London Broncos (Merged Threads)

[gingerjon]

1 minute ago, Jack-A-Roe said:

There have been enough big crowds with a combination of all the above in attendance to prove it can work. It wasn't sustained as the club was run terribly. RL is a big enough sport to support a pro RL team in London. If it's run properly.

When were these big enough crowds? The break even back in the day was 5k so just list the seasons when that happened.

[SixSet]

Is it fair to say that there is no established or inherent interest for rugby league in London? Is a London rugby league club doomed to attract, at most, the attendances that we saw last year when Super League opponents came to Plough Lane throughout the summer months?

Average attendance last year at Broncos games was 3,179.
Huddersfield Giants' average attendance last season was 4,532.

Yes , you could look at it so that these poor showings, combined, were not even half of Wigan's or Saints' crowds but look at it another way: 3,179 average crowd acrosss the season was only 1,353 fewer than Huddersfield Giants.
I know, Huddersfield is not the centre of the rugby league universe like it was in 1895 but it is a club in Super League. (Oh, what are Ealing Trailfinders thinking right now?)

Another, very different question, of course, is: how is it that Huddersfield Giants can only attract 1300 more fans to their games than the puny little Broncos down south in non-rugby league land?

Edited March 19 by SixSet

[Ivarr the Boneless]

The sad truth is the away support provided a substantial % of the gate on the two occasions I visited Wimbledon last season. 

I did about 50 away games over the years, and visited Huddersfield a few times. It's fair to say that as a travelling Broncos fan I can't really comment on whether the same is true of Huddersfield.

The home crowd sizes last season were also a substantial contributing factor to David Hughes walking away. The club plucked a 10k crowd figure out of thin air, did absolutely nothing sensible to try and build the gates and then got upset when no-one showed up. As ever there was no fan  recruitment or retention strategy. (The latter bit contributes to the current debate re lapsed fans...) Off popped David...

Only fair to record they did put a few ads inside train carriages on the Wimbledon line - from memory during work from home due to COVID. It was about as successful as getting people wearing t-shirts with"Broncos are back" written on the back to mooch around the vicinity of Wembley on Challenge Cup Final day after the change from Quins was confirmed. And then basically doing nothing for months in the belief thousands of lapsed Broncos fans who hated the Quins name would flood back. Spoiler alert - it didn't happen.

[Archie Gordon]

I think the Broncos have a much bigger rebuild than their published attendances suggest. Many times, they only seemed to fill about a third of the seats on sale last year.

[The Future is League]

1 hour ago, Archie Gordon said:

I think the Broncos have a much bigger rebuild than their published attendances suggest. Many times, they only seemed to fill about a third of the seats on sale last year.

Gary Hetherington would be fully aware of the situation and wouldn't have taken the job on unless he was quite confident he could turn things around.

[Ivarr the Boneless]

It's possible, I'm sure if that. But it will take the right location, a successful team, proper fan attraction and retention strategies and substantial sums of money in the short to medium run.

Ideally it will also involve finding a ground they don't have to vacate for weeks every summer.

Gary Hetherington's likely approach offers some grounds for hope. He really can't do any worse than the last lot.

 

 

[Coggo]

London needs a team worth watching. The last lot in Super League were - or seemed - a game but ultimately underpowered and overpromoted team of part-timers.  

 

[Wakefield Ram]

RU play a Xmas match at Twickenham that attracts 70-80,000 for a club match.

Fulham attracted crowds of 10,000 when they started back in 1980s.

What London needs is a proper thought through strategy and for the rest of the SL clubs to want a successful club in London. Rather than thinking of the extra cost for the coach trip and fewer away supporters at one home game.

How about playing the World Club Challenge in London? The NFL take over Oxford Street when they come to London. We play one of the biggest club games in the world in a town outside Manchester as far as most of the media are concerned.

This is where I hoped IMG would really add to the game. 

 

[Wakefield Ram]

8 hours ago, SixSet said:

Is it fair to say that there is no established or inherent interest for rugby league in London? Is a London rugby league club doomed to attract, at most, the attendances that we saw last year when Super League opponents came to Plough Lane throughout the summer months?

