Less than 20,000 sold for Cup Semi Triple Header it seems

[GUBRATS]

6 hours ago, meast said:

That's the same with magic weekend, you generally have no more than 1/2 the days crowd at any one time in the ground, yet people think it's fantastic to have a big stadium 1/3 full, yet slaughter Huddersfield for the same.

Generally speaking, there aren't enough neutrals or casual fans to make these events, events.

But it is different , you know your team is playing at the start of the season , there isn't a further prize on offer , you are not ' out ' of SL if you lose 

[GUBRATS]

6 hours ago, Tommygilf said:

You can't be serious. Fair enough Elland Road has its problems for this event but to counter that with "whatabout Hillsborough?" is genuinely laughable. We get it, you don't like LUFC...

Does anybody ?

[JonM]

1 hour ago, HawkMan said:

No I'm 61, I didn't say it hasn't lessened in importance , but at least supporters can still get off their backsides to get to a semi final hundreds of miles away, even when both clubs have bigger targets.

Liverpool have approximately 4 million fans in the UK. Man City have approximately 1 million. Liverpool have approx 900k fans living in London alone. It's not remotely comparable. 

[Dallas Mead]

4 minutes ago, JonM said:

Liverpool have approximately 4 million fans in the UK. Man City have approximately 1 million. Liverpool have approx 900k fans living in London alone. It's not remotely comparable. 

Where do you get these figures from mate?

[JonM]

1 minute ago, Dallas Mead said:

Where do you get these figures from mate?

YouGov did a survey a couple of years back, where they asked "Do you support a football club, if so, which one".

[WakefieldCityLoyal]

Wigan, Hull KR and Saints seemed to have turned out in decent numbers.

[HawkMan]

23 minutes ago, JonM said:

Liverpool have approximately 4 million fans in the UK. Man City have approximately 1 million. Liverpool have approx 900k fans living in London alone. It's not remotely comparable. 

Greater London population 12 million ,900k Liverpool fans? That's 7.5 % of the whole population of London are Liverpool fans?.

[JonM]

8 minutes ago, HawkMan said:

Greater London population 12 million ,900k Liverpool fans? That's 7.5 % of the whole population of London are Liverpool fans?.

Between 8 % and 9% of the UK population are Liverpool fans, according to YouGov (the figure moves around a little bit).

In any case, the exact numbers don't matter. It's ludicrous to compare teams which have *millions* of supporters selling 40,000 tickets for a game with teams which have (at a very generous over-estimate) 50 000 fans selling maybe 6000 tickets for a game live on free-to-air tv.

[Dave T]

Well it looks and sounds decent, with Saints and Wigan fans showing up well. Hull KR fans and Hudds  filling it up a bit now too. 

The £55 RFL sections are looking noticeably empty. 

[Stuff Smith]

34 minutes ago, JonM said:

Between 8 % and 9% of the UK population are Liverpool fans, according to YouGov (the figure moves around a little bit).

I've moved around England (and Wales) quite a bit and I'd say that's more than true. Liverpool "fans" who couldn't find Liverpool on a map. See a hugely successful club, "support" them: maybe I should have done the same.

Edited May 7, 2022 by Stuff Smith

[bratman]

51 minutes ago, Dave T said:

Well it looks and sounds decent, with Saints and Wigan fans showing up well. Hull KR fans and Hudds  filling it up a bit now too. 

The £55 RFL sections are looking noticeably empty. 

Two smaller stadiums would look a lot better IMO.

[Dunbar]

Yes, some empty seats for all the games but the noise of the crowd has been noticeable and the commentary teams have mentioned the great atmosphere on several occasions.

A composite picture of the two games would have shown a decent crowd but a double header will always have fans looking to see just their own teams game.

[Leyther_Matt]

Atmosphere sounded really good. The empty sections opposite the cameras weren’t great but I thought it carried over pretty well all considered. I’d certainly prefer two separate semi finals in 20k-25k stadiums though. Would have been bouncing at Bolton today (and closing West Upper lends itself well to the TV arc)

[gingerjon]

7 minutes ago, Dunbar said:

Yes, some empty seats for all the games but the noise of the crowd has been noticeable and the commentary teams have mentioned the great atmosphere on several occasions.

A composite picture of the two games would have shown a decent crowd but a double header will always have fans looking to see just their own teams game.

Yes - it sounds really good - it just causes occasional visual wincing.

The product on the field is delivering in front on terrestrial though and, ultimately, that's what we need.

[Dave T]

1 hour ago, bratman said:

Two smaller stadiums would look a lot better IMO.

