2025 Attendance Thread

[Fevrover]

1 hour ago, Bulls2487 said:

Racist chanting and the stewards weren't interested at the time and the atmosphere never felt welcoming.

Exactly and the fans who went have passed that on so will probably see an increase each game now.

It's not exactly welcoming at Odsal but we must agree we can't let these morons spoil it for the true fans can we ?

[daz39]

On 19/04/2025 at 14:20, Exiled Wiganer said:

I am not sure this is an attendance thread point, but I was wondering whether the extent to which a ground looks fullish for TV is as (or more) important in TV revenue terms than the absolute figures. So, a full house of 8k at Trinity may be more important/valuable to us oddly than 10k at Huddersfield?

While there are fewer than half the number of people at Leigh than at the Piedome, it looks and sounds terrific. And for the casual viewer there may be little difference in the impact it makes…

I've been saying for years that perception is a big thing.

When Huddersfield were getting the same as Cas, and a lot more than Salford and Wakefield,we still got the 'no fans' tag simply because the perception of 6-7000 in our stadium looks sparse but in the other grounds looks busy and gives a false perception of numbers.

Edited April 20 by daz39

[Bulls2487]

5 hours ago, Fevrover said:

It's not exactly welcoming at Odsal but we must agree we can't let these morons spoil it for the true fans can we ?

Nope I agree every club has its idiots but out of every Championship ground visited Fev was the only one we had trouble at and didn't feel welcome, hence the still low numbers. 

[Taffy Tiger]

15 hours ago, daz39 said:

I've been saying for years that perception is a big thing.

When Huddersfield were getting the same as Cas, and a lot more than Salford and Wakefield,we still got the 'no fans' tag simply because the perception of 6-7000 in our stadium looks sparse but in the other grounds looks busy and gives a false perception of numbers.

That's a long time ago though . It's got to be 10 years ago since you had same average crowd as Cas (not inc. Covid years).

Edited April 21 by Taffy Tiger

[Damien]

 

 

[Anita Bath]

A disappointing effort by Gold Coast….take away all the sunseekers from Canberra and there must have been less than 10,000.

Last two home games have been toothless efforts, probably gets worse before it gets any better. Next home game not until May 31, folks will have forgotten they exist. 

[Sports Prophet]

1 hour ago, Anita Bath said:

A disappointing effort by Gold Coast….take away all the sunseekers from Canberra and there must have been less than 10,000.

Last two home games have been toothless efforts, probably gets worse before it gets any better. Next home game not until May 31, folks will have forgotten they exist. 

The declared crowd figures at Titans fixtures appear fudged. Week after week the declared crowd is hovering slightly over 50% capacity, yet the stand opposite the camera and the two ends are consistently about a quarter full.

 

Edited April 21 by Sports Prophet

[Anita Bath]

The stand opposite the camera is in the full glare of the sun…and it bounces off the concrete to make it a furnace. Folks move round to the end to the left as camera looks. That is in full shade, as is the side where the camera is. And the beer stands all have TVs showing the game under the stands.

I have no doubt that there were 15k there. The shadey end was well occupied.

They could do with fewer afternoon games but they will have to earn that if they want more prime time post sunset games. No sign of that.

 

[Sports Prophet]

17,254 SEagles v Drags

65,309 Dogs v Bunnies

28,024 Dolphins v Storm

22,395 Warriors v Broncos

20,375 Roosters v Panthers

15,089 Titans v Raiders

24,248 Knights v Sharks

26,145 Tigers v Eels

record total attendance for a regular season NRL round of 218,833 does not = the total sum of the fixtures above (218,839) but either case is a great result.

Sea Eagles started off well on Thursday with > 95% capacity.

Into Good Friday which saw the first NRL record of the weekend and the Dogs remaining unbeaten in 2025 in front of a new regular season single fixture crowd record.

Followed up with Dolphins well above 25k to beat competition favourites the Storm and they did so convincingly.

Into the weekend and Warriors getting closer to the crowds they saw last year.

Roosters didn’t get a tick because frankly, for an Easter Saturday clash at a stadium as good as Allianz against the four time reigning premiers looking to get their season underway, shouldn’t that have been up around 30k or higher?

Titans inflated crowd figure is still a fail in my eyes.

Knights had a reasonably good crowd but less than 90% full on a lovely Easter Sunday left them short of a second tick. Maybe harsh of me, I stand by the one tick though.

I had the Tigers down for just one tick at Commbank against the Eels but reconsidered to give a second tick for being over 25k. If it is good enough for Dolphins to get a second tick, then it should be good enough for the Tigers, although I have a nagging feeling the crowd should have been at minimum 90% capacity.

[Anita Bath]

Dont have an issue with your comments (other than claim that Titans was inflated) but dont get why Manly with17500 get three categories above Titans with only a modest difference in crowd size.

 

you seem to judge according to capacity…knights and warriors get one tick even though they get 5k and 7k more than two tick Manly. So if Titans closed a stand or two their rating would go up?
 

Id say any crowd above 20k is good and anything under 20 is disappointing irrespective of capacity. And Id question why any club is playing home games at stadiums with less than 20k capacity (except for country games of course).

[Sports Prophet]

2 hours ago, Anita Bath said:

Dont have an issue with your comments (other than claim that Titans was inflated) but dont get why Manly with17500 get three categories above Titans with only a modest difference in crowd size.

 

you seem to judge according to capacity…knights and warriors get one tick even though they get 5k and 7k more than two tick Manly. So if Titans closed a stand or two their rating would go up?
 

