Attendance thread

[Sports Prophet]

12 hours ago, JT RL said:

This could happen in the current format. The team in 2nd place, beats first place (who had won the cup). I’d be surprised if it’s happened in the past. But ….

True, but the current champion winning the grand final, does so having legitimately made the playoffs and winning the GF.

Its a bit different in the other proposed format if a team comes into the GF through the back door having not won either the CC or the League Leaders Shield.

[bamfordsbeans]

There are numerous issues that the game needs to address.

The venue for the Grand Final is not one of them.

[Sports Prophet]

13 minutes ago, Eddie said:

Why would clubs want themselves and the fans to have to pay for flights and very expensive accommodation to go to the grand final, when there’d be a lower crowd at the game?  

For the same reason that other sports have European Finals in locations which are flying distances from their home. 

I wouldn’t suggest having the first one at Croke Park or anywhere overseas, but as a gradual option having hosted the GF at more accessible venues like OT, Wembley, Millennium and/or Murrayfield, you would like to think the Super Final or whatever you want to call it had built enough equity into it to sell it out with travelling and local attendees.

[Tommygilf]

51 minutes ago, Sports Prophet said:

Why is Croke park a no chance? Precedent has been set there before and Rugby League is very anti establishment. 

The GAA had to temporarily rewrite their constitution to allow for the IRFU to play there, temporarily. 

Sadly anti establishment or not its not GAA.

[Eddie]

1 hour ago, Sports Prophet said:

For the same reason that other sports have European Finals in locations which are flying distances from their home. 

I wouldn’t suggest having the first one at Croke Park or anywhere overseas, but as a gradual option having hosted the GF at more accessible venues like OT, Wembley, Millennium and/or Murrayfield, you would like to think the Super Final or whatever you want to call it had built enough equity into it to sell it out with travelling and local attendees.

European finals yes, but other than Catalans (who’d be similarly compromised going to Dublin) it’s a regional sport with a small area where 95% of the fans are. 

[Chronicler of Chiswick]

1 hour ago, Tommygilf said:

The GAA had to temporarily rewrite their constitution to allow for the IRFU to play there, temporarily. 

Sadly anti establishment or not its not GAA.

And there's how much they'd charge. I remember the chairman of the IRFU's sour comment that for a seemingly amateur game the GAA had a strong appreciation of the value of money. In spite of selling out nearly all their games in a stadium that holds 80k+ the IRFU barely broke even on the deal!

[Guest]

3 hours ago, Sports Prophet said:

For the same reason that other sports have European Finals in locations which are flying distances from their home. 

I wouldn’t suggest having the first one at Croke Park or anywhere overseas, but as a gradual option having hosted the GF at more accessible venues like OT, Wembley, Millennium and/or Murrayfield, you would like to think the Super Final or whatever you want to call it had built enough equity into it to sell it out with travelling and local attendees.

Leigh vs Salford in Belgrade?

[Sports Prophet]

1 hour ago, Eddie said:

European finals yes, but other than Catalans (who’d be similarly compromised going to Dublin) it’s a regional sport with a small area where 95% of the fans are. 

State of Origin in Perth and Adelaide comes to mind.

[Damien]

56 minutes ago, Chronicler of Chiswick said:

And there's how much they'd charge. I remember the chairman of the IRFU's sour comment that for a seemingly amateur game the GAA had a strong appreciation of the value of money. In spite of selling out nearly all their games in a stadium that holds 80k+ the IRFU barely broke even on the deal!

The biggest issue with Croke Park is that they are severely limited on the number of events that can be played there, other than GAA, due to residents concerns/complaints. This is a major bone of contention every single year. There are already far more events that want to play there than they can host, and these are huge highly profitable concerts which make far more money than any RL event. So getting away from any actual GAA opposition its a non starter for this alone.

[Eddie]

48 minutes ago, Sports Prophet said:

State of Origin in Perth and Adelaide comes to mind.

