What to do with the Challenge Cup

[Tommygilf]

To save the attendance and Cup final threads from broader discussions, a few options in the polls to discuss.

[GeordieSaint]

Rotate the venues. There are about 15 stadiums across the country with capacities over 50k. I’d go with host cities of:

- Liverpool (Hill Dickinson)

- Manchester (Eithad)

- Newcastle 

- Cardiff 

- London (Spurs)

Rotate every year. Possibly add Leeds in future if Elland Road ever goes above 50k. 

Edited May 31 by GeordieSaint

[Maximus Decimus]

12 minutes ago, Tommygilf said:

To save the attendance and Cup final threads from broader discussions, a few options in the polls to discuss.

Was thinking of doing this myself.

For me, the big issue is direction of travel. It is one thing debating over an event that gets 55-60k every year but we are far from guaranteed that.

Since we've been to the new Wembley it has been a steady downward trajectory. If you look at games of a similar stature, ie 2 big clubs, no special circumstances like a first time visit for years then yesterday's was a real disaster.

2010 - Warrington-Leeds - 85,000

2016 - Hull FC-Warrington - 76,000

2019 - Warrington-Saints - 62,000

2026 - Wigan-Hull KR - 56,000

As you can see, there was a huge drop from 2016-2019. Sandwiched between was the year Catalans won but the attendance was predictably low. IMO lower breeds lower.

There are mitigating circumstances for yesterday, especially from Hull KRs POV but the direction is going one way. Had it been Hull FC vs Leeds then maybe we'd have got over 60.

I can't see any reason to believe it will stabilise or grow medium or long term though.

 

[Damien]

I group stage before the finals is literally just a mini SL plays offs and Grand Final for what is supposedly a Cup. I cant see the appeal at all or see what problem it solves. Perhaps if the SL winners were the top team and we had no Grand Final it would work but don't see it otherwise.

[Damien]

1 minute ago, Maximus Decimus said:

Was thinking of doing this myself.

For me, the big issue is direction of travel. It is one thing debating over an event that gets 55-60k every year but we are far from guaranteed that.

Since we've been to the new Wembley it has been a steady downward trajectory. If you look at games of a similar stature, ie 2 big clubs, no special circumstances like a first time visit for years then yesterday's was a real disaster.

2010 - Warrington-Leeds - 85,000

2016 - Hull FC-Warrington - 76,000

2019 - Warrington-Saints - 62,000

2026 - Wigan-Hull KR - 56,000

As you can see, there was a huge drop from 2016-2019. Sandwiched between was the year Catalans won but the attendance was predictably low. IMO lower breeds lower.

There are mitigating circumstances for yesterday, especially from Hull KRs POV but the direction is going one way. Had it been Hull FC vs Leeds then maybe we'd have got over 60.

I can't see any reason to believe it will stabilise or grow medium or long term though.

 

2016 was the last final before Club Wembley seats werent counted. The drop after that is no coincidence and all those crowds from that year and before come with that massive caveat.

[gingerjon]

I have gone for the ultra conservative option of keeping things as they are. This isn't because I think things are perfect but because I think we are so far from doing our best with what we have that any changes we make will be being done without any understanding of whether they will improve things.

As I said before, I think the earlier rounds now work well and the first batch of SL entry games are something for Championship clubs to aspire to hosting. The dead rounds between then and the final - we just have to accept, for now, that these are not going to sell the Cup well. But if we stop fiddling elsewhere we can come back to these.

Wembley is not a great venue but it is 'Wembley' and therefore a fitting destination for the Challenge Cup. We just (just doing some heavy lifting) need to put more into the event nature of the day and really go for it with finding smart ways to engage lapsed and new audiences away from the heartlands. I actually think that is easier done if we always know that final will be on X weekend at X ground.

