Are you worried about attendances?

[GUBRATS]

3 minutes ago, Johnoco said:

Yeah ok. Because it was building before that.... definitely. 

You can see it was so by the declining crowds. 

But it was definitely building.

Did I say we were building previously ? 

Work needs to be done , but neither are we at death's door , do I have an answer ? Nope , neither does anybody else it seems , work to be done 

[M j M]

2 minutes ago, GUBRATS said:

Did I say we were building previously ? 

Work needs to be done , but neither are we at death's door , do I have an answer ? Nope , neither does anybody else it seems , work to be done 

You're not a true fan if you don't admit the game is at death's door and are desperate to keep on saying it over and over and over.

[Chrispmartha]

36 minutes ago, Johnoco said:

Is that an achievement? Crowds are down from a few years ago, keeping them at that level is not a positive. 

It's all about aspiration. In 1999-2000 traditionalists laughed at the vision of SL then, and it wasn't without problems by any means,vee had plenty of low crowds then. 

But the overall mentality seemed to be 'great, Leeds-Bradford got 18K...next time we want 20K' - and there would be at least an attempt publicise that. Now it is 'Wigan-Saints got 16k, that's great'

 

I didn’t say it was an achievement, you seem to be conflating two separate issues.

The lowish crowds we are seeing compared  to pre pandemic are mainly down to the pandemic is simply the point Im making.

[GUBRATS]

18 minutes ago, M j M said:

You're not a true fan if you don't admit the game is at death's door and are desperate to keep on saying it over and over and over.

It would appear so 

[Chrispmartha]

6 minutes ago, Johnoco said:

Ok guys, 6-7000 crowds are the way forward. As is virtually nobody outside the RL circle being aware of the game or it's  players. It's all good.

Next year will be different, just you wait and see.

It really will 

You’re just strawmanning now.

Next year will be different, for a start the clubs will be able to sell season tickets for a full season, threat of games being cancelled through covid should be over, games will be played on normal days not all over the place.

Thats not saying everything is fine that’s just stating the facts.

The game needs to do more to attract fans but that doesn’t mean its dying or about yo die.

[Bedfordshire Bronco]

1 hour ago, Josef K said:

I took a Stoke City fan to the game last night, his first ever live RL match. He loved every minute of it, even though it was one sided affair he didn’t care who won he just enjoyed the whole night. He has only seen the players get stuck in to one another on TV, but he said “seeing it live was something else, how the f*** do they f****** get up and carry on playing after those tackles”. He was also surprised how good the atmosphere was. I’ve not persuaded him to be a Saints fan (yet), but he said “he’d love to come another match”.
I know people will say ‘he’s a Stoke fan he will watch anything”, but he is now a Stoke City fan who has enjoyed the games on TV but would now love to attend more live RL games. 

Its great converting people... I've had quite a few successes

[Bedfordshire Bronco]

49 minutes ago, M j M said:

You're not a true fan if you don't admit the game is at death's door and are desperate to keep on saying it over and over and over.

The death of the game has been predicted by its fans for it's full 125 years

[ATLANTISMAN]

My wife and myself invited 2 old friends of mine from Hull today (Born and bred in Hull and had never been to a match before) They loved it.

For someone who lives in Kent when in the UK I find it really strange that Hull born and bred people have never been to a game.

Arrived back an hour ago fantastic match

 

Paul

[Damien]

30 minutes ago, Bedfordshire Bronco said:

The death of the game has been predicted by its fans for it's full 125 years

I don't think that's been the case at all. In my lifetime it is only around the 2000 World Cup that I first began to hear anything like that from fans. It's critics are a different story.

[Futtocks]

30 minutes ago, Bedfordshire Bronco said:

The death of the game has been predicted by its fans for it's full 125 years

I reckon that, if someone did a proper and thorough check through the newspaper archives before 1895, we'd find at least one opinion piece confidently predicting the death of Rugby League... before Rugby League actually existed.

