Attendances (Multiple Merged Threads)

[gingerjon]

2 minutes ago, Eddie said:

Thanks. So other than Bradford, Widnes, Fax and London (all in lower leagues now) they’re doing ok. 

I think you can interpret the numbers in a whole bunch of ways but I think it's worth not rose-tinting certain periods too much. There are a bunch of new ground boosts that are falling back in that mix, for example, but, as a straight comparison between then/now, the 'now' is the stronger. On attendances at least.

[JohnM]

Would any statto on here be good enough to post the table with a tv viewer numbers  column alongside the turnstile numbers?

[Eddie]

36 minutes ago, gingerjon said:

I think you can interpret the numbers in a whole bunch of ways but I think it's worth not rose-tinting certain periods too much. There are a bunch of new ground boosts that are falling back in that mix, for example, but, as a straight comparison between then/now, the 'now' is the stronger. On attendances at least.

Only RL fans would use new ground boost as a way to take the gloss off attendance rises though. I can’t imagine any Hull City fans would say ‘oh well our crowds have only grown because we left Bootham Crescent for a nice ground’, or Wigan Athletic, Derby County or whoever. 

[Barley Mow]

5 minutes ago, Eddie said:

I can’t imagine any Hull City fans would say ‘oh well our crowds have only grown because we left Bootham Crescent for a nice ground'

I doubt any would!

[Scubby]

2 hours ago, gingerjon said:

I think you can interpret the numbers in a whole bunch of ways but I think it's worth not rose-tinting certain periods too much. There are a bunch of new ground boosts that are falling back in that mix, for example, but, as a straight comparison between then/now, the 'now' is the stronger. On attendances at least.

But a 2012 comparison (10 years ago) would see the weekly average of 10,100 and 6 clubs with 10k+ averages. Even Huddersfield (7k) and Wakefield (8k) were being competitive with crowds.

Interesting that this is in the middle of licensing when these metrics were part of having a place in the competition as opposed to who could sign the most NRL cast offs to avoid the drop.

Edited June 8, 2022 by Scubby

[gingerjon]

16 minutes ago, Scubby said:

But a 2012 comparison (10 years ago) would see the weekly average of 10,100 and 6 clubs with 10k+ averages. Even Huddersfield (7k) and Wakefield (8k) were being competitive with crowds.

Interesting that this is in the middle of licensing when these metrics were part of having a place in the competition as opposed to who could sign the most NRL cast offs to avoid the drop.

Do you have the equivalent table? Again, would be good to know what the numbers say.

[Scubby]

Just now, gingerjon said:

Do you have the equivalent table? Again, would be good to know what the numbers say.

https://www.rugbyleagueproject.org/seasons/super-league-xvii-2012/summary.html

[Eddie]

34 minutes ago, Scubby said:

But a 2012 comparison (10 years ago) would see the weekly average of 10,100 and 6 clubs with 10k+ averages. Even Huddersfield (7k) and Wakefield (8k) were being competitive with crowds.

Interesting that this is in the middle of licensing when these metrics were part of having a place in the competition as opposed to who could sign the most NRL cast offs to avoid the drop.

There was a sixth club ready to have five figure average attendances but the other clubs decided to kick them out. 

[Scubby]

16 minutes ago, Eddie said:

There was a sixth club ready to have five figure average attendances but the other clubs decided to kick them out. 

And there is a potential for a 7th over the next 5-10 years and the same will happen. We are such a hand to mouth organisation and it shows in everything the game does.

[gingerjon]

47 minutes ago, Scubby said:

https://www.rugbyleagueproject.org/seasons/super-league-xvii-2012/summary.html

Have done this in a hurry so errors may have crept in whilst copying

Team	S2002	S2012	S2022
Bradford	11542	11150
Castleford	6698	6710	8476
Catalans		8682	7692
Halifax	4152
Huddersfield		7028	5199
Hull FC	6928	11433	10710
Hull KR		7546	8134
Leeds	11910	14034	12550
London	3763	2532
Salford	4199	5666	4464
St Helens	10572	13990	13304
Toulouse			5210
Wakefield	3889	8172	4716
Warrington	6270	10729	8922
Widnes	6310	5769
Wigan	10300	14423	10816
Average average	7211	9133	8349

[Eddie]

22 minutes ago, Scubby said:

And there is a potential for a 7th over the next 5-10 years and the same will happen. We are such a hand to mouth organisation and it shows in everything the game does.

