Attendances (Multiple Merged Threads)

[daz39]

9 minutes ago, M j M said:

I find it hard to criticise Huddersfield's fan base too much given it's grown probably more than any other club's in the time i've been watching this sport, certainly on a % basis.

The above just makes me wonder generally though - whilst too often RL clubs bring in supposed expertise from outside the sport who haven't a clue what to do in RL I'd also question what skill set Ken Davy's granddaughter has that has seen her tasked with this role - other than being young and being a Davy.

She is involved in financial and law management and previously held marketing roles I believe. 

She has also been involved in rugby league all her life and as a fan suffers the same letdowns we all do. 

She is, as you say, also young which means she will understand the younger generation better than anyone else on the board, that's basically her job, to use her skills to entice the younger generation with the help of the supporters association. 

We can but try! 

[daz39]

2 hours ago, Ragingbull said:

Attendance was 4549. Do u think Warrington took less than 50??

about 350

[whatmichaelsays]

49 minutes ago, gingerjon said:

How does it compare to other clubs in that regard?

The impression I get is that we're falling behind other sports/entertainment in general in terms of connecting with younger fans.

In fairness, the answer to this question is a bit more complicated and nuanced than "I went to a Huddersfield game and all I saw was a bunch of old people". 

Different sports are seeing different trends in this regard, and for different reasons. 

The average age of Premier League attendees, for example has been going up, but for very different reasons why that seems to be the case in RL. In the Premier League, young fans have either been priced out (due to rising ticket prices) or they've been locked out - it's just too hard to get a ticket due to excess demand, meaning that tickets are distributed based on loyalty (which benefits incumbancy) or on waiting lists. 

That's one of the reasons why PL clubs have invested so heavily in digital channels and eSports - it's a medium thats a lot more accessible for younger fans and it keeps that connection with the clubs. 

Clearly, RL isn't seeing it's average fan age go up because we are pricing people out, or because we are locking them out due to excess demand. We also, unfortunately, have the sort of demand necessary to make an annual video game viable to go down the eSports route. 

I think @daz39's point about keeping young people engaged is a fair one and I think there are two issues with that. The first is the changing nature of many of our RL towns, and whether RL has adapted well enough to this. We have much more transient populations that we used to - people don't live and die where they were born any more and they move around as they start to hit their late teens / early 20s. That's a big point at where all sports are at risk of losing the connection with supporters but one that hits RL particularly hard, because we make it very difficult for people to buy RL if they aren't in the heartlands. 

The other is about fashionability - RL just isn't fashionable enough to appeal to young audiences and whilst that is always going to be difficult, RL in general doesn't really seem to be trying hard enough to set the narrative there. We aren't hammering the media drum, making stars of our playing talent and speaking to people outside the usual RL bubble. Most of our news stories seem to be about middle-aged men fighting amongst themselves over structures, and that's not going to appeal to anyone. Are we really selling ourselves as a "cool" sport when prominent people within it are arguing over which clubs has more of its fans in the local Betfred? 

Does that mean RL will ever be fashionable? Not necessarily. But it doesn't mean that we can't at least try and broaden our appeal. Daz talks about his kids prefering to watch American's on YouTube, so why not get this sport more prominent on YouTube? The sport can't just be like Principal Skinner, stood in the playground going "no, it's the children who are wrong". 

[SalfordSlim]

43 minutes ago, daz39 said:

Well we don't have a congregation of foul mouth /###### up/coked up/flare throwing/beer chucking trouble causing youths that bring ill repute and fines to their club which seem to be the norm at most clubs these days but I'll take that!. 

The problem is Huddersfield just hasn't got that rugby league mentality that other towns do, in Castleford, Hull, Wigan, Warrington etc the love and interest in the towns team is passed down by the generations, Huddersfield doesn't have this simply because we had no fan base to pass it down, the younger ones now don't stay watching rugby once they become independent teenagers, their parents will but they go off and watch football or Americans on YouTube shouting at computer games. All 3 of my boys used to come with me and had season tickets but not one of them kept the interest open once they hit 17/18, if I can't get my boys to stay then no ###### can! 