That’s a three game series, and doesn’t involve two small club sides. 

[Eddie]

57 minutes ago, Leonard said:

Leigh vs Salford in Belgrade?

They’d pack out the Marakana for that. I’d prefer the Maracana in Rio. 

[gingerjon]

51 minutes ago, Sports Prophet said:

State of Origin in Perth and Adelaide comes to mind.

A League playing its Grand Final in Sydney comes to mind.

[Dave T]

We've delivered huge crowds in Cardiff and Edinburgh before. 

[JM2010]

On 19/06/2023 at 08:32, HawkMan said:

It's a real mystery,  RL fans attendance patterns are just different to say football.  What's the equivalent of Wigan v Wire in football as far as size and stature of clubs from that part of he country. Blackburn and Bolton perhaps? An FA cup QF live on BBC between them would be near capacity for sure, tickets included in the season ticket or not.

Maybe the CC needs an extra incentive to make it more compelling. Perhaps the winner, if they fail to get into the end of season play offs through league position, get a place in it anyway. Tough for the team finishing in the lowest qualifying place as they get edged out, but that's sport. And if the CC winners qualify anyway for the play offs then they're automatically given the league runner up play off route, unless they're also the league winners.

I think the CC winner should play in the WCC. Add a 2nd NRL team or if they don’t want to do it just have a 3 team competition 

[Josef K]

20 hours ago, johnh1 said:

So no top 6 play off? A lot of pointless matches in the last few weeks of the season, then. No thanks.

Why did they go from top five play off to a top six play off. As far as i can remember nothing was said about it from the clubs. 

[GUBRATS]

8 hours ago, Sports Prophet said:

For the same reason that other sports have European Finals in locations which are flying distances from their home. 

I wouldn’t suggest having the first one at Croke Park or anywhere overseas, but as a gradual option having hosted the GF at more accessible venues like OT, Wembley, Millennium and/or Murrayfield, you would like to think the Super Final or whatever you want to call it had built enough equity into it to sell it out with travelling and local attendees.

Err no 

[johnh1]

2 hours ago, Josef K said:

Why did they go from top five play off to a top six play off. As far as i can remember nothing was said about it from the clubs. 

I'm guessing that it means that most clubs will have something to play for right to the end of the season - either top 6 or avoiding relegation. But JT RL wants to get rid of the top 6 play offs which would result in most teams having nothing to play for in the last few weeks of the season.

[Sports Prophet]

14 hours ago, Eddie said:

European finals yes, but other than Catalans (who’d be similarly compromised going to Dublin) it’s a regional sport with a small area where 95% of the fans are. 

 

8 hours ago, GUBRATS said:

Err no 

Fair enough, it’s not my GF. Have it where you want it.

Would you think moving the CC Final venue each year could add some extra flavour?

[Eddie]

6 hours ago, Sports Prophet said:

 

Fair enough, it’s not my GF. Have it where you want it.

Would you think moving the CC Final venue each year could add some extra flavour?

I like the CC final at Wembley, it’s traditional and gets big crowds, albeit not as big as in the past.  The GF never struggles for crowds at OT, imho it’s the home of the GF. Magic could move around though. 

[Dave T]

8 hours ago, Sports Prophet said:

 

Fair enough, it’s not my GF. Have it where you want it.

Would you think moving the CC Final venue each year could add some extra flavour?

I've long since championed the Cup moving, but I'm in a minority on this. 

I'm over Wembley personally, I think it's too big, expensive, can be difficult to get to at times, and imo not that good a stadium unless you go Club Wembley. 

I quite like the idea of moving around, I think we can get ourselves out there a lot more. I do think when we used to play Cup finals and Magic weekends in places like Cardiff and Edinburgh it felt like we were more out there pushing ourselves. 

If we did do that though it is important that a) we do it properly, make plenty of effort and not do it on the cheap, and b) we don't abandon London, maybe Magic there and/or internationals. 