All of this only applies to the men's Challenge Cup. I get that the optics of moving the women away from Wembley are terrible but so is the set-up with their final as an early starting curtain raiser. Women's RL needs proper investment in standalone events so let's make the Cup final one of those. There are plenty of exciting grounds it could go to as it builds to standing on its own two feet. But what it really needs, beyond that, is more clubs taking their women's development as seriously as Wigan are now taking theirs.

[Maximus Decimus]

1 minute ago, Damien said:

2016 was the last final before Club Wembley seats werent counted. The drop after that is no coincidence and all those crowds from that year and before come with that massive caveat.

I didn't really want to stir the hornet's nest of yesterday's actual attendance.

The capacity of the lower bowl is 49k, which was clearly not full. There didn't look to be many at all in the top tier.

[Douglas]

14 minutes ago, GeordieSaint said:

Rotate the venues. There are about 15 stadiums across the country with capacities over 50k. I’d go with host cities of:

- Liverpool (Hill Dickinson)

- Manchester (Eithad)

- Newcastle 

- Cardiff 

- London (Spurs)

Rotate every year. Possibly add Leeds in future if Elland Road ever goes above 50k. 

Elland road will be 53k I believe.

[Maximus Decimus]

2 minutes ago, gingerjon said:

I have gone for the ultra conservative option of keeping things as they are. This isn't because I think things are perfect but because I think we are so far from doing our best with what we have that any changes we make will be being done without any understanding of whether they will improve things.

As I said before, I think the earlier rounds now work well and the first batch of SL entry games are something for Championship clubs to aspire to hosting. The dead rounds between then and the final - we just have to accept, for now, that these are not going to sell the Cup well. But if we stop fiddling elsewhere we can come back to these.

Wembley is not a great venue but it is 'Wembley' and therefore a fitting destination for the Challenge Cup. We just (just doing some heavy lifting) need to put more into the event nature of the day and really go for it with finding smart ways to engage lapsed and new audiences away from the heartlands. I actually think that is easier done if we always know that final will be on X weekend at X ground.

All of this only applies to the men's Challenge Cup. I get that the optics of moving the women away from Wembley are terrible but so is the set-up with their final as an early starting curtain raiser. Women's RL needs proper investment in standalone events so let's make the Cup final one of those. There are plenty of exciting grounds it could go to as it builds to standing on its own two feet. But what it really needs, beyond that, is more clubs taking their women's development as seriously as Wigan are now taking theirs.

One of the problems for me with the CC is the format, but I see no way around it.

Quite frankly, it isn't that big an achievement to make the final any more. In reality, you might face only 1 decent team to get to the final.

Back in the day, when there was a wider batch of teams that could beat each other, it was an achievement.

I don't see a way around it, especially not group stages or something like that.

[Douglas]

I like the idea of Manchester for the grandfinal and Liverpool&newcastle for challenge cup final.

[Coggo]

Needs to move from Wembley to save the Challenge Cup as a viable competition.

I say rotate, not just in England either. France, too.

Make it more of an event again. 

[Coggo]

42 minutes ago, Maximus Decimus said:

I didn't really want to stir the hornet's nest of yesterday's actual attendance.

The capacity of the lower bowl is 49k, which was clearly not full. There didn't look to be many at all in the top tier.

Here’s a pic I took at 15:04 

 

Edited May 31 by Coggo

[Tommygilf]

Personal opinion, the Cup is an anachronism that doesn't work in the modern sport. Its not designed for how modern RL consumers buy the sport, and if it didn't exist now, we certainly wouldn't be introducing it. Its incredibly tired, and almost always looks worse than equivalent League games.

Solutions:

Make the 1895 Cup the open draw competition for non full time teams. 

Make the Challenge Cup matches fit into Season Ticket offerings, overnight the cup looks healthier. Personally for me that is a 4x4 group stage with 3 matches each then Semi Finals (or quarters if it boosts interest as the sport sees fit) before the final. I'd also consider the 1895 Cup Winners and the Championship winners qualifying for the Challenge Cup the following year to help that team gain exposure to a higher level and audience for a period of the year.

