2024 attendance thread

[Tommygilf]

22 minutes ago, M j M said:

Wigan's crowds this year have been really good, fair play to them for taking the best supported team title off Leeds.

They seem to have had success with getting better crowds to some of the less attractive games this year, which is good going. That said almost all the delta vs Leeds comes from the crowds they got for games against the other big clubs, obviously Saints (+5k vs Leeds' equivalent home attendance) but also vs Warrington and vs Leeds (+3.5k compared to Leeds-Warrington and +2.7k compared to Leeds-Wigan).

Does that just mean that their big games have been a bit more like big games and their "less big games" haven't felt like small games?

[daz39]

Always baffles me where Salford fans are throughout the regular season, they seem to only come out for play-off/cup games which is completely reverse of most sets of fans, are their season tickets really expensive or something?

It's weird really, they seem to plod along all season with about 3,000 home fans then come play-offs when it's all pay thousands more seem to appear, good on them though it shows the interest is out there, i just find it strange how they save themselves for the play-offs.

[Sports Prophet]

On 25/09/2024 at 15:54, JM2010 said:

Thanks Harry, 9221 isn’t too bad. I think the target should be to break 10000 next season. The extra seating at Hull KR, Hull having a stronger squad and Wakefield replacing London should hopefully lift the average next season 

For all the stick club Rugby gets, 12,843 was the average in the 23/24 Premiership and this does not include one off events like one off matches at Twickenham and Tottenham.

London included or not, personally I think sub 10k for SL is bad. There have been the great successes at Leigh and KR and the final at Salford at least looks great, so I am optimistic for a good ‘25.

[Sports Prophet]

If someone has the data, I would love to see a table of all SL club regular season averages for 2024 and then also note where this figure sits in their all time season averages (biggest, 5th biggest etc) and then include what the biggest season avg historically is and what year it was.

[sweaty craiq]

35 minutes ago, Sports Prophet said:

For all the stick club Rugby gets, 12,843 was the average in the 23/24 Premiership and this does not include one off events like one off matches at Twickenham and Tottenham.

London included or not, personally I think sub 10k for SL is bad. There have been the great successes at Leigh and KR and the final at Salford at least looks great, so I am optimistic for a good ‘25.

It did include those fixtures but didn’t impact on the huge losses they made. I wonder how they will go on repaying the Covid loans or if the RFU will pay the tax owed by the 3 failed clubs, £50m wasn’t it - club RU is not healthy

[RayCee]

4 hours ago, Sports Prophet said:

If someone has the data, I would love to see a table of all SL club regular season averages for 2024 and then also note where this figure sits in their all time season averages (biggest, 5th biggest etc) and then include what the biggest season avg historically is and what year it was.

I went to the trouble of doing something similar to what you suggested. 

https://rugbyl.blogspot.com/2024/09/sl-club-attendances-2000-24-vs-2024.html

[JonNgog]

7 hours ago, Sports Prophet said:

For all the stick club Rugby gets, 12,843 was the average in the 23/24 Premiership and this does not include one off events like one off matches at Twickenham and Tottenham.

London included or not, personally I think sub 10k for SL is bad. There have been the great successes at Leigh and KR and the final at Salford at least looks great, so I am optimistic for a good ‘25.

I suspect the rugby union figure has “benefited” from dropping Worcester, Wasps and Irish, not particularly well supported teams.

[JonM]

9 hours ago, Sports Prophet said:

For all the stick club Rugby gets, 12,843 was the average in the 23/24 Premiership and this does not include one off events like one off matches at Twickenham and Tottenham.

That adds up to a surprisingly low aggregate - there's only 93 matches in their 10 team premiership vs 167 in Super league. There is a downside to reducing the number of fixtures when it comes to revenue.

[sweaty craiq]

Looking at Sale the figures SP has used as the highest gate is over the stadium legal capacity, yet Sale declare that gate at 2000 less. We need the RFU calculator! 

Edited September 27 by sweaty craiq

[whatmichaelsays]

14 hours ago, M j M said:

Wigan's crowds this year have been really good, fair play to them for taking the best supported team title off Leeds.

They seem to have had success with getting better crowds to some of the less attractive games this year, which is good going. That said almost all the delta vs Leeds comes from the crowds they got for games against the other big clubs, obviously Saints (+5k vs Leeds' equivalent home attendance) but also vs Warrington and vs Leeds (+3.5k compared to Leeds-Warrington and +2.7k compared to Leeds-Wigan).

Leeds have lost their two biggest crowd-drawing fixtures in recent years. Obviously Bradford have been gone for a number of years, but Wakefield was also consistently one of the club's biggest gates - a fixture that hasn't been held this year. The lack of a "derby" for Leeds beyond Castleford is a shame.

It's also hard to pin down how much of this is down to the poor on-field performance, but not playing Wigan at home until so late in the season wasn't helpful (the attendance for that was lower than both vs London). Five home games on a Saturday also doesn't really suit a club that has built its audience around Friday nights. 

