Time to move challange cup final north

[Tommygilf]

4 minutes ago, Liverpool Rover said:

The Final needs to be at Wembley, it's where every fan wants to see their team play and where ever player wants to play. Seeing the Saints and Leeds players yesterday and what it meant to them to actually be there is something that can't be taken away from them.

Absolutely

[Havenlad80]

1 hour ago, Andy JG said:

moving it north it then becomes another game...a Regal trophy final..18,000 crowds.

Keep it at Wembley

The regal trophy always played 2nd fiddle to the challenge cup and was never played at a major venue.

[Havenlad80]

5 hours ago, Man of Kent said:

EFL play-off finals aren’t always well attended. The last three L2 final crowds were 34k, 37k and 9k but nobody suggests they should be moved.

 

L2 is the 4th tier of English football are we really comparing our equivalent of the FA cup to this?

[EggFace]

3 hours ago, Spidey said:

Where would you have the game played?

Homes of Newcastle, Liverpool, Man Utd and Man City sold out sign and a great advert for TGG.

[EggFace]

1 hour ago, JM2010 said:

I suppose this thread is redundant now anyway as they’ve announced the CC Final is staying at Wembley for the next 2 years and will probably stay there after that. 

60K is the baseline for the final now. Hopefully IMG and the RFL can put some plans in place to increase this year on year to at least above 70K

Well I hope the IMG and RFL have a dedicated team who aim is to sell out both CC and SL finals targeting the othe clubs pro and amatuer/Touch and Tag and selling VFM Packages.

[Leyther_Matt]

9 minutes ago, EggFace said:

Well I hope the IMG and RFL have a dedicated team who aim is to sell out both CC and SL finals targeting the othe clubs pro and amatuer/Touch and Tag and selling VFM Packages.

This already exists, and then some. Saw loads of groups of junior RL teams yesterday. 

[pahars]

Average 60,000+ for challenge cup finals in London so give up and move somewhere up north in front of fewer people. 
 

Average 35,000+ for internationals in London so give up and move somewhere up north in front of fewer people. 
 

Is it any wonder the English  game seems trapped in ever decreasing circles? 

[Tommygilf]

57 minutes ago, Havenlad80 said:

L2 is the 4th tier of English football are we really comparing our equivalent of the FA cup to this?

Our professional clubs in the 3 tiers of the pro pyramid, size wise, basically fall somewhere between middle championship football to northern premier league. League 2 is pretty much in the middle of that and has comparative finances to RL as well.

[Futtocks]

For years, every Challenge Cup has been commented on by people saying interest is being lost in the final because of the "same old clubs" always getting to Wembley.

In the last decade, we've had Catalans making history, Hull FC finally breaking their Wembley duck as well as less-expected teams like Salford, Huddersfield and Castleford getting there. And then there is yesterday's match.

Leg it down the bookies and wager a tenner on, in the early rounds of the 2024 cup, those very same fans posting about how they'd be interested in going to the final again if the "same old clubs" weren't at Wembley all the time.

Edited August 13, 2023 by Futtocks

[Spidey]

1 hour ago, EggFace said:

Homes of Newcastle, Liverpool, Man Utd and Man City sold out sign and a great advert for TGG.

So you’d take a lower crowd at Liverpool or Newcastle than the amount who attended yesterday. Good grief

[JonM]

5 hours ago, gingerjon said:

It was a brilliantly compelling match. A proper final that I've enjoyed catching up with.

But, genuine Q, was it a brilliant event?

Yes and no. It felt like much more of an event than all recent finals and we had a thoroughly good day out. I've seen load of posts on social media both from people who were there and people who watched on TV saying how great it was. The RFL deserve some credit for largely filling the club Wembley tier, which has never happened at any previous final - we've always had that ring of empty seats. I think it did add to the atmosphere considerably. I think the fans of Hull KR and Leigh deserve a lot of credit for making it an event though. Rovers fans really showed up in numbers and were by some distance the loudest I've heard at Wembley. Leigh following wasn't so big, but really embraced the whole leopardskin thing and it was all friendly and cheerful before, during and after the game. Really none of the slight edge of trouble that Old Trafford can have, or pubs outside Wembley have had in previous years. Pretty much zero effort from the RFL in terms of making it an event. Almost nobody seems to have attended all 3 matches. It just doesn't work. Pre-match entertainment could have come from the 1970s tbh.