Rotate the venue from Wembley (I think Wembley should still remain, but right now there is zero novelty to it and we need that boost). I'd keep Wembley in the set of rotations alongside the other top stadiums others have mentioned. 

With the growth of Vegas, Paris, Barcelona, Dublin next year, as well as 1 or 2 trips to France and Magic too, there's a lot of demand and variety there. On the one hand, this shows that the sport can take events on the road, on the other, it is spreading things very thinly. 

[Tommygilf]

56 minutes ago, Maximus Decimus said:

Was thinking of doing this myself.

For me, the big issue is direction of travel. It is one thing debating over an event that gets 55-60k every year but we are far from guaranteed that.

Since we've been to the new Wembley it has been a steady downward trajectory. If you look at games of a similar stature, ie 2 big clubs, no special circumstances like a first time visit for years then yesterday's was a real disaster.

2010 - Warrington-Leeds - 85,000

2016 - Hull FC-Warrington - 76,000

2019 - Warrington-Saints - 62,000

2026 - Wigan-Hull KR - 56,000

As you can see, there was a huge drop from 2016-2019. Sandwiched between was the year Catalans won but the attendance was predictably low. IMO lower breeds lower.

There are mitigating circumstances for yesterday, especially from Hull KRs POV but the direction is going one way. Had it been Hull FC vs Leeds then maybe we'd have got over 60.

I can't see any reason to believe it will stabilise or grow medium or long term though.

 

Both Hull and Wigan had reasons to impact their numbers tbf. We need to make the cup final more immune from that. There's 2 ways of doing that:

1. Grow the overall interest in the game/competition to mean more people buy tickets regardless (the RU model so to speak).

2. Grow the fanbases of the clubs such that they have a far larger pool of fans to draw upon. 

[Damien]

50 minutes ago, Maximus Decimus said:

One of the problems for me with the CC is the format, but I see no way around it.

Quite frankly, it isn't that big an achievement to make the final any more. In reality, you might face only 1 decent team to get to the final.

Back in the day, when there was a wider batch of teams that could beat each other, it was an achievement.

I don't see a way around it, especially not group stages or something like that.

Is it much different in that regard than what it has been like for about 50 years? Bar swapping say Catalans for Fev and Huddersfield for Widnes in more recent years its been the same names in the finals for 50 odd years.

I do get the wider point and its nigh on impossible for a part time team to win it but in terms of teams its pretty much the same as when we were getting massive crowds in the 70s, 80s and 90s.

Edited May 31 by Damien

[Maximus Decimus]

Just now, Damien said:

Is it much different in that regard than what it has been like for about 50 years? Bar swapping say Catalans for Fev and Huddersfield for Widnes in more recent years its been the same names in the finals for 50 odd years.

There was definitely a wider level of competitiveness especially for one off games in the past.

Nowadays a SL club will pretty much always beat a non-SL club handily and they will beat a lower SL club regularly.

Also, this has been a slow moving decline. The CC was the biggest thing in RL for 100 years or so amd unquestionably the biggest thing in RL well into the 90s. 

That history has kept it going for longer than it probably should have IMO. The interest and support in the earlier phases has been very poor for ages now.

[Dunbar]

The problem is that we have two opposing, but viable, hypotheses.

One. Playing the game at Wembley is detrimental to the cup because the travel (logistics and costs) for the core fan base. Rotating or moving to a more convenient venue may revitalise the final and the whole competition. 

Two. Having the final at Wembley, and the prestige that goes with it, is keeping the competition relevant in the era of the playoffs and Grand Final, and if the final is moved, it will fade more quickly into obscurity. 

If we don't know the answer to this variable, we cannot get the right solution. 

[Damien]

5 minutes ago, Tommygilf said:

Both Hull and Wigan had reasons to impact their numbers tbf. We need to make the cup final more immune from that. There's 2 ways of doing that:

1. Grow the overall interest in the game/competition to mean more people buy tickets regardless (the RU model so to speak).