Average attendance last year at Broncos games was 3,179.
Huddersfield Giants' average attendance last season was 4,532.

Yes , you could look at it so that these poor showings, combined, were not even half of Wigan's or Saints' crowds but look at it another way: 3,179 average crowd acrosss the season was only 1,353 fewer than Huddersfield Giants.
I know, Huddersfield is not the centre of the rugby league universe like it was in 1895 but it is a club in Super League. (Oh, what are Ealing Trailfinders thinking right now?)

Another, very different question, of course, is: how is it that Huddersfield Giants can only attract 1300 more fans to their games than the puny little Broncos down south in non-rugby league land?

London is a football city but Harlequins average attendance is 6,700.

[Ivarr the Boneless]

There's plenty of people in London who don't watch football. Not that being a football fan stops you watching RL. In my experience a fair chunk of Broncos hardcore fans were - though usually of lesser league or non-league clubs rather than the big names.

It's getting people to come to their first match which is the challenge in London.  RL simply isn't on the radar of probably 97% plus of the population. They aren't going to think "let's watch Broncos." Broncos have to go to them, something the historically have been spectacularly bad at.

[RP London]

1 hour ago, Wakefield Ram said:

RU play a Xmas match at Twickenham that attracts 70-80,000 for a club match.

Fulham attracted crowds of 10,000 when they started back in 1980s.

What London needs is a proper thought through strategy and for the rest of the SL clubs to want a successful club in London. Rather than thinking of the extra cost for the coach trip and fewer away supporters at one home game.

How about playing the World Club Challenge in London? The NFL take over Oxford Street when they come to London. We play one of the biggest club games in the world in a town outside Manchester as far as most of the media are concerned.

This is where I hoped IMG would really add to the game. 

 

I think the bit in bold is a really good point. The clubs wanted a successful Catalans and so they give them dispensations etc to make it happen (of course we see this being undercut with the daft things they do to them now) but if the rest of super league couldnt give a stuff then they will always be battling against the tide. 

Sadly i dont think many clubs can see past the nose on their face in terms of what can benefit them from success in London etc

I like the world club challenge idea too. 

[RP London]

55 minutes ago, Ivarr the Boneless said:

There's plenty of people in London who don't watch football. Not that being a football fan stops you watching RL. In my experience a fair chunk of Broncos hardcore fans were - though usually of lesser league or non-league clubs rather than the big names.

It's getting people to come to their first match which is the challenge in London.  RL simply isn't on the radar of probably 97% plus of the population. They aren't going to think "let's watch Broncos." Broncos have to go to them, something the historically have been spectacularly bad at.

Spurs fans then

[Jack-A-Roe]

13 hours ago, gingerjon said:

When were these big enough crowds? The break even back in the day was 5k so just list the seasons when that happened.

For individual big matches, not averages over seasons. First game as quins v Saints, the wcc warm up against Manly, the early Fulham games. My point is that if there's something worth going to there's fans in the SE who will go. Too often it's not been worth going to.

[Ivarr the Boneless]

Whilst I accept the broad point, I'm not sure about the first Quins game. Take away a big Saints following and there were a lot of empty seats well before the end.

Quite why the EFL thought sending the best team in the country to demolish us would win over Quins RU fans, used to winning teams, remains a mystery.

I also suggest the occasional peak attendance chimes well with the abject failure to invest in fan engagement and retention to date. 

[GeordieSaint]

On 14/03/2025 at 22:15, Whippet13 said:

Matt Adamson his way over according to this:

https://www.nine.com.au/sport/nrl/the-mole-news-2025-super-league-broncos-matt-adamson-gary-hetherington-exclusive-20250314-p5ljrx.html

Let’s hope they get the right Adamson…

[JM2010]

5 hours ago, Ivarr the Boneless said:

There's plenty of people in London who don't watch football. Not that being a football fan stops you watching RL. In my experience a fair chunk of Broncos hardcore fans were - though usually of lesser league or non-league clubs rather than the big names.