I think it would be absolutely bonkers to move the final elsewhere, or to move it away from London - provided it's making the RFL some money.  It just needs an extra 10K people to be turning up basically. Make a decent event of it, and actually market it to people down south who have previously bought tickets for internationals. People really don't care about who the teams are. There were people getting on the train at Peterborough to go to watch Trent Rockets in the cricket - no geographic connection with the place at all - they just picked a team.

The 1895 Cup actually makes it look worse on TV because you have for example a couple of thousand Halifax fans sat behind the goal who didn't turn up for the start of the main event, so you have a big block of empty seats. I wonder if there's a possibility to do like RU have done for some events (eg in Top 14 in France) and do the women's final somewhere in London on Friday night for those who're making a weekend of it? (Sorry Skolars).

Also, got talking to a few different people on the train on the way back, and there was a bloke with two kids who had travelled down from Northumberland. They'd been to a game, one of the kids loved Ronnie the Rhino and so they'd become Leeds fans and go down to watch a couple of games per year. I'd never really considered that mascots should be such an asset for a club.

While I'm here - the wheelchair challenge cup final is at Sheffield next Sunday, along with the Challenge Trophy final. Apparently there are still some tickets left - £10 for adults, £7 for concessions and £5 for kids. I bet that's a great occasion and it really deserves to sell out, so I hope some people who're in the area and who don't already have a game to go to will go along.

[JonM]

4 hours ago, The Hallucinating Goose said:

This sort of relates to what I just posted above, especially cricket. Cricket could build a 90,000 capacity ground in this country if they wanted because the popularity is there to fill it but in cricket you have these iconic, historical grounds that players want to play at. Watching an Ashes test at Lords is one of the great sporting events in the world, watching an Ashes test at the 90,000 capacity Cinch Bowl in Dagenham would not be quite so amazing. 

England have played Ashes games at Durham, Cardiff and Southampton in recent times, in brand new purpose built test match venues. None of them is particularly large. The Northern test grounds often fail to sell out, so there is no real motivation to make say Headingley any bigger than it is. Having been part of really big crowds at cricket grounds in Australia (MCG) and India, I think it would be fantastic to have a 90K capacity cricket ground in this country, and I reckon the England team would be absolutely delighted to have a 90 000 strong following from the Barmy Army for a test match.

[Futtocks]

11 minutes ago, JonM said:

England have played Ashes games at Durham, Cardiff and Southampton in recent times, in brand new purpose built test match venues. None of them is particularly large. The Northern test grounds often fail to sell out, so there is no real motivation to make say Headingley any bigger than it is. Having been part of really big crowds at cricket grounds in Australia (MCG) and India, I think it would be fantastic to have a 90K capacity cricket ground in this country, and I reckon the England team would be absolutely delighted to have a 90 000 strong following from the Barmy Army for a test match.

Also, consider the drop-off in attendance levels from Cricket internationals (and not every county ground is 100% guaranteed even one of those each year) and some of the sparsely-attended County matches.

Fill it or not for that special occasion, you have to fund the yearly overheads of a mega-stadium somehow, so what does your bank manager say when there's three or more days of solid rain for your one money-making test match with maybe no other equivalent fixture for a couple of years?

[JonM]

Just now, Futtocks said:

Fill it or not for that special occasion, you have to fund the yearly overheads of a mega-stadium somehow, so what does your bank manager say when there's three or more days of solid rain for your one money-making test match with maybe no other equivalent fixture for a couple of years?

