhaps Mr Boatin could point out a date this summer when Wembley is available and there isn't European Championship Soccer featuring England, the Olympic Games, Wimbledon, England Cricket games etc etc. For some reason, loads of events that were meant to be last year got moved into this year. 

[Dave T]

1 hour ago, yipyee said:

We are competing with those events by choice though, and its the rfl choice so...

There is always something on, and his point wasn't scheduling. 

[gingerjon]

16 hours ago, Dave T said:

But we have mainstream BBC One coverage and will undoubtedly end up trending during today. 

And, indeed, we did. Not massively but then nor did any of the other sporting events.

We probably had more viewers than any of them too.

[Dave T]

1 hour ago, gingerjon said:

And, indeed, we did. Not massively but then nor did any of the other sporting events.

We probably had more viewers than any of them too.

But still Jackson Hastings felt the need to tweet this on Cup Final day

This week has felt like an organised campaign against the RFL. All a bit weird. 

[JohnM]

In complaining about something (eg, the way the Club Wembley thing was handled) it might be worth saying to the RFL (or whoever) that you'd prefer to resolve the issue before it becomes a feature on BBC TV Watchdog or BBbC TV Rip Off Britain. 

[Spidey]

32 minutes ago, Dave T said:

But still Jackson Hastings felt the need to tweet this on Cup Final day

This week has felt like an organised campaign against the RFL. All a bit weird. 

He also claimed Grace was in touch

[Dave T]

18 minutes ago, Spidey said:

He also claimed Grace was in touch

Yes, he claimed as a player he no longer knows the rules. 

Im glad he finally accepts his ignorance. 

Players, generally speaking, have never been as smart as they make out. 

[Guest]

What was the attendance? The up bowl was pretty full where I was.

 

[Dave T]

Just now, Leonard said:

What was the attendance? The up bowl was pretty full where I was.

 

It looked very empty compared to the 45k for football, but not sure if that was the configuration. 

[GeordieSaint]

7 minutes ago, Dave T said:

It looked very empty compared to the 45k for football, but not sure if that was the configuration. 

People weren’t stood up as well…

[Guest]

Yes - it was nowhere near 45k - although I think the Fev and York fans all left after their game. Certainly a lady and her son next to us did and the areas with fans for that game were empty for the CC final.

 

[Guest]

On the plus side - I did take a Union mate and we dropped £1k on World Cup tickets - although the prices for some of those games seem a bit toppy.

[Scubby]

16 minutes ago, Leonard said:

Yes - it was nowhere near 45k - although I think the Fev and York fans all left after their game. Certainly a lady and her son next to us did and the areas with fans for that game were empty for the CC final.

 

I'm sure it wasn't the idea that having the 1895 Cup Final at Wembley would result in 5-10k fans turning up for their game and then sodding off. RFL community feeling is obviously not there - something needs to be done long term as opposed to short cuts.

[Scubby]

2 minutes ago, ShropshireBull said:

Yep we cant make people stay but double headers only work if people stay to watch them.  

I do worry how much magic weekend became an affordable wembley alternative. 

Problem with that is CC is on FTA and magic is behind a paywall. 

The cup final will only bounce back by luring neutrals to Wembley. That means we need to have 40-50,000 tickets sold before the finalists are known. If we are not going to invest and try to get people from London and the South to go then we will be looking at sub-50k attendances year on year and Wembley probably then becomes unviable. This requires leadership and investment - like now.

It is obvious that the prestige of the event means less to more people than it did 20 years ago. Those loyal early purchase fans are getting fewer and fewer each year (probably as they get older and older). That means the whole strategy appears to be crossing fingers and hoping Leeds, Wigan or Hull get to the final as opposed to Salford, Huddersfield or Catalans.

[Damien]

33 minutes ago, Scubby said:

I'm sure it wasn't the idea that having the 1895 Cup Final at Wembley would result in 5-10k fans turning up for their game and then sodding off. RFL community feeling is obviously not there - something needs to be done long term as opposed to short cuts.

The thing is a lot of people, for whatever reason, don't want to sit and watch 2 RL games back to back. Being stuck in Wembley, or any stadium, for 4 hours simply doesn't appeal to a lot of people.

[Scubby]

7 minutes ago, Damien said:

The thing is a lot of people, for whatever reason, don't want to sit and watch 2 RL games back to back. Being stuck in Wembley, or any stadium, for 4 hours simply doesn't appeal to a lot of people.

Exactly, pile them high isn't always the answer. Also, I would have the women's challenge cup final before the mens if you were going to do 2 games. It is nice for a couple of thousand York fans do go to Wembley at noon and sod off at 2pm but it is doing nothing to get tens of thousands more neutrals into the ground. It is a short term plaster to avoid a proper fix.

You have to think differently and more ambitiously. Neutrals is the answer and if they are not coming from heartland areas then do the maths - or change the conversation and create something new and exciting.

[Damien]

31 minutes ago, ShropshireBull said:

Yep we cant make people stay but double headers only work if people stay to watch them.  

I do worry how much magic weekend became an affordable wembley alternative. 

Problem with that is CC is on FTA and magic is behind a paywall. 

But Magic doesn't get particularly great attendances either. I know from people I know it's certainly not the people that would have necessarily gone to Wembley as neutrals that now go to Magic. It is very much the people that would watch their club week in, week out.

[Scubby]

15 minutes ago, Damien said:

But Magic doesn't get particularly great attendances either. I know from people I know it's certainly not the people that would have necessarily gone to Wembley as neutrals that now go to Magic. It is very much the people that would watch their club week in, week out.

If Magic was a great success it would be the hottest ticket in the North East. It is not, it is asking all the club fans to travel to the games to try and create volume. By creating volume you pretend it is a success when in reality you never seem to have more than 40% in the stadium at any one time.

Also, an event without a headline is arguably flawed - so the last games invariably have the lowest people in the stadium because all the other inbound fans have cleared off. The answer in RFL's discussions is probably let's start at 7am both days and throw in 7 additional games for the Championship - that will sell a few more tickets.

More people don't go in Newcastle/NE because either there has been no marketing budget set aside to entice them, or they simply see it as some kind of Yorkshire and Lancashire beer/rugby marathon which they can't really buy into.

[Scubby]

In decades watching RL I have never witnessed a UK crowd like the 2013 WC semi final. The crowd was 67,000 and I would argue that over half of those were from the South and Midlands. It was pretty surreal I can tell you and a breath of fresh air. I really thought it was the beginning of something.

The company assigned to the semi-finals was based in London and obviously went with the strategy of create a southern fan event database - with big events in the capital to help in grow. The only mistake they made was bowing to TV and putting the England game on first.

[Damien]

Just now, Scubby said:

In decades watching RL I have never witnessed a UK crowd like the 2013 WC semi final. The crowd was 67,000 and I would argue that over half of those were from the South and Midlands. It was pretty surreal I can tell you and a breath of fresh air. I really thought it was the beginning of something.

The company assigned to the semi-finals was based in London and obviously went with the strategy of create a southern fan event database - with big events in the capital to help in grow.

I've made this point before too. It was fantastic and was one of those rare occasions where RL seemed to tap into the national subconscious and it had the feel of a national event. Needless to say England haven't played at Wembley again to build on that and we didn't even playa home game in 2014.