Who’s the 7th, Catalans? Or the Anglian Vipers? 

[idrewthehaggis]

12 hours ago, fevtom said:

Just a quick update on the Super League averages so far.

St Helens	13304
Leeds Rhinos	12550
Wigan Warriors	10816
Hull FC	10710
Warrington Wolves	8922
Castleford Tigers	8476
Hull Kingston Rovers	8134
Catalans Dragons	7692
Toulouse Olympique	5210
Huddersfield Giants	5199
Wakefield Trinity	4716
Salford Red Devils	4464

Huddersfield have a fantastic offer on half season tickets and looks like they’re coming up with ideas to boost the atmosphere too.

I thought that a fresh way of seeing the spread and context of these numbers would be to compare them to the range evident in soccer.

Now whilst it is patently obvious RL is not soccer, but maybe these comparisons might give a new way of looking at the range and consider where its breadth is or isn't appropriate.

Thus Super League -

EPL - St Helens is MUFC, Salford are Crystal Palace.

La Liga - St Helens is Barcelona, Salford are Espanyol

For me at least, that makes sense in the normal variety of the clubs.

Adding the numbers from LoveRL and Wiki, the top of the Championship looks like now-

• Bradford-3787
• Widnes-3488
• Fev- 3461
• Leigh-2783
• York-2347

So if you use the previous example, then:

English Football Championship

If St Helens are MUFC, then Bradford are Middlesbrough

Widnes and Fev are akin to Coventry City

Leigh as Birmingham and York as QPR.

Literally the figures match as -

• St Helens are Blackburn Rovers
• Leeds are Preston North End
• Wigan are Peterborough United
• Salford are Crewe Alexandria
• Bradford are Burton Albion.

 

[Tommygilf]

5 minutes ago, idrewthehaggis said:

I thought that a fresh way of seeing the spread and context of these numbers would be to compare them to the range evident in soccer.

Now whilst it is patently obvious RL is not soccer, but maybe these comparisons might give a new way of looking at the range and consider where its breadth is or isn't appropriate.

Thus Super League -

EPL - St Helens is MUFC, Salford are Crystal Palace.

La Liga - St Helens is Barcelona, Salford are Espanyol

For me at least, that makes sense in the normal variety of the clubs.

Adding the numbers from LoveRL and Wiki, the top of the Championship looks like now-

• Bradford-3787
• Widnes-3488
• Fev- 3461
• Leigh-2783
• York-2347

So if you use the previous example, then:

English Football Championship

If St Helens are MUFC, then Bradford are Middlesbrough

Widnes and Fev are akin to Coventry City

Leigh as Birmingham and York as QPR.

Literally the figures match as -

• St Helens are Blackburn Rovers
• Leeds are Preston North End
• Wigan are Peterborough United
• Salford are Crewe Alexandria
• Bradford are Burton Albion.

 

And if you had a League of Blackburn Rovers, PNE, Peterborough, Crewe and Burton Albion what TV deal would you expect (caveat with it being the highest tier of the sport too as a bonus)?

We're very similar to Scottish football, and get very similar commercial interest. The main difference being their concentration in the Old Firm is far greater than any one of our clubs, but our smaller clubs are often a bit bigger than theirs to compensate 

[gingerjon]

5 minutes ago, Tommygilf said:

And if you had a League of Blackburn Rovers, PNE, Peterborough, Crewe and Burton Albion what TV deal would you expect ...

I'd expect it to be £119m over five years.

[idrewthehaggis]

Indeed Tommy.

The ratio for St Helens and Salford (1st and 12th most supportive clubs) is very roughly 3:1.

(I have this contention that we have "Super" Heartlands like Wigan/St Helens/Wakefield MBC area/city of Hull et al and "Light" Heartlands like Salford/Huddersfield et al)

I wonder if there is a sporting competition where this ratio exists between the first and twelfth? I will see. Better than working eh?!

[Chris22]

33 minutes ago, gingerjon said:

Have done this in a hurry so errors may have crept in whilst copying

Team	S2002	S2012	S2022
Bradford	11542	11150
Castleford	6698	6710	8476
Catalans		8682	7692
Halifax	4152
Huddersfield		7028	5199
Hull FC	6928	11433	10710
Hull KR		7546	8134
Leeds	11910	14034	12550
London	3763	2532
Salford	4199	5666	4464
St Helens	10572	13990	13304
Toulouse			5210
Wakefield	3889	8172	4716
Warrington	6270	10729	8922
Widnes	6310	5769
Wigan	10300	14423	10816
Average average	7211	9133	8349

Should add for the Saints 2012 figure, this was a one off season. It was the first year in our new stadium, we sold over 10,000 season tickets and saw a big boost in crowd figures before falling back to an 11K norm from 2013 onwards.

