England v Tonga series

[RugbyLeagueGeek]

Just listening to Tony Sutton talking about grading on the BBC Red Button. I wonder how England would score on some of IMG's criteria?

[Guest]

Bang average compared to last week 

Fortunately the night after will make up for it, as opposed to putting on some irrelevant entertainment pre game. 

Unfortunate Leeds v Huddersfield the same day. 

 

[Damien]

Again this starts with the venues and locations. They are the biggest, single indicator of whether an event is worth going to. All the marketing in the world, which the RFL doesnt do anyway but let's go with it, will not convince many that a match at St Helens or Huddersfield is a match worth spending several hundred to go to or places worth spending a weekend in.

Get the venues and locations right and the rest is so much easier. Stop with the bog standard SL grounds in places that don't particularly appeal to anyone who isnt already a RL fan, and not even many of those either. If a match is at the Etihad I would feel this is an event worth going to. Similarly a London venue.

Have only one match in each region too and stop trying to sell to the same fans again and again. The most successful formula has clearly been London, Manchester (or Wigan if a Manchester venue is deemed too big or unavailable) and Leeds. To keep ignoring that, and being so risk averse that you are now actually damaging the international game, is sheer incompetence.

[Guest]

43 minutes ago, Dave T said:

All a bit lacklustre wasn't it. 

It all felt rather like last year's RLWC. 

I worry that the RFL have damaged international RL events in this country a fair bit. 

A bit like Old Trafford. Huddersfield looks okay but dated and facilities terrible. 

[Chrispmartha]

2 minutes ago, Damien said:

Again this starts with the venues and locations. They are the biggest, single indicator of whether an event is worth going to. All the marketing in the world, which the RFL doesnt do anyway but let's go with it, will not convince many that a match at St Helens or Huddersfield is a match worth spending several hundred to go to or places worth spending a weekend in.

Get the venues and locations right and the rest is so much easier. Stop with the bog standard SL grounds in places that don't particularly appeal to anyone who isnt already a RL fan, and not even many of those either. If a match is at the Etihad I would feel this is an event worth going to. Similarly a London venue.

Have only one match in each region too and stop trying to sell to the same fans again and again. The most successful formula has clearly been London, Manchester (or Wigan if a Manchester venue is deemed too big or unavailable) and Leeds. To keep ignoring that, and being so risk averse that you are now actually damaging the international game, is sheer incompetence.

Yes, i think The Dw, a london venue and Headingley would have been the best venues for this series.

 

[M j M]

What was the crowd in the end today?

[RugbyLeagueGeek]

8 minutes ago, Leonard said:

Several Hundred? Feels punchy and hyperbole.

Hasn't cost me that. 

For a family of 4 to sit in the central blocks it'd be £160 for the tickets, plus travel/transport, plus food and drink etc. I could see how it could easily get up towards 300 quid. Whilst it could be done cheaper than that, presumably we're not looking to only sell the cheap seats/standing areas? And that's only for attending the match. Some people may want to travel and stay over and make a weekend of it. Then you're talking hotels, meals etc etc. I think the point is that some people have looked at venues like St Helens and Huddersfield and thinking maybe they won't bother (as the attendances would suggest). I'd bet on next week's game in Leeds being the best attended, despite being a dead rubber. What reason could that be other than location?

[Chrispmartha]

2 minutes ago, RugbyLeagueGeek said:

For a family of 4 to sit in the central blocks it'd be £160 for the tickets, plus travel/transport, plus food and drink etc. I could see how it could easily get up towards 300 quid. Whilst it could be done cheaper than that, presumably we're not looking to only sell the cheap seats/standing areas? And that's only for attending the match. Some people may want to travel and stay over and make a weekend of it. Then you're talking hotels, meals etc etc. I think the point is that some people have looked at venues like St Helens and Huddersfield and thinking maybe they won't bother (as the attendances would suggest). I'd bet on next week's game in Leeds being the best attended, despite being a dead rubber. What reason could that be other than location?

Correct, i chose to do corporate in Leeds because it was the best venue in a big city, that also applies to non corporate.

People with the best will in the world won’t be tempted to make a weekend of it in St Helens or Huddersfield

[Chrispmartha]

4 minutes ago, M j M said:

What was the crowd in the end today?

Just over 11,000

[OriginalMrC]

34 minutes ago, Chrispmartha said:

Just over 11,000

The problem is that Tonga don't bring any away fans 

[north yorks trinity]

1 hour ago, Leonard said:

A bit like Old Trafford. Huddersfield looks okay but dated and facilities terrible. 

