Published attendances- it’s getting worse!!

[Cheadle Leyther]

The League Express scoreboard this week showed only  2 clubs wishing to state their attendance figure. 
The usual culprits included Batley and York, but now joined by Bradford, Fax and Keighley, although the latter did give a figure for last week against Bradford (an impressive 3,729)

But yet again the most disappointing   ‘not available’ came from Hull KR, despite it looking like another full house.

Thank goodness the fixtures last week didn’t include a home Hull KR match!!

The publishing of crowd figures helps to underline the current mood of optimism, so it’s very disappointing trend started last year appears to be happening again.

 

[Eddie]

This has been widely discussed on the forum (though there’s no reason you should know that), and yes it’s very annoying. 

[JohnM]

Entropy?

[The Blues Ox]

14 hours ago, Cheadle Leyther said:

The League Express scoreboard this week showed only  2 clubs wishing to state their attendance figure. 
The usual culprits included Batley and York, but now joined by Bradford, Fax and Keighley, although the latter did give a figure for last week against Bradford (an impressive 3,729)

But yet again the most disappointing   ‘not available’ came from Hull KR, despite it looking like another full house.

Thank goodness the fixtures last week didn’t include a home Hull KR match!!

The publishing of crowd figures helps to underline the current mood of optimism, so it’s very disappointing trend started last year appears to be happening again.

 

Teams are usually a bit coy when it comes to cup gates and having to split some of the money arent they? At a guess I would say the Fax attendance was around the 600-700 mark.

[Chronicler of Chiswick]

47 minutes ago, The Blues Ox said:

Teams are usually a bit coy when it comes to cup gates and having to split some of the money arent they? At a guess I would say the Fax attendance was around the 600-700 mark.

Yes, a certain degree of creative accountancy has been known to happen there. I remember many years ago Fulham played Wigan in the now defunct Lancs Cup at Hendon, and near every turnstile lurked someone with a Wigan accent and a clicker. As if we'd even consider doing Wigan out of a few quid (cough, cough)!

[JonM]

1 hour ago, The Blues Ox said:

Teams are usually a bit coy when it comes to cup gates and having to split some of the money arent they? At a guess I would say the Fax attendance was around the 600-700 mark.

724 was the figure given.

[sentoffagain2]

19 minutes ago, JonM said:

724 was the figure given.

    Not a bad judge Oxy.

[The Blues Ox]

2 hours ago, sentoffagain2 said:

    Not a bad judge Oxy.

It probably means I were miles out. 

[Indigogo]

18 hours ago, Cheadle Leyther said:

The League Express scoreboard this week showed only  2 clubs wishing to state their attendance figure. 
The usual culprits included Batley and York, but now joined by Bradford, Fax and Keighley, although the latter did give a figure for last week against Bradford (an impressive 3,729)

But yet again the most disappointing   ‘not available’ came from Hull KR, despite it looking like another full house.

Thank goodness the fixtures last week didn’t include a home Hull KR match!!

The publishing of crowd figures helps to underline the current mood of optimism, so it’s very disappointing trend started last year appears to be happening again.

 

Keighley was 1477 this weekend just gone.

[JonM]

2 hours ago, Indigogo said:

Keighley was 1477 this weekend just gone.

Yes, I posted it on the attendance thread earlier in the week.

I think a lot of it is that some people on here place more importance on it than maybe the clubs do, or at least the people doing media/ comms for the clubs. Taking Swinton as an example, they always give a figure when the website gets updated, but that might not be until Tuesday/Wednesday. Other clubs often give the figure on social media but not in their match report. Batley are one of the clubs called out above, but considering their website hasn't been updated in several weeks, it's probably more that no-one has time to do things like this than any attempt to hide the figure. AFAICT, it's only Hull KR who are deliberately not publishing a figure.

[meast]

Shouldn't it be part of the IMG grading system that clubs announce official attendances or have I got that wrong?

[Chrispmartha]

37 minutes ago, meast said:

Shouldn't it be part of the IMG grading system that clubs announce official attendances or have I got that wrong?

They don’t have to publicly announce anything 

[Eddie]

5 hours ago, JonM said:

Yes, I posted it on the attendance thread earlier in the week.

I think a lot of it is that some people on here place more importance on it than maybe the clubs do, or at least the people doing media/ comms for the clubs. Taking Swinton as an example, they always give a figure when the website gets updated, but that might not be until Tuesday/Wednesday. Other clubs often give the figure on social media but not in their match report. Batley are one of the clubs called out above, but considering their website hasn't been updated in several weeks, it's probably more that no-one has time to do things like this than any attempt to hide the figure. AFAICT, it's only Hull KR who are deliberately not publishing a figure.

I emailed Batley and Widnes to ask why they weren’t announcing attendances (I feel sure Batley don’t do it later in the week) and neither replied, not that they’re under any obligation to reply of course. Football clubs right down to the 10th tier announce their crowds almost immediately, they’re readily available too. 

[JonM]

3 minutes ago, Eddie said:

I emailed Batley and Widnes to ask why they weren’t announcing attendances (I feel sure Batley don’t do it later in the week) and neither replied, not that they’re under any obligation to reply of course. Football clubs right down to the 10th tier announce their crowds almost immediately, they’re readily available too. 

I've never known Widnes not to have an attendance figure available, it is generally announced at the match. We've only had one competitive home game so far this season, in the Challenge Cup against Doncaster, and a crowd figure was published for that.

Batley had figures for every game last season on their website. 

[Hopie]

Obviously there is a disadvantage, real or perceived, to making these announcements. For most clubs, I don't really see an advantage to announce crowds.

[Eddie]

7 hours ago, Hopie said:

Obviously there is a disadvantage, real or perceived, to making these announcements. For most clubs, I don't really see an advantage to announce crowds.

Fans are interested, which makes it worthwhile. Attendances have been announced since rugby league started, why stop now? 

[Eddie]

8 hours ago, JonM said:

I've never known Widnes not to have an attendance figure available, it is generally announced at the match. We've only had one competitive home game so far this season, in the Challenge Cup against Doncaster, and a crowd figure was published for that.

Batley had figures for every game last season on their website. 

Widnes definitely had a spell last season where they didn’t, maybe it was announced at the match but it wasn’t published afterwards. Its good that they are publishing again now though. 

[gingerjon]

7 hours ago, Hopie said:

Obviously there is a disadvantage, real or perceived, to making these announcements. For most clubs, I don't really see an advantage to announce crowds.

It's another pathway to fan engagement as much as anything else.

[Archie Gordon]

I also think it's an expectation of a professional sport. We're back to the point of what does this signal when attendances used to be published as the norm but now aren't? I can't see how anybody on the outside looking in would think this was a healthy sign.

[The Blues Ox]

1 hour ago, Eddie said:

Fans are interested, which makes it worthwhile. Attendances have been announced since rugby league started, why stop now? 

Because crowd figures are now worth something. It makes you wonder if teams don't announce now in the thinking that they can get away with publishing a figure later or not at all which could make it harder for the RFL to audit. The other option is go down the Bradford route and announce an obviously over inflated attendance but then you run the risk of other clubs calling you out on it.