I expect our 2022 average to drop too as we have already played our 'big' home matches and have a lot of the traditionally lesser attended fixtures to go.

(Should add, not a criticism of the figures put together, just adding context.)

[Tommygilf]

5 minutes ago, gingerjon said:

I'd expect it to be £119m over five years.

Less than what we currently get then!

[Tommygilf]

1 minute ago, Chris22 said:

Should add for the Saints 2012 figure, this was a one off season. It was the first year in our new stadium, we sold over 10,000 season tickets and saw a big boost in crowd figures before falling back to an 11K norm from 2013 onwards.

I expect our 2022 average to drop too as we have already played our 'big' home matches and have a lot of the traditionally lesser attended fixtures to go.

(Should add, not a criticism of the figures put together, just adding context.)

Yeah not a criticism @gingerjon, but could you do it with the full 2019 figures please

[gingerjon]

1 minute ago, Chris22 said:

Should add for the Saints 2012 figure, this was a one off season. It was the first year in our new stadium, we sold over 10,000 season tickets and saw a big boost in crowd figures before falling back to an 11K norm from 2013 onwards.

I expect our 2022 average to drop too as we have already played our 'big' home matches and have a lot of the traditionally lesser attended fixtures to go.

(Should add, not a criticism of the figures put together, just adding context.)

Feel free to criticise the figures (or at least, if they need correcting they can be corrected) as it is all other people's work, I'm just sticking them together to make it easier for comparison.

Thanks for the context.

[gingerjon]

Just now, Tommygilf said:

Yeah not a criticism @gingerjon, but could you do it with the full 2019 figures please

You can have the second half of 2020 figures and think yourself lucky.

[gingerjon]

2 minutes ago, Tommygilf said:

Less than what we currently get then!

Interesting, isn't it?

Leagues 1 and 2 in soccer are completely stuffed by both the funding set up and the mechanics of the TV deal. It's a quirk that the fifth tier gets more live coverage and visibility than the two divisions above it.

[Wholly Trinity]

43 minutes ago, gingerjon said:

Have done this in a hurry so errors may have crept in whilst copying

Team	S2002	S2012	S2022
Bradford	11542	11150
Castleford	6698	6710	8476
Catalans		8682	7692
Halifax	4152
Huddersfield		7028	5199
Hull FC	6928	11433	10710
Hull KR		7546	8134
Leeds	11910	14034	12550
London	3763	2532
Salford	4199	5666	4464
St Helens	10572	13990	13304
Toulouse			5210
Wakefield	3889	8172	4716
Warrington	6270	10729	8922
Widnes	6310	5769
Wigan	10300	14423	10816
Average average	7211	9133	8349

Using Wakefield's figures is somewhat disingenuous as this was a period where attendance figures were important to licensing.

Probably half of that 8k weren't actually paying, and the club almost went bust again shortly after as the then owner was losing 600k per year.

Steady growth has taken place from 3.9k to 4.7k. With no significant external finance and no on-field success, it is understandable even if unsatisfactory. 

The important metric is income not attendance figures.

[Tommygilf]

2 minutes ago, gingerjon said:

Interesting, isn't it?

Leagues 1 and 2 in soccer are completely stuffed by both the funding set up and the mechanics of the TV deal. It's a quirk that the fifth tier gets more live coverage and visibility than the two divisions above it.

Yeah its a bit of a mish mash really - seems very much to be a Championship tv deal with League 1 and 2 thrown in. Its also clouded by the Premier League trickle down funding to the Championship through direct and parachute payments. Do you know the value of the Vanarama National League deal?

Scottish Premiership football has always struck me as a similar competition too.

[GUBRATS]

1 hour ago, Eddie said:

There was a sixth club ready to have five figure average attendances but the other clubs decided to kick them out. 

Pandemic 

[Eddie]

2 minutes ago, GUBRATS said:

Pandemic 

What about the pandemic made the SL clubs vote TWP out? They were paying to stay and play all their home games in England.