Id say any crowd above 20k is good and anything under 20 is disappointing irrespective of capacity. And Id question why any club is playing home games at stadiums with less than 20k capacity (except for country games of course).

My scoring is influenced by more than just the figure itself and I fully accept that others may disagree with my judgements. Weather, day, KO time, opponent, performances leading up to are all considered, so variable from match to match and explains the inconsistency you refer to.

Another matter which influences my scoring is potential and Manly at greater than 90% capacity is very much fulfilling their limited capacity. When we take the outliers of Brisbane and Cronulla from the record, Manly I would say are above average. Perhaps the second tick this weekend was excessive. They only got it because of the near on capacity, so they could not have really done any better.

Titans play in a 30,000 seater and are well under season averages and if my assertions that the crowd figure is fudged, then reaffirms my score. I say this fully understanding you dispute my claim of fudged figures, so we will just have to disagree on that. I would say Titans need near on 20k to get a tick from me and above 17k to get a mere pass (= ).

Knights for example on got one tick, because as a one team RL city playing on an Easter Sunday in those beautiful conditions against a beatable opponent, I really think they should have been above 25k which is what I used as my benchmark for that particular game.

On another front, I gave the Dolphins two ticks, although considered just one, but came to terms that they are in their third season, hit over 25k in a match against out of towners.

Your 20k benchmark is a good starting point. Important to consider though is that the NRL averaged above 20k for the first time in a full regular season last year. Take out the two bookends (Brisbane and Cronulla) and I think that average comes down a good wedge and as such, maybe a little under 20k can be deemed acceptable.

I would love to see minimum capacity of 20k at all RL stadiums, but the reality is that they are not. Bringing them up to that standard alone is an expensive exercise and requires public funding which is not always forthcoming, but slowly but surely it’s happening. What is not permissible is moving club fixtures like Saints, Sharks and Sea Eagles permanently to Moore Park or Homebush. So we are stuck with what we have got for the time being.

[DoubleD]

What will be the capacity of the Panthers ground when done? Is it 2027 before they get back there?

[Anita Bath]

2 hours ago, DoubleD said:

What will be the capacity of the Panthers ground when done? Is it 2027 before they get back there?

25k up from 22.5k

[Sports Prophet]

2 hours ago, DoubleD said:

What will be the capacity of the Panthers ground when done? Is it 2027 before they get back there?

https://www.penrithpanthers.com.au/news/2024/01/24/first-look-at-new-and-improved-penrith-stadium/
 

it’s a very modest design to 25,000. $309m (and the subsequent blow out costs) doesn’t buy you much these days.

[Damien]

 

 

[Sports Prophet]

2 minutes ago, Damien said:

 

 

Old news Damo, you need to stop living in the past  

[Damien]

4 minutes ago, Sports Prophet said:

Old news Damo, you need to stop living in the past  

Tell that to the NRL, they posted the article 1 hour ago. Kind of interesting the global league headline though and focus on SL too.

[DoubleD]

8 hours ago, Sports Prophet said:

https://www.penrithpanthers.com.au/news/2024/01/24/first-look-at-new-and-improved-penrith-stadium/
 

it’s a very modest design to 25,000. $309m (and the subsequent blow out costs) doesn’t buy you much these days.

Looks like it will be a big upgrade though. I can’t remember Penrith ever hosting 22.5k at their stadium. It seemed to be sold out in the high teens 

[ricky]

The AFL record for a single round is almost double that. Is this a NRL vs AFL thing, or a NSW thing? 

[langpark]

4 minutes ago, ricky said:

The AFL record for a single round is almost double that. Is this a NRL vs AFL thing, or a NSW thing? 

It's true, AFL kills NRL when it comes to crowds, we have known that for years. 

It is good to see NRL crowds on the rise and a record broken without them even particularly trying either. 

For example, if they were to do a rivals round, like SL do, they would even break this new record. Broncos v Cowboys at Suncorp, would be a guaranteed 50k.

[Tommygilf]

Easter is definitely RLs Boxing Day for fixtures. 

[JonM]

1 hour ago, DoubleD said:

Looks like it will be a big upgrade though. I can’t remember Penrith ever hosting 22.5k at their stadium. It seemed to be sold out in the high teens 

The plans for Leichhardt Oval announced yesterday look pretty impressive too. And if I'm not mistaken, the artist's impression of the concourse has a Newtown Jets logo included?

[DoubleD]

18 minutes ago, JonM said:

The plans for Leichhardt Oval announced yesterday look pretty impressive too. And if I'm not mistaken, the artist's impression of the concourse has a Newtown Jets logo included?

Yes they look good

https://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/sport/nrl/first-look-at-40m-redesign-of-leichhardt-oval-20250422-p5ltgj.html

[Anita Bath]

4 hours ago, DoubleD said:

Looks like it will be a big upgrade though. I can’t remember Penrith ever hosting 22.5k at their stadium. It seemed to be sold out in the high teens 

They had ten games over 20k last season, averaged just under 19,000, their highest ever.

They had 21,500 three times, v eels ( 1st home game), v titans (last home game) and v Bulldogs.

Record crowd was 22582 v Eels in 2010.

 

[Damien]

46 minutes ago, Anita Bath said:

They had ten games over 20k last season, averaged just under 19,000, their highest ever.

They had 21,500 three times, v eels ( 1st home game), v titans (last home game) and v Bulldogs.

Record crowd was 22582 v Eels in 2010.

 

You'd imagine with an improved larger stadium they'll be able to push that average up beyond 20k.