RLWC Attendance-O-Meter

[gingerjon]

8 minutes ago, Leonard said:

If we end up around 420k compared to 458k, then it is hardly a disaster.

"Tournament runs to break even, no profit and we pay for everything, hence the need to raise funds from tickets and other sources." - Jon Dutton, October 17th.

That'd be 38,000 in unsold ticket income whose absence will need to be found from somewhere.

Gotta big sofa to look behind?

[frank]

It's quite possible in regard to support for the WC, that many have not attended these games due situation in the UK.

Many are finding it hard to get by  financially and certainly attending games does not come into it. These constraints always seem to hit those in Northern England more than others.

It's most likely some posters on here  have been  affected that.

There has been some great footy served up and it has been a huge success in that regard. Be interesting to see what viewing figures have been  on TV.

[Guest]

21 minutes ago, gingerjon said:

"Tournament runs to break even, no profit and we pay for everything, hence the need to raise funds from tickets and other sources." - Jon Dutton, October 17th.

That'd be 38,000 in unsold ticket income whose absence will need to be found from somewhere.

Gotta big sofa to look behind?

Are the prices the same as 2013?

Largest grossing game in NH history with 55k sold.

I'm sure another 20k tickets at £10 is the needle mover. 

The cost of more games is likely to be more important.

Edited November 7, 2022 by Leonard

[The Hallucinating Goose]

6 hours ago, Hopie said:

England* were those not on tour with GB

See, I don't understand why we couldn't have done this when GB last toured. If I remember rightly, England Knights played Jamaica at the same time. I don't see why that couldn't have just been England. As I said at the time, in other sports if England play a smaller nation they will put out a weakened team but they don't then feel the need to call it England B or something just because its not the regular starters, it's still England and seen as it was GB touring, there's no reason that game couldn't have been an England game. 

[gingerjon]

1 minute ago, Leonard said:

Are the prices the same as 2013?

We already know it's likely to have raised substantially more in ticket income.

This isn't new information no matter how many times over the past two years it's been presented as such.

[gingerjon]

11 minutes ago, frank said:

Be interesting to see what viewing figures have been  on TV.

There's a thread on that too.

This one is about the attendances.

[Guest]

Just now, gingerjon said:

We already know it's likely to have raised substantially more in ticket income.

This isn't new information no matter how many times over the past two years it's been presented as such.

So in light of that I think it is fair that you or I have no idea about breakeven. 

It's a wholly different model. 

[gingerjon]

1 minute ago, Leonard said:

So in light of that I think it is fair that you or I have no idea about breakeven. 

It's a wholly different model. 

Yes. So it's a bit odd that you keep coming back to revenue in a thread about attendances.

[Guest]

2 minutes ago, gingerjon said:

Yes. So it's a bit odd that you keep coming back to revenue in a thread about attendances.

Fine. I'll leave the thread to you.

Enjoy the rest of your world cup. 

[Dave T]

43 minutes ago, gingerjon said:

"Tournament runs to break even, no profit and we pay for everything, hence the need to raise funds from tickets and other sources." - Jon Dutton, October 17th.

That'd be 38,000 in unsold ticket income whose absence will need to be found from somewhere.

Gotta big sofa to look behind?

It wouldn't be 38k.

The 458k isn't any kind of real target, it's simply the number that we got 9 years ago, so people are using it as a benchmark. 

If we get 420k, the shortfall is 330k sales. Of course none of us know what they have in their financial model, so the breakeven could be 500k, or 600k, or 750k - but there is no indication that breakeven is the 458k. In fact it is very unlikely, as it would be weird that breakeven just so happened to be that 458k number. 

It's why @Leonard's point that we make more money doesn't give any comfort. The budget won't be against something that happened 9 years ago, the budget was set a couple of years ago, and we are missing one KPI by an absolute mile.

We may have made £5m more in gate receipts this tournament, but it is still a disaster if we have had to pay IRL £4m more and costs are £3m higher. 

Edited November 7, 2022 by Dave T

[Dave T]

20 minutes ago, Leonard said:

So in light of that I think it is fair that you or I have no idea about breakeven. 

It's a wholly different model. 

Things we do know. 

Dutton claims the tournament is running to breakeven. 

Dutton said the target for crowds was 750k. 

That is quite a big clue that breakeven is at risk. 

