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Crowd expectancies


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So it doesn't bog down the attendance thread, I thought this could be an interesting debate, started by the usual empty seat watchers when Huddersfield play.

As well as the comments on here, I've also read comments on Facebook and Twitter regarding Huddersfield's (perceived lack of) crowds.

So my question is, what is deemed an acceptable crowd for each club in the RL pro game?

I've seen people suggesting that Huddersfield, a club that until fairly recently ( as in a generation or so) was down in the dumps, trying to recover from decades of decline and with one major honour since 1953 (although some people don't include the LLS) from a town which is pretty much a dormitory/commuter/student town and which has never pulled in big crowds should be attracting the same amount of crowds as Wigan, St Helens, Leeds, Hull, Warrington etc which are far bigger clubs historically, successfully and profile wise.

Remember, apart from Catalans ( and possibly Leigh) all the other current SL clubs have spent the best part of the last 60 years in the top flight and generally winning things and so have that RL fandom bred into the towns and into families.

I would suggest Huddersfield would be around the 5,000 mark for "accepted crowds" but others think it should be more.

So here is my take on SL on "x/crowds" 🙂 

Castleford 6,000

Catalans 8,000

Huddersfield 5,000

Hull FC 12,000

Hull KR 7,000

Leeds 15,000

Leigh 4,000

St Helens 15,000

Salford 5,000

Wakefield 5,000

Warrington 12,000

Wigan 15,000

 

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Crowds and atmosphere make tv viewers come back for more, assuming the action isn’t pants. The bigger the wow factor the more come through the gate and watch on TV. The match day at Leigh so far has been brilliant and next week looks even better - 2 of our 3 opening games will have been on Sky but our average will be 8500+ in todays economic reality that is brilliant

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It seems a bit weird to set the expectations for Huddersfield so low and below even their average crowd. They have averaged 7k+ in the recent past, as well as 6k+ for a number of seasons, and that should be the aim again. Its almost like you are trying to make out they are surpassing expectations. I have not seen anyone say they should be attracting the same crowds as Wigan, Leeds, Saints, Hull etc either.

Then you have clubs like Castleford and Hull KR well below their averages and Leigh well below what they will achieve in SL. Then somehow all the big clubs should be getting thousands more than their average. Your logic seems awfully skewed.

As even the worst attended clubs, in Wakefield and Salford, currently average over 4.5k in SL then all clubs averaging over 5k should be achievable at a bare minimum. Wakefield should hit this after the redevelopment and Salford's crowds have improved. Whilst all clubs averaging 5 figure crowds is unrealistic getting the likes of Wakefield, Salford and Huddersfield up to the level of Hull KR and Castleford and averaging 7k+ should be a very realistic aim and would certainly improve the perception of SL.

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20 minutes ago, sweaty craiq said:

Crowds and atmosphere make tv viewers come back for more, assuming the action isn’t pants. The bigger the wow factor the more come through the gate and watch on TV. The match day at Leigh so far has been brilliant and next week looks even better - 2 of our 3 opening games will have been on Sky but our average will be 8500+ in todays economic reality that is brilliant

Yeah, I would say Leigh are one club that are probably above their expectancy level at the moment.

I always remember Leigh as having a hardcore of around 4,000 back when in the 80's, 90's when I really started following the game properly.

Given they have spent more time in the 2nd tier recently, that 4,000 I reckon is about right?

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1 minute ago, Damien said:

It seems a bit weird to set the expectations for Huddersfield so low and below even their average crowd. They have averaged 7k+ in the recent past, as well as 6k+ for a number of seasons, and that should be the aim again. Its almost like you are trying to make out they are surpassing expectations. I have not seen anyone say they should be attracting the same crowds as Wigan, Leeds, Saints, Hull etc either.

Then you have clubs like Castleford and Hull KR well below their averages and Leigh well below what they will achieve in SL. Then somehow all the big clubs should be getting thousands more than their average. Your logic seems awfully skewed.

As even the worst attended clubs, in Wakefield and Salford, currently average over 4.5k in SL then all clubs averaging over 5k should be achievable at a bare minimum. Wakefield should hit this after the redevelopment and Salford's crowds have improved. Whilst all clubs averaging 5 figure crowds is unrealistic getting the likes of Wakefield, Salford and Huddersfield up to the level of Hull KR and Castleford and averaging 7k+ should be a very realistic aim and would certainly improve the perception of SL.

We averaged over 7,000 3 times in the last 50 years, that was after the first real push of cheap tickets aimed at encouraging families to come along on Sunday afternoons, on the back of a bit of a resurgence on the field, first time in the play offs, a cup final appearance etc.

Sadly, the club didn't appear to capitalise on this and thus the families started to drift away somewhat and 10 years later, a lot of those potential fans ( the kids) were lost doing other things and haven't really returned.

We are now back to our hardcore of around 4,000, which has been about the same for 20 years or so.