Yep, exactly. Cricket grounds are the size they are because that's what makes economic sense. Spurs can spend £1.2 billion on their ground because they can make a profit by doing so. No other sport can do that, and we're in a country where the government only rarely funds building of sports grounds.

[Dunbar]

6 hours ago, gingerjon said:

It was a brilliantly compelling match. A proper final that I've enjoyed catching up with.

But, genuine Q, was it a brilliant event?

Personally, I thought it was a much better event than it was a match.

If that had been a Super League round match, we wouldn't have rated it at all (albeit with a golden point win) as it had plenty of errors and poor final plays etc.

But in a final, with so much at stake, at an iconic venue and with such a vocal and passionate audience, it was compelling. 

Yes.  An event.

[owls]

Cardiff anyone ?, 

 

[Route66]

Definitely keep the final at Wembley, up to the powers that be to sell the event to the whole country instead of relying on the same people each time. Believe we are back to june next year which should be better away from the school holidays and opening weekend of the premier league. Out of interest how many tickets are sold to people in the south of England that should be the main target area

[Tommygilf]

1 hour ago, owls said:

Cardiff anyone ?, 

 

It is a lovely stadium, but would suffer the same inherent problem (arguably to a greater extent) than Wembley.

The sport isn't popular enough and the clubs aren't large enough to fill these huge grounds right now. 

[Damien]

We know that the current floor is around the 60k mark give or take and we should always get around this through finalists alone and whatever neutrals still go. The RFL should now be going all out to sell the extra 30k through clubs, registered youth and adult players and schools. Other sports always do this far better than RL. Get the deals on now, get real involvement going and even if it means selling at cost just try and get people into the habit of going again. Whatever is left then do a big push to sell the remainder in London closer to the time.

[gingerjon]

22 minutes ago, Tommygilf said:

It is a lovely stadium, but would suffer the same inherent problem (arguably to a greater extent) than Wembley.

The sport isn't popular enough and the clubs aren't large enough to fill these huge grounds right now. 

The advantage that Cardiff had was its simplicity - the stadium being right there in the city centre. If you're making a day of it with the final as a focus then it works really well.

But whether that's good enough now, who knows?

[Man of Kent]

JonM above has nailed it.

Not too unhappy with 60k for a secondary comp final between Leigh and Hull KR in a stadium 200 miles from the heartland and where beer costs £7.20 a pint.

More needs to be done to get 60k up to 75k with neutrals/locals but we all know the RFL can't afford to market it properly. 

[Tommygilf]

4 minutes ago, gingerjon said:

The advantage that Cardiff had was its simplicity - the stadium being right there in the city centre. If you're making a day of it with the final as a focus then it works really well.

But whether that's good enough now, who knows?

And it is, imo, the best stadium of its size for all sorts of reasons once you are in. 

I think Cardiff may be simpler than London for the RFL to do extra stuff, but that really shouldn't be hard. Where was the RL takeover in Trafalgar Square or anything like that? Would they do more in Cardiff?

It is also just not as well connected to RL land as London is, nor does it have that same level of prestige element.

[Man of Kent]

Wembley is the national stadium of England. People seem to forget why Wembley holds finals.

[gingerjon]

1 hour ago, Tommygilf said:

And it is, imo, the best stadium of its size for all sorts of reasons once you are in. 

I think Cardiff may be simpler than London for the RFL to do extra stuff, but that really shouldn't be hard. Where was the RL takeover in Trafalgar Square or anything like that? Would they do more in Cardiff?

It is also just not as well connected to RL land as London is, nor does it have that same level of prestige element.

Almost certainly they wouldn't do anything like enough to justify leaving Wembley. The issue about connection is valid and was raised at the time. It is more of a problem now as we have done so little to keep interest outside the M62 corridor.

[Eddie]

On 13/08/2023 at 12:41, EggFace said:

Homes of Newcastle, Liverpool, Man Utd and Man City sold out sign and a great advert for TGG.

They wouldn’t sell out though.