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


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14 minutes ago, Scubby said:

I'm sure had Leeds reached this fixture it would have been nearer 30k than 20k but this is really a flawed fingers crossed strategy the RL are adopting at the moment.

Just wait until the final now that Huddersfield are there.

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2 minutes ago, Leyther_Matt said:

Just wait until the final now that Huddersfield are there.

I am sure I will be able to buy a final ticket for next to nothing a few days out if I want it. This is not a strategy for success. 

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I have been reading through some off this thread and a recurring theme is "Are we selling to the same group of people"

Off course we are, I don't know this for a fact but I would say that 90% of the supporters of our game are hereditary having it passed on from forefathers and friends, those two words Rugby League are as off putting to some as they are everything to the followers. In my working life I travelled the length and breadth of the country and always tried to spread the gospel and tell people what they were missing but so many had not a clue, what Rugby meant to them was "Swing low, sweet chariot" and that was even the case very close to the so called heartlands.

In my time from being heavily involved through to just now being merely a spectator I have come to the conclusion that we have what we have, I have seen countless expansion projects come into being and ever so quickly vanish again, will there be a Newcastle in 10 years time, I sincerely hope so but I am not so convinced the ever so important history of the game in the community is so important for a clubs longevity.

In a nutshell yes we are selling to same groups, I will wager that come the jamboree event of our sport the WC that tickets will become so cheap they may as well be given away, and especially so considering most of it is going to be on FTA.

I love to be in a full stadium it adds to the excitement and occasion, but each of us has only one pair of eyes and one pair of ears, go watch it, enjoy it and accept it for what it is, it ain't going to change, the converted have used the moniker TGG for years saying what we have on the field eclipses any other sport, so where is everyone? if it was as popular as we expect it should be we would have no problem selling out occasions and stadia.

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22 hours ago, Tommygilf said:

I don't think that is the main reason tbh. Most Cups in every sport have declined and have been doing so for well before Sky came along. Back to the 70s the parity between League and Cup had already started to fade. 

Sky accelerated the shift that had already taken place, but it would have been folly to do anything otherwise. Cups just aren't as popular anymore, and one off purchases runs contrary to the Season ticket culture that is knocking on for over half a century old now - only the final itself holds the prestige to attract the majority of fans.

The change from Wembley and its rebuild also had a major impact. 

I agree with most of that but I actually think the few years it was held at the millennium stadium gave the cup a boost. Not so much Twickenham or Murrayfield but in Cardiff with all the fans pretty much staying in the same area meant it was a big RL party again. Rather than when it’s in London and a couple of hours after the game you wouldn’t know a game had taken place. 

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8 minutes ago, bobbruce said:

I agree with most of that but I actually think the few years it was held at the millennium stadium gave the cup a boost. Not so much Twickenham or Murrayfield but in Cardiff with all the fans pretty much staying in the same area meant it was a big RL party again. Rather than when it’s in London and a couple of hours after the game you wouldn’t know a game had taken place. 

I'm not sure that magic existed when the cup finals were in Cardiff back then. You have to create an event where you can sell 30k+ tickets to people not supporting the finalists.

Hoping for a few thousand extra fans from Championship clubs for a tin pot cup as a curtain raiser shows how desperate the game has become and the real lack of drive. Do we actually value and make an effort to create showpiece days in the RL calendar or do we pile them high and sell them cheap forever more until we just tap out of ideas and money?

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55 minutes ago, gingerjon said:

This is what is really bugging me now. What evidence we have - from RL to a tiny degree, other sports to a greater one - is that there is both an overlap audience and a new one for women's sport. All we are doing is what we do all the time: try with meat raffle tactics to get the existing audience to turn up.

Same here. Women's sport is going through that sort of exponential growth that a sport gets one shot at getting caught up in before they are left behind. No surprise which boat RL is in danger of being in by repeating all the same mistakes from the mens game.

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3 minutes ago, Scubby said:

I'm not sure that magic existed when the cup finals were in Cardiff back then. You have to create an event where you can sell 30k+ tickets to people not supporting the finalists.

Magic was effectively created off the back of Cardiff's tourism boost for the cup finals

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6 minutes ago, Damien said:

Same here. Women's sport is going through that sort of exponential growth that a sport gets one shot at getting caught up in before they are left behind. No surprise which boat RL is in danger of being in by repeating all the same mistakes from the mens game.

As ever, Australia is getting it right and the money is starting to flow through into the women's game there. I have said it a couple of times but this World Cup will be a pretty horrible lesson for England (and the RFL) in what happens when you half ###### an opportunity that is in front of your eyes. It will be women against girls stuff.

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6 minutes ago, Fevrover said:

Wigan fans hardly went in great numbers to the semi final.