We are in the heart of Rugby league Country but unfortunately there is no love for it in this town, quite simply no one apart from the hardy 5 - 6000 who do go have any interest in the sport or the team, we have tried everything but to no avail, it is what it is on this town and we may as well accept it now. 

And yet Salford get stick for their fanbase despite not being in a RL heartland and having the small matter of 1 huge football club down the road in Stretford and 1 wannabe huge football club a few miles further across town.

It's a constant battle to get the kids into the ground but we do have a fair amount of youngsters at home games and the club are working with local community clubs and the local schools (a number of which don't even play RL from what I'm aware).

[daz39]

4 minutes ago, whatmichaelsays said:

In fairness, the answer to this question is a bit more complicated and nuanced than "I went to a Huddersfield game and all I saw was a bunch of old people". 

Different sports are seeing different trends in this regard, and for different reasons. 

The average age of Premier League attendees, for example has been going up, but for very different reasons why that seems to be the case in RL. In the Premier League, young fans have either been priced out (due to rising ticket prices) or they've been locked out - it's just too hard to get a ticket due to excess demand, meaning that tickets are distributed based on loyalty (which benefits incumbancy) or on waiting lists. 

That's one of the reasons why PL clubs have invested so heavily in digital channels and eSports - it's a medium thats a lot more accessible for younger fans and it keeps that connection with the clubs. 

Clearly, RL isn't seeing it's average fan age go up because we are pricing people out, or because we are locking them out due to excess demand. We also, unfortunately, have the sort of demand necessary to make an annual video game viable to go down the eSports route. 

I think @daz39's point about keeping young people engaged is a fair one and I think there are two issues with that. The first is the changing nature of many of our RL towns, and whether RL has adapted well enough to this. We have much more transient populations that we used to - people don't live and die where they were born any more and they move around as they start to hit their late teens / early 20s. That's a big point at where all sports are at risk of losing the connection with supporters but one that hits RL particularly hard, because we make it very difficult for people to buy RL if they aren't in the heartlands. 

The other is about fashionability - RL just isn't fashionable enough to appeal to young audiences and whilst that is always going to be difficult, RL in general doesn't really seem to be trying hard enough to set the narrative there. We aren't hammering the media drum, making stars of our playing talent and speaking to people outside the usual RL bubble. Most of our news stories seem to be about middle-aged men fighting amongst themselves over structures, and that's not going to appeal to anyone. Are we really selling ourselves as a "cool" sport when prominent people within it are arguing over which clubs has more of its fans in the local Betfred? 

Does that mean RL will ever be fashionable? Not necessarily. But it doesn't mean that we can't at least try and broaden our appeal. Daz talks about his kids prefering to watch American's on YouTube, so why not get this sport more prominent on YouTube? The sport can't just be like Principal Skinner, stood in the playground going "no, it's the children who are wrong". 

to be fair to mine that comment wasn't aimed at them, they're a bit too old for that but found other things in life, it's more at today's younger ones. 

[whatmichaelsays]

20 minutes ago, M j M said:

The above just makes me wonder generally though - whilst too often RL clubs bring in supposed expertise from outside the sport who haven't a clue what to do in RL 

I think I've asked this before, but why is it that people think that RL is so inherently different to any other entertainment product? Or any other product that has a dedicated following? There are other products that have big, loyal followings, products that have people talking about and arguing about that product on internet forums, products that people pay subscriptions for or pay for membership of associated groups, products that get people expressing stong opinions when things change. 

I don't think that RL is that unique a sell that we can really dismiss any outside influence as "not knowing what RL is about". As a sport, it's selling some content and an experience - what's unique about that? Is it the people we're selling it to? If so, isn't the whole point that the sport needs to broaden that? 

If we're bringing in so many external influences and they're all failing, doesn't that show us where the real problem is? 

[whatmichaelsays]

1 minute ago, daz39 said:

to be fair to mine that comment wasn't aimed at them, they're a bit too old for that but found other things in life, it's more at today's younger ones. 