[Guest]

1 hour ago, Dave T said:

I've long since championed the Cup moving, but I'm in a minority on this. 

I'm over Wembley personally, I think it's too big, expensive, can be difficult to get to at times, and imo not that good a stadium unless you go Club Wembley. 

I quite like the idea of moving around, I think we can get ourselves out there a lot more. I do think when we used to play Cup finals and Magic weekends in places like Cardiff and Edinburgh it felt like we were more out there pushing ourselves. 

If we did do that though it is important that a) we do it properly, make plenty of effort and not do it on the cheap, and b) we don't abandon London, maybe Magic there and/or internationals. 

I think it is fair to say that if the sport is cash strapped we need to be looking at maximising revenues. So if Wembley are charging too much and the whole day simply washes its face income wise, we look to walk and play where we can generate more income - tradition or not.

Same with magic.

Signing 10 year deals with Wembley is also a no no. We need to be more agile than that as a sport - not just taking the easy option and easy money just because it is there.

We also seem happy to take 50p rather than see if we can push for £1.

[Damien]

21 hours ago, Dave T said:

We've delivered huge crowds in Cardiff and Edinburgh before. 

A long, long time ago when the Challenge Cup was still a much bigger thing and coming off the crowds it got at the old Wembley. It was still getting crowds bigger than the Grand Final at that point too.

I think a lot has happened since then and I don't think its as simple as if we move it about the crowds will magically appear just because they did in these places before.

[Guest]

12 minutes ago, Damien said:

A long, long time ago when the Challenge Cup was still a much bigger thing and coming off the crowds it got at the old Wembley. It was still getting crowds bigger than the Grand Final at that point too.

I think a lot has happened since then and I don't think its as simple as if we move it about the crowds will magically appear just because they did in these places before.

But we might make some money out of those that do.

I wonder what the split of the last 10 years of finals is between:

i. Fans of the finalists/1895 finalists

ii. Northern fans of the sport travelling down.

iii. Southern fans.

I am starting to question iii over recent years.

[Dave T]

12 minutes ago, Damien said:

A long, long time ago when the Challenge Cup was still a much bigger thing and coming off the crowds it got at the old Wembley. It was still getting crowds bigger than the Grand Final at that point too.

I think a lot has happened since then and I don't think its as simple as if we move it about the crowds will magically appear just because they did in these places before.

I agree, it's why I added my line about it needing to be done properly, and that goes for wherever it is played. 

I just don't buy the benefits that apparently playing at Wembley brings, and I thing the size of the stadium is a real negative. And I don't just mean capacity, it absolutely dwarfs old Wembley despite a modestly larger capacity. 

I think there are better ways to target London nowadays. 

But I do understand why some would never want to leave Wembley. 

[Damien]

7 minutes ago, Dave T said:

I agree, it's why I added my line about it needing to be done properly, and that goes for wherever it is played. 

I just don't buy the benefits that apparently playing at Wembley brings, and I thing the size of the stadium is a real negative. And I don't just mean capacity, it absolutely dwarfs old Wembley despite a modestly larger capacity. 

I think there are better ways to target London nowadays. 

But I do understand why some would never want to leave Wembley. 

I know we've had this debate before and I am in the stay at Wembley camp. I don't think we've done anything to make Wembley work for a long, long time and for too long the Challenge Cup has been neglected, shunted around and been an afterthought. If we genuinely try to make the Challenge Cup final more appealing and market it and we still have the same issues then re-evaluate it.

However I just think that if nothing else changes I don't see how moving the Challenge Cup in isolation fixes anything. Its the same strategy that RL always uses, see Magic, lets move it to a different location to attract fans to somewhere new. Its lazy beyond belief. I know its not what you are advocating but it is what will happen with the RFL.

I agree there may be better ways to target London, obviously internationals, but we don't do that either and go years without even playing an international there. Sometimes we go years without playing one at home at all. For all its faults the Challenge Cup final is the only regular London big event.