[RL Tragic]

1 hour ago, Leonard said:

Agreed. Just making the point. If we end up around 420k compared to 458k, then it is hardly a disaster. Especially given the loot the final will generate. 

I know there are more games, but depends how much of a needle mover Wales Vs Cook Islands was ever going to be.

In fact, there seems to be a view that more games has killed competitiveness and a reason to see group games. 

Whilst I fundamentally agree it won’t be a disaster, The organiser have made sine so many schoolboy errors, this could have been so much more had they just applied simple event management principles.

[GeordieSaint]

1 hour ago, Dave T said:

Things we do know. 

Dutton claims the tournament is running to breakeven. 

Dutton said the target for crowds was 750k. 

That is quite a big clue that breakeven is at risk. 

Whilst I agree with what you are saying, I am struggling to believe what Dutton is saying about risk in breaking even. I can’t believe they’ve budgeted against 750k ticket sales. They surely can’t be that stupid… 

[dkw]

I don't understand how so many of you are completely ignoring the facts we are in the middle of a ridiculous cost of living crisis, public transport is an absolute shambles and the world cup was delayed by a whole 12 months due to antipodean insular moronic decision. IF we only lose between  15-20% of attendee`s due to these situations then we will have done well.

[gingerjon]

1 minute ago, GeordieSaint said:

Whilst I agree with what you are saying, I am struggling to believe what Dutton is saying about risk in breaking even. I can’t believe they’ve budgeted against 750k ticket sales. They surely can’t be that stupid… 

Keeping on it attendances: a fall against 2013 is an actual embarrassment. There are more games and we've had more visibility across more media. This should be an absolute warning sign that things need to be fixed and more work (with IMG) done on getting more, and different, people to rugby league events. The opener at St James's Park is the positive model to work from here.

Digressing on revenue: a fall in attendances against 2013 will probably put the already cash-strapped RFL close to bankruptcy. The only alternative to that will be if money that was destined for IRL is held back - and that will obviously hamper international development still further.

[Dave T]

30 minutes ago, dkw said:

I don't understand how so many of you are completely ignoring the facts we are in the middle of a ridiculous cost of living crisis, public transport is an absolute shambles and the world cup was delayed by a whole 12 months due to antipodean insular moronic decision. IF we only lose between  15-20% of attendee`s due to these situations then we will have done well.

Who is completely ignoring it?

I'll tell you who - the organisers who are charging £70 for some seats at games. 

And we haven't lost between 15-20% of attendees, this isn't 2013 - the target for this is 750k, not 458k.

[GUBRATS]

4 minutes ago, Dave T said:

Who is completely ignoring it?

I'll tell you who - the organisers who are charging £70 for some seats at games. 

And we haven't lost between 15-20% of attendees, this isn't 2013 - the target for this is 750k, not 458k.

You know my answer Dave , there was much discussion of similar at the HJ yesterday about it , got to say " keep it simple " was popular 

[Dave T]

29 minutes ago, gingerjon said:

Keeping on it attendances: a fall against 2013 is an actual embarrassment. There are more games and we've had more visibility across more media. This should be an absolute warning sign that things need to be fixed and more work (with IMG) done on getting more, and different, people to rugby league events. The opener at St James's Park is the positive model to work from here.

Digressing on revenue: a fall in attendances against 2013 will probably put the already cash-strapped RFL close to bankruptcy. The only alternative to that will be if money that was destined for IRL is held back - and that will obviously hamper international development still further.

To address @GeordieSaint's point too, it all ultimately depends on financials. There are a lot of assumptions in the below, but to look at it from a fag packet point of view....

We have paid the IRL £xm. It all depends on what the commercial arrangement was for the rest of the tournament. For me, an RLWC should be a not-for-profit, with all funds going into IRL coffers, so we could work on the assumption that the £xm is just a guarantee, and any further profit made goes into the IRL pocket.

The challenge then is what the break even number actually is. I'd be surprised if 750k is the break even, as that really is a bold target. But I'd also be stunned if break even was set at 458k, as we have never contemplated only getting such a low number (until the tournament started and reality kicked in). So we can probably assume that break even is somewhere between those two numbers. And we should also remember that there are other income streams - but they are locked down well in advance of kick off.

I do think we are probably struggling to 'break-even' bearing in mind that that is after we have paid IRL - I can't believe that a business plan would have been signed off based on achieving 440k fans when the public targets were 750k - I can't think of any board that would accept that. 