They will do for the final on the back of beating Saints and probably being favourites in the final. Nowt like the smell of silver polish to bring out the Ellgren shellsuits.

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36 minutes ago, Harry Stottle said:

I have been reading through some off this thread and a recurring theme is "Are we selling to the same group of people"

Off course we are, I don't know this for a fact but I would say that 90% of the supporters of our game are hereditary having it passed on from forefathers and friends, those two words Rugby League are as off putting to some as they are everything to the followers. In my working life I travelled the length and breadth of the country and always tried to spread the gospel and tell people what they were missing but so many had not a clue, what Rugby meant to them was "Swing low, sweet chariot" and that was even the case very close to the so called heartlands.

In my time from being heavily involved through to just now being merely a spectator I have come to the conclusion that we have what we have, I have seen countless expansion projects come into being and ever so quickly vanish again, will there be a Newcastle in 10 years time, I sincerely hope so but I am not so convinced the ever so important history of the game in the community is so important for a clubs longevity.

In a nutshell yes we are selling to same groups, I will wager that come the jamboree event of our sport the WC that tickets will become so cheap they may as well be given away, and especially so considering most of it is going to be on FTA.

I love to be in a full stadium it adds to the excitement and occasion, but each of us has only one pair of eyes and one pair of ears, go watch it, enjoy it and accept it for what it is, it ain't going to change, the converted have used the moniker TGG for years saying what we have on the field eclipses any other sport, so where is everyone? if it was as popular as we expect it should be we would have no problem selling out occasions and stadia.

I agree that is where we are (maybe not 90%), but the challenge is that it shouldn't be the case. 

RL isn't unique in that you can only enjoy it if your ancestors did, its the fact we don't really try to grow outside of that. The segment you refer to are the easy ones, the cheap to sell to fans, the core base. To go beyond that it costs time, effort and money, but the rewards are real. 

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18 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. 

I suppose we can't complain too much. We have been bemoaning the cheap tickets for years on here. But I agree that is crazy pricing. 

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1 hour ago, Scubby said:

We have created this spiral of loading double and triple headers together when I am yet to see evidence that there is a huge demand for this from the RL viewing public. We can see with our own eyes.

The next off the rank is England Women v France and England v Combined SL Players. Now I am convinced that with the right billing and right promotion that the women's international, as a stand alone fixture, could attract equal or more than the 5-6k likely to turn up at Warrington for the double header. Yet it will be played in front of a few hundred souls as a curtain raiser.

What objectives is this actually achieving? The actual evidence is people attending women's fixtures are often a different age range and demographic from regular RL fixtures.

I'm less of a hater of double headers than you, as long as they are part of a strategy. 

I don't mind the principle of a double header Semi Finals day if it is going to be a huge event in a fancy marquee stadium, with a real push to make it an event and bring in the neutrals. But it isn't, it's just two games in a hired stadium that they have opened. 

The event should never have become a triple header, the womens game should be standalone or at Wembley. 

I'm OK with this year's mid season test being a double header, because it is part of a more complete program this year where the women get their own billing, and I'm OK with the world cup final being a double header - but if we are doing the same in three tournaments time, I'll have an issue with it. I think right now there is a place for the mid season double header and pushing the joint brand, but we do know that Warrington have never drawn huge crowds for England (All Golds was a flop) and I expect it to pass with little fuss and a small crowd (although I'll go along and have a beer and enjoy it). 

But ultimately our approach is just cheap and lazy, and that is becoming more and more of a problem for us. 

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3 minutes ago, Mattrhino said:

I suppose we can't complain too much. We have been bemoaning the cheap tickets for years on here. But I agree that is crazy pricing. 

Its not incompatible to bemoan cheap tickets and still say £55 tickets are crazy in a 40,000 seat stadium for a triple header semi final that was never going to come close to selling out.

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5 minutes ago, Mattrhino said:

I suppose we can't complain too much. We have been bemoaning the cheap tickets for years on here. But I agree that is crazy pricing. 

Unfortunately, I fear for the RLWC this year for similar pricing reasons. The way to move to higher pricing is not to just start charging more. But I hope I'm wrong on the world cup. 

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Just now, Damien said:

Its not incompatible to bemoan cheap tickets and still say £55 tickets are crazy in a 40,000 seat stadium for a triple header semi final that was never going to come close to selling out.

Yup. I don't think our pricing is too low tbh. I understand people don't like reductions after they have paid, it doesn't bother me personally. 

Our issue is that our pricing strategy is often inappropriate, and that's often because there is no strategy really. 

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The best strategy in pricing is keep it simple , yesterday they should have had all tickets priced the same , divided the stadium into 4 corners and first come first served on where you sit 

Simple 

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3 hours ago, Dave T said:

For those who went yesterday, how was the event? I assume for what is a one-day Magic weekend there was a substantial fanzone, entertainment, food and drink options etc? 