Edited September 27 by whatmichaelsays

[Damien]

10 hours ago, Sports Prophet said:

For all the stick club Rugby gets, 12,843 was the average in the 23/24 Premiership and this does not include one off events like one off matches at Twickenham and Tottenham.

London included or not, personally I think sub 10k for SL is bad. There have been the great successes at Leigh and KR and the final at Salford at least looks great, so I am optimistic for a good ‘25.

If we only had 10 teams like RU we'd be over 10k too.

[Tommygilf]

44 minutes ago, whatmichaelsays said:

Leeds have lost their two biggest crowd-drawing fixtures in recent years. Obviously Bradford have been gone for a number of years, but Wakefield was also consistently one of the club's biggest gates - a fixture that hasn't been held this year. The lack of a "derby" for Leeds beyond Castleford is a shame.

It's also hard to pin down how much of this is down to the poor on-field performance, but not playing Wigan at home until so late in the season wasn't helpful (the attendance for that was lower than the one vs London). Five home games on a Saturday also doesn't really suit a club that has built its audience around Friday nights. 

You do have to wonder where Leeds' scheduling has been the last few years, if it wasn't Thursday night it was a mixture of Saturday and Sundays. It's compounded the on field to leave the ground feeling a bit flat on gameday I think - perhaps those 2 feed into eachother.

Some of our scheduling of fixtures in the season seems a bit imbalanced, even Hull FC at home was late on in the year. 

Ultimately I think there's been a lot to show that whilst Leeds have clearly a very very solid base, the on field decline, weird scheduling over the past few seasons, mismanagement of the audience during the stadium rebuild, and only subsequently starting to improve the off field experience beyond infrastructure, have impacted crowds.

Likewise losing that "Wigan v Saints" derby equivalent at Headingley over the past decade, and a general decline in the sport too over the past decade hasn't helped.

Big games at Headingley when it's packed still feel great, but it's not felt like that, regularly at least, for a long time.

[whatmichaelsays]

5 minutes ago, Tommygilf said:

You do have to wonder where Leeds' scheduling has been the last few years, if it wasn't Thursday night it was a mixture of Saturday and Sundays. It's compounded the on field to leave the ground feeling a bit flat on gameday I think - perhaps those 2 feed into eachother.

Some of our scheduling of fixtures in the season seems a bit imbalanced, even Hull FC at home was late on in the year. 

Ultimately I think there's been a lot to show that whilst Leeds have clearly a very very solid base, the on field decline, weird scheduling over the past few seasons, mismanagement of the audience during the stadium rebuild, and only subsequently starting to improve the off field experience beyond infrastructure, have impacted crowds.

Likewise losing that "Wigan v Saints" derby equivalent at Headingley over the past decade, and a general decline in the sport too over the past decade hasn't helped.

Big games at Headingley when it's packed still feel great, but it's not felt like that, regularly at least, for a long time.

The crowds at Leeds this season have been fairly consistent - they certainly don't suffer the drop-off that other clubs do when they play the sort of teams where people scream "tHeY bRiNg No AwAy FaNs!" - they're good at running tactical offers on that front. 

I do wonder how much influence the club has had on the number of Saturday games this year. I'm convinced the club would love every game to be on Friday nights because that packs out the corporate suites, although I know they do like one annual game in the summer on weekends as a "family day" themed event. 

But losing those big local games is a killer. The Leeds-Bulls games at a packed Headingley were hard to beat. Wigan and St Helens games at Headingley can also be great atmospheres, but I think it relies on Leeds having a good team to make that happen as well (and this is also where I think loop fixtures have diluted those fixtures somewhat). But when your local rival is a club as uninteresting as Huddersfield, it's not going to get the adrenalin going. 

[Tommygilf]

18 minutes ago, whatmichaelsays said:

The crowds at Leeds this season have been fairly consistent - they certainly don't suffer the drop-off that other clubs do when they play the sort of teams where people scream "tHeY bRiNg No AwAy FaNs!" - they're good at running tactical offers on that front. 

I do wonder how much influence the club has had on the number of Saturday games this year. I'm convinced the club would love every game to be on Friday nights because that packs out the corporate suites, although I know they do like one annual game in the summer on weekends as a "family day" themed event. 

But losing those big local games is a killer. The Leeds-Bulls games at a packed Headingley were hard to beat. Wigan and St Helens games at Headingley can also be great atmospheres, but I think it relies on Leeds having a good team to make that happen as well (and this is also where I think loop fixtures have diluted those fixtures somewhat). But when your local rival is a club as uninteresting as Huddersfield, it's not going to get the adrenalin going. 

I don't know who is telling us to play when but I don't think it is helping. I don't feel like its sky either all the time this year, but we seem to roll over far too easily? The club are at least consistent now and are building back up to where it was.