Whilst people console themselves that the final may make more than 2013, that means nowt, it is versus the current budget that is important. For every 100k fans missed, that will probably have an impact of maybe £3m on the P&L. That is huge - when you consider that had we hit the 750k, we may have had an additional £9m in revenue. Whether that was going to be additional income for the IRL, or whether that was to balance the books - I suppose we will find out. 

But we do know how quickly these things turn sour. It is a numbers game - the biggest income stream is probably ticket income. Missing the targets by a substantial amount has a huge impact. Spin doesn't pay the bills. It didn't in 2000. 

[Dave T]

13 minutes ago, GUBRATS said:

You know my answer Dave , there was much discussion of similar at the HJ yesterday about it , got to say " keep it simple " was popular 

Yesterday was probably excellent evidence against your idea. We saw that at £40 the South Stand has been empty all tournament, yet at £25 it was full (accepting that like-for-like is difficult). 

If your idea was to charge the lowest price around the stadium, it would maybe work in getting bums on seats, but not financially. If your idea is to charge £40 everywhere (the number you quoted the other day) - then the evidence is that the South and West would have been far emptier.

Let's not risk this getting locked by discussing your club  - but I am genuinely interested to see how it works there. Hey, if it's a roaring success, maybe it will become something we use. My personal view is it won't, but let's see.

Edited November 7, 2022 by Dave T

[Dave T]

The narrative seems to be changing that getting anywhere near 2013 would be ok. Let's be clear here, that is being used as a benchmark simply because it gives us a comparison point - but it is of no relevance when it comes to paying the bills this year. 

And let's also be clear on what missing the targets could mean for us. 

1. Millions of quid of less income versus on target. 

2. A Government partner that has invested millions and hasn't had the reach it was promised. A failure.

3. Sponsors who haven't had the crowds and experience they were promised.

3. Host towns haven't had the footfall and financial benefits they were promised. 

4. Host grounds won't have had the ancillary sales they expected.

5. Lower merchandise sales - it goes without saying we sell less at events with 6k instead of 12k attending.

These things have an impact, it isn't just a case of saying 'ah well, maybe next time...'.

Because next time, it will be harder to get councils and host towns to put their money where their mouth is and bid for RLWC.

[GUBRATS]

5 minutes ago, Dave T said:

Yesterday was probably excellent evidence against your idea. We saw that at £40 the South Stand has been empty all tournament, yet at £25 it was full (accepting that like-for-like is difficult). 

If your idea was to charge the lowest price around the stadium, it would maybe work in getting bums on seats, but not financially. If your idea is to charge £40 everywhere (the number you quoted the other day) - then the evidence is that the South and West would have been far emptier.

Given the south stand is probably double the west , £30 across the board would have been reasonable , and as it seems some people prefer to sit then £40 across the board again , this would have given close to a half a million income , especially at 6 quid a pint

[RP London]

I do wonder if there has been a backlash to what went on last year as well.. there was huge positivity around just to get it smacked in our faces... have people forgiven teams for pulling out (basically anyone with a heavy NRL influence) have people forgiven the game as a whole? are people just not as enthused due to last years messing around.. 

[David Shepherd]

8 hours ago, Jim from Oz said:

So if (and yes, a fair-sized "if" at this stage) the 2 x semi-finals and the final all sold out to full capacity (approx 170,000), then there remains a faint chance RLWC 2021(22) could ALMOST reach the RLWC target of 458,483.

Even if it doesn't, the higher ticket prices will ensure that plenty of money is made.  Surely that is the most important metric for the medium term future of the sport.

[Dave T]

4 minutes ago, David Shepherd said:

Even if it doesn't, the higher ticket prices will ensure that plenty of money is made.  Surely that is the most important metric for the medium term future of the sport.

Your first sentence isn't necessarily true at all. Higher ticket prices means we will have more revenue than 2013. It doesn't mean we will make money.

[Anita Bath]

8 minutes ago, GUBRATS said:

Given the south stand is probably double the west , £30 across the board would have been reasonable , and as it seems some people prefer to sit then £40 across the board again , this would have given close to a half a million income , especially at 6 quid a pint

Yes but think of the extra income for that pub round the corner that was selling pints at £2.60 . Thats where my drinking budget went.