[M j M]

8 minutes ago, ShropshireBull said:

And how many of those 125 years has RU been professional?

Rugby League isn't rugby union.

[Futtocks]

45 minutes ago, Johnoco said:

I’m sure you remember, in fact I know you do, the report after an early GF (Bfd-Wigan 2001?) by Frank Keating with the ‘I give the game 5 years’ sub text. On here, and in most RL fans view, this was just some sort of anti RL agenda (which it probably was)

But ask yourself this: if people who have been posting on here all these years (I don’t include newcomers) are expressing genuine concerns about RL becoming boring and disappearing from the wider consciousness…do you think you can just dismiss it as negativity?

Remember, there have always been boring games and low crowds, it’s not exactly new…..so why would it be such an issue now? It’s not as if we haven’t been telling ourselves it would be better next time…

I remember Keating's repellently pompous little opinion piece, and I also recall how badly he disguised his fury in the article exactly five years later, when many of us got in touch to ask him one very pertinent question. He was a bore and a boor and a windbag, and as a RU man, his opinion was hardly disinterested.

There's a mindset that likes to be the first to see/imagine a crisis. It is the same mindset that sees everything dismissed as doomed to failure because people want to be right and crow about it. It gives them a chance to gloat on the occasions that their relentlessly negative predictions come true. A stopped clock will eventually be right. Aussie hack Phil "Booze" Rothfield has made a career out of it, but he's not alone.

Every sport has people who hearken back to a time when all was well, the players were better and the future looked golden. Then, if you look at the opinions from that halcyon time, you see exactly the same whinges, doom-mongering and nostalgia.

We shall only be able to judge the attendance situation when the 2022 season starts. Quite apart from the season ticket factor, there will be a lot of older fans who are, quite prudently, not feeling quite ready to go to a stadium full of people shouting and singing.

Yes, there's every chance that parochial interests will either exclude Toulouse (if they earn promotion) or find another way to hamstring them. Club chairmen were just as myopic in whatever imaginary golden age one chooses to believe in. That's the Catch-22 - you can't get rid of the dead hand of narrow self-interest until you make the alternative profitable, and that's why SL clubs vote to keep their cartel and NRL clubs scupper the World Cup. They want to be the big fish in the small pond forever.

Keep in mind that a lot of people on TRL who say "that's it, I'm done with the sport forever" are only doing it because a referee made an entirely correct decision that cost their club points, and they're back on here for the next round with the same complaints. Unless they get banned for called the referee corrupt.

I'm not belittling the state the game's in, what with the loss of income from COVID coinciding with almost weekly stories about the long-term dementia risks of collision sports. Things are really tough right now, no doubt about it. But, the one-off payment aside, we dodged the private equity elephant-trap and we have lower overheads than the other code (who are up to their necks in ever-increasing losses). The "flood" of players to NRL and RU is, in reality, a trickle.

But is it more of an issue than ever before, or are people just following the modern trend of being more hysterical and polarised? 

[bratman]

1 hour ago, Damien said:

I don't think that's been the case at all. In my lifetime it is only around the 2000 World Cup that I first began to hear anything like that from fans. It's critics are a different story.

That's ironic as 2000 is roughly the time that SL attendances started to climb.

[M j M]

18 minutes ago, Futtocks said:

But is it more of an issue than ever before, or are people just following the modern trend of being more hysterical and polarised? 

There's a lot of this. They also would rather be proven right than wrong, damn the consequences.

[Tommygilf]

1 hour ago, M j M said:

Rugby League isn't rugby union.

RL is the point and result of professional rugby union 

[Chrispmartha]

6 hours ago, bratman said:

That's ironic as 2000 is roughly the time that SL attendances started to climb.

And interestingly its around that time that internet forums started out.