I don't think 5,000 is too low for Huddersfield, maybe after a decade of attracting 6,000-7,000 that might change a bit.

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1 minute ago, meast said:

We averaged over 7,000 3 times in the last 50 years, that was after the first real push of cheap tickets aimed at encouraging families to come along on Sunday afternoons, on the back of a bit of a resurgence on the field, first time in the play offs, a cup final appearance etc.

Sadly, the club didn't appear to capitalise on this and thus the families started to drift away somewhat and 10 years later, a lot of those potential fans ( the kids) were lost doing other things and haven't really returned.

We are now back to our hardcore of around 4,000, which has been about the same for 20 years or so.

I don't think 5,000 is too low for Huddersfield, maybe after a decade of attracting 6,000-7,000 that might change a bit.

You have averaged 7k 3 times in the last 11 years of Covid unaffected seasons. 2 more seasons of 6k plus. Every other season over 5k. Its crazy for you to try and set the benchmark so low and portray 5k as being good.

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4 hours ago, Sports Prophet said:

In fact, I think any SL club under 7k is not delivering a minimum requirement to grow the profile of SL.

I would say higher.

I think that any club fancying themselves as Cat A should see 8k as a minimum average and - borrowing from another thread - ought to be able to deliver one event game per year at 20k+.

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11 hours ago, Damien said:

You have averaged 7k 3 times in the last 11 years of Covid unaffected seasons. 2 more seasons of 6k plus. Every other season over 5k. Its crazy for you to try and set the benchmark so low and portray 5k as being good.

It's not trying to portray anything as good, it's my personal take on what I would class as "acceptable crowds"

Everyone seems to think Huddersfield's crowds are unacceptable but can't say what they define as acceptable.

I'd love to be able to say I think we should be getting 10K but it would be a lie.

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13 hours ago, meast said:

Yeah, I would say Leigh are one club that are probably above their expectancy level at the moment.

I always remember Leigh as having a hardcore of around 4,000 back when in the 80's, 90's when I really started following the game properly.

Given they have spent more time in the 2nd tier recently, that 4,000 I reckon is about right?

Leigh averaged 6.5k in 2017, in what became a pretty poor season from April onwards and not a great deal of effort put into marketing. I'll be really disappointed if our average drops below 7k this year.

 

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20 hours ago, sweaty craiq said:

Crowds and atmosphere make tv viewers come back for more, assuming the action isn’t pants. The bigger the wow factor the more come through the gate and watch on TV. The match day at Leigh so far has been brilliant and next week looks even better - 2 of our 3 opening games will have been on Sky but our average will be 8500+ in todays economic reality that is brilliant

Yep ...Leigh has looked box office on telly....with the resultant benefit to all clubs and the game 

More needed 

Salford has looked bad......just don't think they have any excuses for it ..successful and exciting team but whatever they are doing to market the game is not working....they genuinely need to get some ideas from Degsy 

Wakey's new stand will be interesting ....are their fans going to stay behind the sticks and leave it empty?

 

Edited by Bedfordshire Bronco
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9 hours ago, EggFace said:

Make the marketing team are not working hard enough as my mate asked me were the poor crowd for Leeds v Dragons today and then why massive crowd at Tottenham Hotspur for the Union ?

Poor crowd at Headingly yesterday? 

Really interesting if that is a true perception of a non fan watching.....and actually not that surprising 

The North stand looked as good as I've ever seen on telly ....but we are so accustomed to it having over half seats empty anything else looks amazing to us....but not amazing in reality 

Headingly is on telly more than any other stadium I'd guess 

Either make the North stand tickets the cheapest so it's always full or achieve what some say is "impossible" (it's not) a d make the cameras face the south stand ....if it's empty corporate seats that nothing can be done about thne Def turn the cameras ....I bet IMG would recommend that 

Perception is massive for the game  

Edited by Bedfordshire Bronco
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1 hour ago, GUBRATS said:

The target for all should be a full stadium ( yes I understand how some clubs are playing in venues far too big in truth ) , as for ' acceptable ' , just increasing year on year 

 

But that's the point, surely no one can expect a team who generally have a hardcore support base of around 4,000 to suddenly fill a 24,000 seat stadium, yet other clubs who have a core support of 10,000 say, could easily fill a 12,000 stadium.

It would be absolutely fantastic if every RL club pack their stadiums out, it would also be pie in the sky to expect that, most football grounds are never packed out but it doesn't seem to deter them.

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I think your 12k for Warrington should be a target rather than an expectation. As far as I am aware the club has never averaged that in the SL era, 10k avg is fairly standard. I would guess the best years would coincide with success on the field so 2010-2012 and 2016 probably standouts, but that didn’t reach 12k as far as I know. Maximum capacity is now 15.5k I believe, would be nice to test that this year…

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13 minutes ago, meast said:

But that's the point, surely no one can expect a team who generally have a hardcore support base of around 4,000 to suddenly fill a 24,000 seat stadium, yet other clubs who have a core support of 10,000 say, could easily fill a 12,000 stadium.