Fair point. But I do think that late teens age is the real 'danger point' where we are likely to lose fan engagement - as many sports are. The problem is that RL is particularly poorly equiped to deal with that loss. 

Huddersfield is also an interesting case due to geography - it's basically a commuter town now for people in Leeds and Manchester (especially for couples where one works in each city). These are people who likely have very little connection to Huddersfield and spend very little time in it, so what appeal do the Giants hold?

That doesn't necessarily mean the club should throw in the towel and accept their lot, but it does mean that have to work a lot harder to get people to see the Giants as a good way to spend £20 on a Sunday afternoon. 

[SalfordSlim]

How many Leeds fans were in Catalans to see their famous comeback? Just seen the highlights and sounded like about 10 of them!

Should be a good few hundred of us Salford fans down there in 3 weeks as we've all cancelled our summer holidays in Benidorm, Torremolinos and Skeggy to accommodate the trip!

[JonM]

30 minutes ago, whatmichaelsays said:

I think I've asked this before, but why is it that people think that RL is so inherently different to any other entertainment product? Or any other product that has a dedicated following?

Very much agree with what wrote in both your comments, but I think your earlier point is one where RL really is different from other entertainment products. A large proportion of the people who buy our 'product' do so either because one or the other of their parents did, or because they played RL as a child. It tends to be rooted in family and/or where you grew up.

People are generally much more mobile than they were, and specifically pretty much half of the 18 year olds in the country leave wherever they grew up, go to university, and mostly don't come back. Places like St. Helens or Castleford are in this cycle where people come from there; they don't move there from elsewhere very much. 

[Toby Chopra]

1 hour ago, whatmichaelsays said:

Fair point. But I do think that late teens age is the real 'danger point' where we are likely to lose fan engagement - as many sports are. The problem is that RL is particularly poorly equiped to deal with that loss. 

Huddersfield is also an interesting case due to geography - it's basically a commuter town now for people in Leeds and Manchester (especially for couples where one works in each city). These are people who likely have very little connection to Huddersfield and spend very little time in it, so what appeal do the Giants hold?

That doesn't necessarily mean the club should throw in the towel and accept their lot, but it does mean that have to work a lot harder to get people to see the Giants as a good way to spend £20 on a Sunday afternoon. 

Very good analysis in your posts as usual. 

On this point, how much can an individual club really do about drawing in families with no connection to RL or the area? Obviously some, but in my view the vast bulk of the attraction (or not) for these people would be driven by the wider national perception of the sport. 

If you settle in Huddersfield with a young family, you might start dipping your toe in with Town, even if you were brought up elsewhere, as football is something that almost everyone has a connection with. 

But rugby league - outside six or seven unique towns - doesn't project itself outward into the wider public consciousness in a way that might encourage people to join in. What's the vibe/scene they'd be getting on board with? 

The World Cup will do wonders though, and with IMG on board to promote on the back of it maybe together that moves the dial. And then, switched onto rugby league, the lucky commuters of Huddersfield find they have a good team on their doorstep and take a look. 

[Tommygilf]

2 hours ago, SalfordSlim said:

How many Leeds fans were in Catalans to see their famous comeback? Just seen the highlights and sounded like about 10 of them!

Should be a good few hundred of us Salford fans down there in 3 weeks as we've all cancelled our summer holidays in Benidorm, Torremolinos and Skeggy to accommodate the trip!

There was a good few hundred, and was certainly a loud bunch in the corner. 3 of us were in the bleachers on the side towards that corner. One thing I did notice from my first trip is that the camera placement and mics aren't really conducive to picking up the crowd (of either set of fans) because they are all at the other side of the ground.

Considering we've got another trip there in  literally a few weeks I think it was a fair following.

[whatmichaelsays]

1 hour ago, Toby Chopra said:

Very good analysis in your posts as usual. 

On this point, how much can an individual club really do about drawing in families with no connection to RL or the area? Obviously some, but in my view the vast bulk of the attraction (or not) for these people would be driven by the wider national perception of the sport. 

If you settle in Huddersfield with a young family, you might start dipping your toe in with Town, even if you were brought up elsewhere, as football is something that almost everyone has a connection with. 