2. Grow the fanbases of the clubs such that they have a far larger pool of fans to draw upon. 

I touched on this on one of the other threads but the days of entire towns closing down and going to Wembley, or any ground for that matter, are gone. The world has most definitely moved on. On the face of it even if each finalist takes 25k that seems a pretty massive amount considering crowd sizes etc. Im not sure we are going to ever get many more from the actual finalists than what we are getting.

The extra has to come from outside that and for me that is from the South East. I just dont believe we are going to get massive amounts of other club SL fans, who see top class RL week in week out, going to the CC final as a neutral any more.

[graveyard johnny]

keep it at Wembley - fill the top tier with London and surrounding area schoolkids if the schools can sort their travel - sell the other seats to the fans 

[Deadcowboys1]

Not sure rotating grounds is a great idea, London have been trying that for 46 years with little sign of success. 

For me, the move to summer rugby so the final was nolonger at the end of the season & protection of the SL teams & no jeopardy  for them from when they enter like before has taken all credibility as a knock out tournament from the cup.

How you resolve that, who knows but the Challenge Cup Final is the only window onto the world free to air that RL has & that is important for driving it's footprint to a global stage. Whether the RFL have the ability or the balls to lead from the front, I doubt. 

 

[whatmichaelsays]

I've voted "other" for both because, to be honest, discussions about new venues or formats are just tactical discussions. 

For me, it just feels like we have no idea what we want our Challenge Cup to be any more. The nature of the game means that the days of true cup upsets are few and far between these days, but we almost cling to that idea that they are still a thing. So what is the purpose of the CC? Is it to use RL to stage an exhibition in London? If so, we can't take such a low-effort approach to putting on an event, not least because the fans have shown that they aren't buying into that. Is it just to give lower-league clubs a round-three pay day? 

The CCF doesn't exist in a vacuum and to be honest, in all of the discussions we've had about loop fixtures and fixture fatigue in recent years, the CC has been a bit of an elephant in the room, because it's another round of fixtures where the same faces tend to play each other in the latter stages, and gates in the earlier stages are nothing to get excited about either. 

There's a perfectly fair discussion to be had about whether the CC is even worth continuing, because we seem to have this discussion every single year.

[saintspete83]

2 hours ago, Maximus Decimus said:

I didn't really want to stir the hornet's nest of yesterday's actual attendance.

The capacity of the lower bowl is 49k, which was clearly not full. There didn't look to be many at all in the top tier.

There was just shy of 45k for the woman's football today. From what I have seen from a friend's photos who was there I am struggling to believe there was 10k extra yesterday. 

Also that Leeds v Warrington figure from 2010 was inflated by a full club Wembley that never was.

Edited May 31 by saintspete83

[wasginger]

The Challenge Cup has had it's day. Supporters aren't really interested in it anymore. SL is the be-all and end-all.

[Anita Bath]

1 hour ago, graveyard johnny said:

keep it at Wembley - fill the top tier with London and surrounding area schoolkids if the schools can sort their travel - sell the other seats to the fans 

What makes you think schoolkids would be interested in a trip to watch a sport they know little about, or teachers or parent would be interested in giving up their weekend to organise and manage the day?

Next we will be suggesting giving free tickets to those mythical millions of Aussie rugby league fans in London.

The days of filling Wembley for a club game are dead and gone. You could make it free for all and there would still be empty seats.

[Click]

3 minutes ago, Anita Bath said:

What makes you think schoolkids would be interested in a trip to watch a sport they know little about, or teachers or parent would be interested in giving up their weekend to organise and manage the day?

Next we will be suggesting giving free tickets to those mythical millions of Aussie rugby league fans in London.

The days of filling Wembley for a club game are dead and gone. You could make it free for all and there would still be empty seats.

They did it in the Ashes where they invited various schools and gave them tickets - the kids seemed to attend.

I imagine there has been zero follow up from the RFL with those schools since though.