It would be absolutely fantastic if every RL club pack their stadiums out, it would also be pie in the sky to expect that, most football grounds are never packed out but it doesn't seem to deter them.

As I put Meast , year on year increase is the realistic target 

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43 minutes ago, Alffi 7 said:

I think your 12k for Warrington should be a target rather than an expectation. As far as I am aware the club has never averaged that in the SL era, 10k avg is fairly standard. I would guess the best years would coincide with success on the field so 2010-2012 and 2016 probably standouts, but that didn’t reach 12k as far as I know. Maximum capacity is now 15.5k I believe, would be nice to test that this year…

11,845 in 2012 was their best.

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According to a report on website,

www.stadiumbusiness.com posted in December 2022, pretty recent, RL is fifth in the table of best attended sports, so that sounds good to me.

A snippet of the report below;

 

The report also said that sport will contribute £1.7bn (€1.9bn/$2.1bn) to the UK economy in 2022. Football will contribute to two thirds (66.4%) of UK sports attendances in 2022, with the Premier League accounting for one in five of all attendances.

The Premier League is on course to hit its highest attendance on record, with the average attendance for the 146 games played before the FIFA World Cup break standing at 39,910. This would exceed the average attendance of 39,572 posted in 2021-22, which ended with the highest total Premier League attendance to date (15.04m).

Rugby union will be the second most attended sport in 2022 with a total crowd of 5.4 million, a figure boosted by one-off games such as The Showdown at Tottenham Hotspur Stadium and Big Summer Kick-Off at Twickenham. Rugby sevens at the Commonwealth Games also drew more than 100,000 spectators at the Coventry Building Society Arena.

After rugby union, horse racing and cricket were the third and fourth most attended sports with cumulative figures of 4.9 million and 2.9 million, respectively. Cricket attendances were boosted by the sale of 160,000 tickets for the women’s T20 competition at the Commonwealth Games, which marked a world record for a women’s cricket event.

The top 10 was completed by RUGBY LEAGUE (2.3 million), motorsport (two million), equestrian (1.6 million), ice hockey (1.1 million) greyhound racing (900,000) and tennis (800,000). Other sports attracted 3.7 million fans.

https://www.thestadiumbusiness.com/2022/12/20/uk-sport-attendance-set-to-hit-record-76-2-million-in-2022/

Edited by HawkMan
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As a leigh fan this is one of the more exciting facets of doing well consistently in SL, something that we haven’t done before.

I believe with a prolonged run at the top level (if we can achieve it) we could target an average of 8000 within 2 years and possibly even 10000 within 5 years, these are the kind of targets I would be setting at the club with the new season memberships packages, rebrand, Match day experience and fanzone.

If we continue to push in the local schools, get into the local big 2 amateur clubs (East & Miners) and get behind the women’s team  junior memberships are the key to pushing the long term attendance.

Also another factor to contend with is most Leigh fans are used to Sunday afternoon games and it will take time for folk to get into the change in routine to night games, I know it’s difficult for me.

Feels like a positive time to be a Leopard at the minute god knows we have had nothing to cheer about in SL before.

I hope we keep it up and build.

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I think on Huddersfield, they really need to rethink the marketing strategy of the last decade which has largely been to discount tickets and wait for people to come through the doors as it clearly isn't working. (https://www.examinerlive.co.uk/sport/rugby-league/huddersfield-giants-richard-thewlis-crowds-19991185)

We're very much in the instagram era of the entertainment industry and low pricing is pretty low down on the priorities of new customers, there needs to be an experience led drive when it comes to marketing the game.

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1 minute ago, binosh said:

As a leigh fan this is one of the more exciting facets of doing well consistently in SL, something that we haven’t done before.

I believe with a prolonged run at the top level (if we can achieve it) we could target an average of 8000 within 2 years and possibly even 10000 within 5 years, these are the kind of targets I would be setting at the club with the new season memberships packages, rebrand, Match day experience and fanzone.

If we continue to push in the local schools, get into the local big 2 amateur clubs (East & Miners) and get behind the women’s team  junior memberships are the key to pushing the long term attendance.

Also another factor to contend with is most Leigh fans are used to Sunday afternoon games and it will take time for folk to get into the change in routine to night games, I know it’s difficult for me.

Feels like a positive time to be a Leopard at the minute god knows we have had nothing to cheer about in SL before.

I hope we keep it up and build.

I think the memberships over traditional season tickets has been the biggest step forward the club has made in my time watching Leigh and will drive growth more than any marketing we've done in the past.

The fans absolutely lapped them up on announcement/release, with loads of compliments on the presentation boxes, ease of monthly payments etc and unlike other years I've barely seen any comments around the price. By breaking it down to monthly subscription rather than a lump sum very few seem to have realised that our cheapest adult season ticket is now £300, one the most expensive in the league and £50 more than recent years.

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