It's getting people to come to their first match which is the challenge in London.  RL simply isn't on the radar of probably 97% plus of the population. They aren't going to think "let's watch Broncos." Broncos have to go to them, something the historically have been spectacularly bad at.

3% of 9 million or so population is still a big number of potential fans

[Ivarr the Boneless]

Not as big as it seems at first glance. Even if people in, say, the London Borough of Romford or Hackney, are aware of RL they are fairly unlikely to haul across London to watch a game on the off chance.

Broncos shed most of their support base when moving from Greenwich to West London. Cross London travel is usually a total pain.

If I was marketing Broncos I'd firmly focus on locals for that reason.

[JM2010]

11 minutes ago, Ivarr the Boneless said:

Not as big as it seems at first glance. Even if people in, say, the London Borough of Romford or Hackney, are aware of RL they are fairly unlikely to haul across London to watch a game on the off chance.

Broncos shed most of their support base when moving from Greenwich to West London. Cross London travel is usually a total pain.

If I was marketing Broncos I'd firmly focus on locals for that reason.

Good point. London is too big a city to target as a whole. Focusing on a local area would still target a big population though

[Londonbornirishbred]

Locals are key. Local schools, clubs, community hubs, council, churches, hospitals...everything that is involved in the "fabric" of a locality.

BTW. For 2 years we had WCC warm ups in London with OK crowds (5 & 7k IIRC) but i attneded an event when the visiting Aussies attended the Walkabout in The Bush....they were greeted by about 20 QRL fans....that was it.

From the bottom up is the only way to build sustainable crowds. NZ Warriors has taken 30 years and The Melbourne Storm are still building. 

[RayCee]

7 hours ago, RP London said:

I think the bit in bold is a really good point. The clubs wanted a successful Catalans and so they give them dispensations etc to make it happen (of course we see this being undercut with the daft things they do to them now) but if the rest of super league couldnt give a stuff then they will always be battling against the tide. 

Sadly i dont think many clubs can see past the nose on their face in terms of what can benefit them from success in London etc

I like the world club challenge idea too. 

The highlighted part is understandable. The clubs are going to look at what's good for themselves. Their job isn't to see the bigger picture. There should be a governing body overseeing the game that is more powerful than the clubs and that makes decisions for the benefit of the game as a whole. 

[dhw]

20 hours ago, gingerjon said:

When were these big enough crowds? The break even back in the day was 5k so just list the seasons when that happened.

Would be interesting to know what is the break-even today.

[dhw]

On 18/03/2025 at 11:31, Jack-A-Roe said:

There are plenty of Aussies and Kiwis who live here permanently and have families. i go to UK RL games with one regularly whos originally from Brisbane and is a big NRL fan too. We can't ignore that line of fans and lump them all in as backpackers who are rich and therefore don't like RL. Id say Wests and Hammersmith HH success prove there are plenty of Aussie and Kiwi RL fans in London. Even if they're not here permanently it's still worth targeting as part of a broader vision.

The vast majority only get interested when Australia play or when the WCC is in England.

[RP London]

1 hour ago, RayCee said:

The highlighted part is understandable. The clubs are going to look at what's good for themselves. Their job isn't to see the bigger picture. There should be a governing body overseeing the game that is more powerful than the clubs and that makes decisions for the benefit of the game as a whole. 

While I get your point the point I'm making is that a strong london can be good for everyone they just need to have the will to get it there to grow the overall package that is sold to broadcasters and sponsors gaining more long term. Hence not seeing beyond the end of their nose.. good businesses can do that, RL clubs seem to not be able to do that. 

[Deadcowboys1]

15 hours ago, Ivarr the Boneless said:

Not as big as it seems at first glance. Even if people in, say, the London Borough of Romford or Hackney, are aware of RL they are fairly unlikely to haul across London to watch a game on the off chance.

Broncos shed most of their support base when moving from Greenwich to West London. Cross London travel is usually a total pain.

If I was marketing Broncos I'd firmly focus on locals for that reason.

When did Broncos play in Greenwich?

[gingerjon]

1 minute ago, Deadcowboys1 said:

When did Broncos play in Greenwich?

Charlton is in Greenwich Borough.