This wasn't a normal event, so I assume it wasnt treated normally? 

I didn't see or hear anything, a few pubs in the centre were busy with a good mix of fans, we got the shuttle bus down, it dropped us off at the wasteland and we walked round to the South stand past a solitary burger van and had a drink in Billy's bar, after the game we had a celebratory drink in the old peacock and then looked for the return shuttle bus but it was nowhere to be seen, most people were jumping in taxis, we waited 25 minutes for a service bus back to the centre by which time the place was almost deserted.

It appeared most fans came on coaches as the coach park was well populated.

I didn't see or hear of anything around the ground, but once inside, the atmosphere from the vastly outnumbered Giants fans was superb, I didn't really hear the KR fans, there was a handful of Wigan and Saints fans, most of who left as soon as their game finished.

It was quite strange having an empty ground with just one corner and a few blocks behind the other posts populated, it was even stranger at the end with just the 2500 or so Huddersfield fans in the ground.

I can't really say it was a great event, if it was an event, my initial feeling of Elland Road being unsuitable was proved right by the lack of any transport to and from the centre, most people just seem to head straight off for what I presumed were a couple of shuttle buses straight after the game, but by half 7 they had all disappeared.

Still we had a great time and our team came up trumps despite us having no fans, I'm not sure how this can work really 🙂 

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6 minutes ago, meast said:

I didn't see or hear anything, a few pubs in the centre were busy with a good mix of fans, we got the shuttle bus down, it dropped us off at the wasteland and we walked round to the South stand past a solitary burger van and had a drink in Billy's bar, after the game we had a celebratory drink in the old peacock and then looked for the return shuttle bus but it was nowhere to be seen, most people were jumping in taxis, we waited 25 minutes for a service bus back to the centre by which time the place was almost deserted.

It appeared most fans came on coaches as the coach park was well populated.

I didn't see or hear of anything around the ground, but once inside, the atmosphere from the vastly outnumbered Giants fans was superb, I didn't really hear the KR fans, there was a handful of Wigan and Saints fans, most of who left as soon as their game finished.

It was quite strange having an empty ground with just one corner and a few blocks behind the other posts populated, it was even stranger at the end with just the 2500 or so Huddersfield fans in the ground.

I can't really say it was a great event, if it was an event, my initial feeling of Elland Road being unsuitable was proved right by the lack of any transport to and from the centre, most people just seem to head straight off for what I presumed were a couple of shuttle buses straight after the game, but by half 7 they had all disappeared.

Still we had a great time and our team came up trumps despite us having no fans, I'm not sure how this can work really 🙂 

So how come everybody didn't go by train ?

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1 hour ago, Dave T said:

I agree that is where we are (maybe not 90%), but the challenge is that it shouldn't be the case. 

RL isn't unique in that you can only enjoy it if your ancestors did, its the fact we don't really try to grow outside of that. The segment you refer to are the easy ones, the cheap to sell to fans, the core base. To go beyond that it costs time, effort and money, but the rewards are real. 

Yes, I was going to put into my post the time, effort and money that would be required to change things around, but are the last two viable in our sport especially by the governing body I can't comment on the first one but tge few times we here anything from them doesn't give the impression that they are overworked.

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Sorry if this has already been posted.

Strong figures for

on

yesterday. 900k peak watched Wigan v Sts, averaged at 700k.

Women’s final peaked at 300k, with average 200k.

Huddersfield v HullKR peaked at 700k and averaged at 600k.

 I thought it looked pretty good.

 

Edited by The Rocket
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3 hours ago, lingaro said:

21500 when Fev and Leeds played at Elland Road in 1995.  

I went to this game as a neutral supporting Featherstone. I used to go regularly to the semis at Leeds.

However this was the first one where it was an uneven playing field - the smaller teams could no longer compete against the big clubs. 

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32 minutes ago, The Rocket said:

Sorry if this has already been posted.

Strong figures for

on

yesterday. 900k peak watched Wigan v Sts, averaged at 700k.

Women’s final peaked at 300k, with average 200k.

Huddersfield v HullKR peaked at 700k and averaged at 600k.

 I thought it looked pretty good.

 

Decent, and good to see the second game carried over most of the audience from the first, despite a chamnel switch and teatime. Averaging 650k across 4 hours of rugby is something substantial to show broadcasters and sponsors. 

If the BBC puts the promotional effort in, I hope this puts us on track for peaks of 1.5m for the CCF, 2m for the England group games in the world cup, 2.5m for the knockouts and... if we were to make the final... 3m+, which I think would be a record for the multichannel era. 

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