RL fans always were a miserable bunch its just they can air it to more people these days

[gingerjon]

6 hours ago, bratman said:

That's ironic as 2000 is roughly the time that SL attendances started to climb.

It's not that ironic as sorting out attendances (etc) was pretty much a direct response to the financial catastrophe of the 2000 World Cup. 

[gingerjon]

6 minutes ago, Chrispmartha said:

And interestingly its around that time that internet forums started out.

Always more balanced than the letters pages with their multiple paragraphed explanations of the history of the scrum and why their highly specific rule change would make all the difference.

And how it was all better just after the war.

[Bedfordshire Bronco]

10 hours ago, Futtocks said:

I reckon that, if someone did a proper and thorough check through the newspaper archives before 1895, we'd find at least one opinion piece confidently predicting the death of Rugby League... before Rugby League actually existed.

It would be a decent PhD thesis for someone 

[GUBRATS]

10 hours ago, Futtocks said:

I remember Keating's repellently pompous little opinion piece, and I also recall how badly he disguised his fury in the article exactly five years later, when many of us got in touch to ask him one very pertinent question. He was a bore and a boor and a windbag, and as a RU man, his opinion was hardly disinterested.

There's a mindset that likes to be the first to see/imagine a crisis. It is the same mindset that sees everything dismissed as doomed to failure because people want to be right and crow about it. It gives them a chance to gloat on the occasions that their relentlessly negative predictions come true. A stopped clock will eventually be right. Aussie hack Phil "Booze" Rothfield has made a career out of it, but he's not alone.

Every sport has people who hearken back to a time when all was well, the players were better and the future looked golden. Then, if you look at the opinions from that halcyon time, you see exactly the same whinges, doom-mongering and nostalgia.

We shall only be able to judge the attendance situation when the 2022 season starts. Quite apart from the season ticket factor, there will be a lot of older fans who are, quite prudently, not feeling quite ready to go to a stadium full of people shouting and singing.

Yes, there's every chance that parochial interests will either exclude Toulouse (if they earn promotion) or find another way to hamstring them. Club chairmen were just as myopic in whatever imaginary golden age one chooses to believe in. That's the Catch-22 - you can't get rid of the dead hand of narrow self-interest until you make the alternative profitable, and that's why SL clubs vote to keep their cartel and NRL clubs scupper the World Cup. They want to be the big fish in the small pond forever.

Keep in mind that a lot of people on TRL who say "that's it, I'm done with the sport forever" are only doing it because a referee made an entirely correct decision that cost their club points, and they're back on here for the next round with the same complaints. Unless they get banned for called the referee corrupt.

I'm not belittling the state the game's in, what with the loss of income from COVID coinciding with almost weekly stories about the long-term dementia risks of collision sports. Things are really tough right now, no doubt about it. But, the one-off payment aside, we dodged the private equity elephant-trap and we have lower overheads than the other code (who are up to their necks in ever-increasing losses). The "flood" of players to NRL and RU is, in reality, a trickle.

But is it more of an issue than ever before, or are people just following the modern trend of being more hysterical and polarised? 

Good post , on the nail 

[GUBRATS]

9 hours ago, Tommygilf said:

RL is the point and result of professional rugby union 

Yes 125 years ago , so a tenuous link really 

[GUBRATS]

Lot of empty seats at Southampton today 

Is the Premier league doomed ?

[Tommygilf]

59 minutes ago, GUBRATS said:

Lot of empty seats at Southampton today 

Is the Premier league doomed ?

Thousands stuck outside the ground at Kick off, bad to the extent that Southampton are refunding all General Admission tickets.

[GUBRATS]

3 minutes ago, Tommygilf said:

Thousands stuck outside the ground at Kick off, bad to the extent that Southampton are refunding all General Admission tickets.

Just seen It , strange 

[The storm]

19 hours ago, Bedfordshire Bronco said:

Its great converting people... I've had quite a few successes

The only problem with people from Stoke 

Is that they come from Stoke