Even if we look at Cas or Wakey as a local "big" Derby instead of Huddersfield, the dynamic is still one of big club vs noisy smaller club neighbours, which isn't the same as it was against a more equal Bradford. Hull haven't filled that void either, nor have KR.

I think the stadium rebuild took a lot of top level eyes away from other aspects of the club for a time, and we're still suffering from the legacy of that to an extent I think. It will improve though and that has already started.

[Sports Prophet]

10 hours ago, sweaty craiq said:

It did include those fixtures but didn’t impact on the huge losses they made. I wonder how they will go on repaying the Covid loans or if the RFU will pay the tax owed by the 3 failed clubs, £50m wasn’t it - club RU is not healthy

No it did not include those fixtures, as declared: https://www.sportcal.com/features/premiership-rugby-enters-new-era-with-ambitious-growth-plans/?cf-view&cf-closed

3 hours ago, JonNgog said:

I suspect the rugby union figure has “benefited” from dropping Worcester, Wasps and Irish, not particularly well supported teams.

I’ll take your word for it. It is fair to say that if another two clubs were there in the Premiership those teams are definitely bringing the avg down.

2 hours ago, JonM said:

That adds up to a surprisingly low aggregate - there's only 93 matches in their 10 team premiership vs 167 in Super league. There is a downside to reducing the number of fixtures when it comes to revenue.

Very true. You make a good point. I think SL can still benefit from a reduced number of fixtures and increasing the averages.

1 hour ago, Damien said:

If we only had 10 teams like RU we'd be over 10k too.

I’ll have to take your word for it. Would it be 12k+
 

My comment above wasn’t meant to be antagonistic, so I hope none of you felt I was being so. I do think it’s valuable to compare NRL/SL to its direct competitors though. From a financial perspective, SL and the clubs are in far less a precarious position than Prem RU clubs, but in saying that, I also think that the Prem RU clubs are better resourced with corporate backing to better dig themselves out of that hole than what SL and the clubs would be.

There is a lot to like about SL and the attendances of all but London, Hudds and Salford (barring of course what looks to be a great attendance for the semi final coming up).

[JonM]

29 minutes ago, Sports Prophet said:

I do think it’s valuable to compare NRL/SL to its direct competitors though.

I think we need to get away from seeing club RU as a direct competitor to SL in England though, certainly in terms of attendance at games. Greater Manchester has a population approaching 3 million. The few thousand who go to watch Sale could double in number with zero impact on Salford, Leigh, Oldham, Wigan etc.  There are more people watching seventh and eighth tier football each week than watching Sale. 

[Damien]

32 minutes ago, JonM said:

I think we need to get away from seeing club RU as a direct competitor to SL in England though, certainly in terms of attendance at games. Greater Manchester has a population approaching 3 million. The few thousand who go to watch Sale could double in number with zero impact on Salford, Leigh, Oldham, Wigan etc.  There are more people watching seventh and eighth tier football each week than watching Sale. 

Very true, Football is undoubtedly a bigger competitor in every RL area.

[Henson Park Old Firm]

Staduim is packed

[JM2010]

3 minutes ago, Henson Park Old Firm said:

Staduim is packed

It looks good on tv. Great atmosphere too. The question is how do Salford replicate this in the regular season?

[Henson Park Old Firm]

5 minutes ago, JM2010 said:

It looks good on tv. Great atmosphere too. The question is how do Salford replicate this in the regular season?

The Dave Hughes approach 

[Exiled Wiganer]

11 hours ago, Damien said:

If we only had 10 teams like RU we'd be over 10k too.

You can’t compare a sport with a pastime. 

[Dave T]

Haven't seen the Wire v Saints crowd announced yet, assume it was maybe 11k or so?

Onto next week though, i assume we are getting a sellout at Hull KR. I wonder what kind of crowd we'll see at Wigan? Maybe 5k from Leigh travelling, can Wigan mobilise 15k and we break the 20k mark?

[JM2010]

On 25/09/2024 at 22:59, sweaty craiq said:

Leigh completely sold out. North stand W1&2 E5&6. Well over 4000

How many tickets do you think Leigh will sell for the Wigan game? I’m thinking at least 5000

[Eddie]

8 minutes ago, JM2010 said:

How many tickets do you think Leigh will sell for the Wigan game? I’m thinking at least 5000

I theory it shouldn’t be many fewer than a home game, it’s not like they’ve got far to travel and this must be one of their biggest games of all time. I hope so anyway, it will be rocking if they do. 

[JM2010]

3 minutes ago, Eddie said:

I theory it shouldn’t be many fewer than a home game, it’s not like they’ve got far to travel and this must be one of their biggest games of all time. I hope so anyway, it will be rocking if they do. 

Hopefully. It’s a big capacity so they should have a big allocation. It’s also in the same borough and one game away from a GF. It’s going to be a big crowd and a great atmosphere. The play offs have delivered this year so far

Edited September 29 by JM2010