But rugby league - outside six or seven unique towns - doesn't project itself outward into the wider public consciousness in a way that might encourage people to join in. What's the vibe/scene they'd be getting on board with? 

The World Cup will do wonders though, and with IMG on board to promote on the back of it maybe together that moves the dial. And then, switched onto rugby league, the lucky commuters of Huddersfield find they have a good team on their doorstep and take a look. 

It's undoubtedly a difficult problem to overcome. There are no easy or cheap answers to this one and certainly no "one size fits all" solution. 

I do think it would help to take the focus away from selling a "sport" and towards selling "entertainment" or (more so in the sense of TV/digital) selling "content". 

Yes, what we are selling is still fundamentally a contest, but when you sell "sport" you end up falling down those rabbit holes of "tribalism" and community connections - the sorts of pulls that I think we are agreed are weakening as our communities change. 

I also think this helps us get away from this trap of seeing "expansion" as a geography problem, and moves towards seeing it as an audience-based problem. If we break down this idea of a sporting event being about "town vs town" and towards "athletes vs athletes", it doesn't or shouldn't matter whether our teams are in Castleford or California, Leigh or London. 

But the starting point for all of this is whether the clubs, and SL as a whole, know who its target growth audiences are. I imagine if you asked the 12 SL clubs, you'd at best get close to 12 different answers, and more than likely get more than a few confused looks. It's one of the reasons why I criticised the Huddersfield cheap season ticket offer - it's fine offering that if you've done your research and concluded that the reason under-30s aren't going to Huddersfield is the price but if you haven't done the research, or the reason they're not going is something other than price, you're just giving away margin for zero gain - and it looks like you're all out of ideas. 

Edited July 31, 2022 by whatmichaelsays

[Tommygilf]

50 minutes ago, Toby Chopra said:

Very good analysis in your posts as usual. 

On this point, how much can an individual club really do about drawing in families with no connection to RL or the area? Obviously some, but in my view the vast bulk of the attraction (or not) for these people would be driven by the wider national perception of the sport. 

If you settle in Huddersfield with a young family, you might start dipping your toe in with Town, even if you were brought up elsewhere, as football is something that almost everyone has a connection with. 

But rugby league - outside six or seven unique towns - doesn't project itself outward into the wider public consciousness in a way that might encourage people to join in. What's the vibe/scene they'd be getting on board with? 

The World Cup will do wonders though, and with IMG on board to promote on the back of it maybe together that moves the dial. And then, switched onto rugby league, the lucky commuters of Huddersfield find they have a good team on their doorstep and take a look. 

This is a major gripe I have, the sport really isn't that accessible if you don't live within a stones throw, and frankly, people find other things to do more easily.

To some extent, the sport can piggyback union. An "afternoon at the Rugby" is a well known thing and is something we can adopt for certain groups.

[M j M]

8 hours ago, whatmichaelsays said:

I think I've asked this before, but why is it that people think that RL is so inherently different to any other entertainment product? Or any other product that has a dedicated following? There are other products that have big, loyal followings, products that have people talking about and arguing about that product on internet forums, products that people pay subscriptions for or pay for membership of associated groups, products that get people expressing stong opinions when things change. 

Well we've had quite a few examples of people at clubs and the RFL with good sports marketing backgrounds who have failed to make an impact.

I don't think it's anyone's fault and it's not that Rugby League is special. But it is different and people coming in need to have their eyes wide open about what tools will be available to them. This is a hyper-local sport which is pretty unique in how its popularity is spread. As in you can go from places where RL players are as well known as Premier League footballers to places five miles away where almost nobody knows or cares. That isn't something which most people have relevant experience of - if you reach for the same levers you've used before or you've learned about they may not be there. 

It comes back to the myth that Rugby League is a northern sport - it's not, it's a sport which is very popular in about 15 or 25 towns and cities in the north and then outside that it's a sliding scale of interest from moderate to total ignorance.

The north, in total, remains one of the easier expansion areas to attack because of simple geography - we sit back and think we're already strong there when we're anything but.

