ON THURSDAY there was a palpable sense of optimism about the forthcoming season, both at the Super League launch in Manchester and later in the evening in a dinner organised by Sky Sports at one of the city’s leading hotels in order for them to introduce some of the additional commentators and pundits who will be joining the organisation as they begin their coverage of all six Super League games each weekend.
Part of the optimism comes from the positive news about the amazing increase in the number of Super League games that will be televised this season by Sky, the BBC and by L’Equipe in France.
The last of those will do a great deal for the Catalans Dragons’ media footprint across the Channel and in one sense it’s a great shame that Toulouse are not in Super League so that both those French sides could benefit from that development.
The message of strong season-ticket sales seems to be coming from most Super League clubs although for some reason they seem to be keeping that information very close to their chests when surely it would be sensible to broadcast it to the world.
And the same goes for crowd figures.
As you will see from looking at our scoreboard in today’s issue, most clubs now seem unwilling to reveal attendances for their home matches, which is unfortunate if we are hoping to see an upward trend.
Admittedly no Super League clubs played at the weekend and they kick off their season this week, led by the Hull derby on Thursday night.
And we might find that the Super League clubs do reveal their attendances, principally because the RFL is hoping that the record opening round crowd figure for a six-match weekend can be beaten.
The figure as it currently stands is 69,499, which was recorded in 2004.
Back then the biggest attendance on the opening weekend was the crowd of 17,267 who packed out Odsal Stadium to see Bradford Bulls hammer Wigan 34-6 with Lesley Vainikolo scoring five tries.
That gives some indication of what Super League has missed since the Bulls’ very sad demise.
But can the 2024 season beat that figure?
Well, the Hull derby is now heading for 20,000 sales, which is a great start to the weekend, and it would require the other clubs to average 10,000 between them if the target is to be met.
With Leeds, Catalans and St Helens also playing at home, that is a distinct possibility and I hope we can break 70,000, provided the clubs actually tell us what their attendances are.
Will there be a surfeit of television?
Like most other people involved in Rugby League, I’m delighted to see the increase in TV coverage that will happen this year, although I worry a little that there might even be a danger of having too much Rugby League to watch.
For example, this weekend, as well as six Super League matches, we will also be able to watch eight matches on Sky Sports from the NRL Pre-Season Challenge, starting on Thursday morning at 8.00pm with a match between Canterbury Bulldogs and Melbourne Storm, which will be shown on Sky Sports Main Event and Arena.
Then on Friday morning we will have the Women’s All Star Indigenous v Māori on Sky Sports Action at 6.50am, followed by the men’s All-Star game at 9.10am.
On Friday evening there will be three Super League matches being shown concurrently on three separate Sky channels.
On Saturday morning there will be four games from Australia sequentially, starting at 2.45am, while in the afternoon there will be two Super League games taking place at the same time, which the Castleford v Wigan game also being shown on BBC Two.
And that will be followed by three more NRL pre-season games on Sky Sports on Sunday morning.
Rugby League is a wonderful game to watch on TV, but having so much of it so readily available is surely a bit like going to your favourite restaurant and ordering your favourite meal every night for a month.
No matter how much you enjoy it, after consuming so much of it you may feel a little jaded.
Let’s hope that doesn’t happen.