Of course, it's not really worked. 

[Dave T]

1 hour ago, Dunbar said:

Yes, some empty seats for all the games but the noise of the crowd has been noticeable and the commentary teams have mentioned the great atmosphere on several occasions.

A composite picture of the two games would have shown a decent crowd but a double header will always have fans looking to see just their own teams game.

I do think if they are going to persevere with this they should have unreserved seating - Saints have been given a prominent spot in the stadium but naturally they all left at their game. At Magic they would just be replaced by Hudds fans. 

I enjoy a full day of coverage like today but its clear there isn't a large demand for fans to attend three games on semi final day. At Magic fans are in and out and making an event of it. 

[Scubby]

2 hours ago, Dave T said:

Well it looks and sounds decent, with Saints and Wigan fans showing up well. Hull KR fans and Hudds  filling it up a bit now too. 

The £55 RFL sections are looking noticeably empty. 

Who were they actually pitching those tickets to? Nuts

[Toby Chopra]

I've just about manged to watch all three games today and you know what, they all came across fine on TV. All the games were compelling enough that the empty patches in the stands weren't the focus, and they did a good job with the audio so it always sounded lively to the TV viewer. 

I can see all the minuses of triple header for the speccie at the ground, but don't underestimate what having 7 hours straight RL on the main BBC channels does. How many times did they mention the world cup, or do a visual on it. Lots. 

We don't get lots of attention as a sport, so when we get a chance, we need to make an impact, and I think today did. Three separate games dotted around the schedule would get lost in my view. 

[Just Browny]

2 minutes ago, Toby Chopra said:

I've just about manged to watch all three games today and you know what, they all came across fine on TV. All the games were compelling enough that the empty patches in the stands weren't the focus, and they did a good job with the audio so it always sounded lively to the TV viewer. 

I can see all the minuses of triple header for the speccie at the ground, but don't underestimate what having 7 hours straight RL on the main BBC channels does. How many times did they mention the world cup, or do a visual on it. Lots. 

We don't get lots of attention as a sport, so when we get a chance, we need to make an impact, and I think today did. Three separate games dotted around the schedule would get lost in my view. 

I don't really like the triple headers and think it is poor to have the women's final as a curtain raiser, but I do think that is a fair point in the other direction and the BBC coverage has been absolutely outstanding today. 

[RayCee]

4 hours ago, Stuff Smith said:

I've moved around England (and Wales) quite a bit and I'd say that's more than true. Liverpool "fans" who couldn't find Liverpool on a map. See a hugely successful club, "support" them: maybe I should have done the same.

It’s never too late to see the light.

[Scubby]

22,141

[bratman]

6 minutes ago, Scubby said:

22,141

Not great, but actually quite similar to recent semi final aggregate attendances.

[Wellsy4HullFC]

If you want to get more neutrals involved, it's the perfect chance to run a 9s competition alongside it to bump up the number of fans. 

RL fans at the moment have become pretty club-centred. There aren't as many "game-centred" fans as there used to be (or if there are, they are already maxed out with internationals, CCF and GF). If we want more people there, we can't just be appealing to the fans of the 4 clubs involved + fans of the women's game. There's too little lead-up time to sell tickets and RL fans are good at coming up with excuses not to go. 

Run a 9s tournament on the Saturday, culminate with the Women's Final. 9s Semis as a curtain raiser on the Sunday, with the 9s Final sandwiched between. 

We keep banging on about doing a 9s weekend. Best time to do it when there's not much else going on that weekend!

[DoubleD]

6 hours ago, HawkMan said:

Greater London population 12 million ,900k Liverpool fans? That's 7.5 % of the whole population of London are Liverpool fans?.

Sounds like the same counting process Tower Hamlets use for election results

[HawkMan]

24 minutes ago, DoubleD said:

Sounds like the same counting process Tower Hamlets use for election results

I've looked at the youguv report. JonM misread it, 9% of those who said they had a favourite football club said Liverpool.  Plenty I'm sure don't follow football or sport at all. So it's 9 % of those who expressed a preference said Liverpool which sounds right. Not quite 9% of the whole country or London. 

The relevance to this topic was I pointed out Liverpool and Manchester City fans travelled hundreds of miles with no direct trains to get to a semi final. It's a question of fan dedication whatever the sport, also context, Wigan and Saints meet 4 or so times in SL, those matches mean more to fans obviously. What about the GF winners and CC winners joining top two of NRL for a four team World Club Challenge,  might spark CC interest. 

Edited May 7, 2022 by HawkMan