Edited July 31, 2022 by M j M

[daz39]

10 hours ago, whatmichaelsays said:

Fair point. But I do think that late teens age is the real 'danger point' where we are likely to lose fan engagement - as many sports are. The problem is that RL is particularly poorly equiped to deal with that loss. 

Huddersfield is also an interesting case due to geography - it's basically a commuter town now for people in Leeds and Manchester (especially for couples where one works in each city). These are people who likely have very little connection to Huddersfield and spend very little time in it, so what appeal do the Giants hold?

That doesn't necessarily mean the club should throw in the towel and accept their lot, but it does mean that have to work a lot harder to get people to see the Giants as a good way to spend £20 on a Sunday afternoon. 

Bang on, Huddersfield is a commuter/student town these days and most of them have no connection at all with the town apart from living here, there is probably more chance of them watching Sale RU or Leeds Utd than Huddersfield Giants, if they do support the local team it will 99% be Huddersfield Town.

I would hazard a guess that a high percentage of these incomers wouldn't have a clue who the Giants are and Fartown is nothing more than a suburb of the town they now reside in.

We will never give in but i think the club will always know we are fighting a losing battle with regard to getting the resident of Huddersfield interested.

[daz39]

9 hours ago, Toby Chopra said:

If you settle in Huddersfield with a young family, you might start dipping your toe in with Town, even if you were brought up elsewhere, as football is something that almost everyone has a connection with. 

Absolutely, as we saw when Town got promoted to the premier league, folk who had an affiliation to their own local club were happy to become Town fans for a couple of years despite having no previous interest for them, maybe if we win the Grand Final the same might happen but i seriously doubt it, we couldn't even tap into the public for a Cup Final, how many other towns would have that problem? whole towns turn out sometimes it seems.

[Wellsy4HullFC]

Anyone know what the Toulouse v Hull crowd was in Friday?

[The Hallucinating Goose]

21 minutes ago, Wellsy4HullFC said:

Anyone know what the Toulouse v Hull crowd was in Friday?

4,238

[Josef K]

A mate said there was a good crowd on at Salford today and both sets of fans very vocal, until 10mins into the first half and it was just the Salford fans who were vocal for the rest of the match. 

[Just Browny]

I imagine a lot of potential Huddersfield fans have been put off down the years by the 19th century ticket buying experience where you either pay in cash or queue with 100+ others while three very unfortunate members of staff manually type in your bank details (no card readers here please) and then hand-write (I'm not joking) your ticket.

I can't wait to see what I'll find at Wakey or Cas.

[gingerjon]

1 minute ago, Just Browny said:

I imagine a lot of potential Huddersfield fans have been put off down the years by the 19th century ticket buying experience where you either pay in cash or queue with 100+ others while three very unfortunate members of staff manually type in your bank details (no card readers here please) and then hand-write (I'm not joking) your ticket.

I'm going to work on the assumption that Huddersfield Town use a different system.

[Harry Stottle]

1 hour ago, gingerjon said:

I'm going to work on the assumption that Huddersfield Town use a different system.

Binary for the Giants? 

Edited August 1, 2022 by Harry Stottle

[Ragingbull]

Anyone got the attendance figures for the Bash?

[Scubby]

19 minutes ago, Ragingbull said:

Anyone got the attendance figures for the Bash?

Sunday looked truly awful. 

[daz39]

5 hours ago, Just Browny said:

I imagine a lot of potential Huddersfield fans have been put off down the years by the 19th century ticket buying experience where you either pay in cash or queue with 100+ others while three very unfortunate members of staff manually type in your bank details (no card readers here please) and then hand-write (I'm not joking) your ticket.

I can't wait to see what I'll find at Wakey or Cas.

If your referring to Saturday's game that was because the ticketing system had crashed, it was either do it that way or turn you away......it was a one-off issue due to technical issues of which i am certain, as they were with everyone, they informed you of this before you queued but you either missed that or chose to pretend you didn't know so you could 'have a dig' on a forum...... i'm sure you have access to internet yourself to allow you to pre-buy like most of us do in the 21st century.

Edited August 1, 2022 by daz39