Not great when we should be trying to create a sustainable world yet worry that a 30 year old stadium is past its sell by date. Plenty of reasons not to choose Huddersfield but a perfectly adequate stadium IMO that generates a great atmosphere when full.

[Hopie]

13 minutes ago, OriginalMrC said:

The problem is that Tonga don't bring any away fans 

I know this is a joke, but I think you have to praise the Tonga fans for what they bring. They are passionate and bring a unique aspect to the atmosphere at the games. Tonga Santa throwing sweets to the crowd, and someone bringing their own speaker system into the ground are just some of the things I think are great. Doesn't say much for the England fans that you can hear the music from the speakers at the other end of the ground though.

Not the best of games, and another dead atmosphere, but i went with family members, group of 5 cost less than a hundred quid, and if we had gone in the opposite stand, we could have sat on the halfway line for the same price as loads of others did (buy a ticket nearer the posts and move into the empty seats). If you can't fill the seats you are selling for that price you aren't asking the right people!

[RP London]

Got there early today and there was nothing going on, couldn't even get a dirty burger from a burger van outside.. elite pro sports was there in no more than a campervan and that was pretty much it.. oh and someone selling coffee and tea literally out of the boot of their car.. woeful. 

We've been down to Twickenham for autumn internationals in the past and there is so much going on around the ground from mid morning.. rfl have to do better.

[The Future is League]

3 hours ago, Tommygilf said:

The "heartlands" is a delusion.

I have been saying that for years

[GeordieSaint]

1 hour ago, Chrispmartha said:

Just over 11,000

On the plus side, that’s miles better than the much vaunted Saudi Pro Football League.

[crashmon]

so thats 13K for SH and 11K for Hudds.... so 24K so far

So if we are to make the 50K RFL seem to be aiming for that means 26K needed in Leeds....   Is that possible?

[Damien]

6 minutes ago, crashmon said:

so thats 13K for SH and 11K for Hudds.... so 24K so far

So if we are to make the 50K RFL seem to be aiming for that means 26K needed in Leeds....   Is that possible?

As the capacity is less than 20k no.

[londonrlfan]

33 minutes ago, crashmon said:

so thats 13K for SH and 11K for Hudds.... so 24K so far

So if we are to make the 50K RFL seem to be aiming for that means 26K needed in Leeds....   Is that possible?

And another excuse for the RFL to retreat back to the M62, even though that isn't working.

[londonrlfan]

It also begs the question of whether 3 test series interest modern audiences anymore. It's not the 1970s anymore, despite what the dinosaurs at the RFL think. A Four/Five Nations with England, Tonga, Australia, NZ, Samoa would've drawn more interest and bigger crowds. 

[Dave T]

A big issue really is that this was positioned in broadly the same way as a Test Series like the Ashes or Kiwi Series, but all a lot cheaper and worse. That's never going to inspire. 

As an aside, I do wish we'd get rid of these nonsense 'journos' our game has who appear to be no more than childish kids who have discovered the Internet and talk nonsense. We had Mick telling us that we had sold 10k and likely to finish with 15k, we had another telling us that the 2nd and 3rd test were heading for 'amazing crowds' - these would get laughed off here if they posted like this here. In fact one of the above did. 

It all feels very uninspiring at the moment. 

[EastLondonMike]

Just seen the BBC news sport broadcast on the bbc news channel (international focus - not national) and England wrapping up the series didn’t rate a mention. Naturally the union World Cup led, followed by European football, English football and lastly cricket WC. BBC only having access to video footage from the Cricket.

[The Partisan]

If England do take the series 3-0 that would have to be feat not acheived for many years by either Great Britain or England? 

[M j M]

On the face of it ticket sales for the third game are at around 12,000 so far. With a bit of pushing, from Leeds in particular, they should hopefully be able to get that to 15 or 16k by next weekend.

[gingerjon]

32 minutes ago, EastLondonMike said:

Just seen the BBC news sport broadcast on the bbc news channel (international focus - not national) and England wrapping up the series didn’t rate a mention. Naturally the union World Cup led, followed by European football, English football and lastly cricket WC. BBC only having access to video footage from the Cricket.

Disappointing but not surprising

[crashmon]

19 minutes ago, M j M said:

On the face of it ticket sales for the third game are at around 12,000 so far. With a bit of pushing, from Leeds in particular, they should hopefully be able to get that to 15 or 16k by next weekend.

So it looks like 40K for the three tests then.  So not great, but it could have been worse