I was told by someone who really does know that we have reached 9k sold. Not bad with a few weeks still to go. I think to sell the equivalent of our normal season average attendance in season tickets would be a great achievement.

You can pretty much bank on Wigan and Warrington selling out as they will bring 4k easily.
Widnes well that will depend on if they are able to compete, if they get battered every game then you can see the optimism falling away quickly. But if they hold their own I see no problem with that selling out.
Salford game being the first should also sell out too.

The question with marketing a Saints 'Big one' is how much do you pump in for what return. If wigan get 15k turning up that still leaves space for the marketing men to fill of another 10k worth of seats.

I think we are all agreed that we have sold somewhere in the region of 9k. This could easily be 10k by season start. Therefore when you add in say between 2k and 4k of walk ups and away fans for standard games. That only leaves say between 3k to 4k for the marketing men to work on for a Saints 'Big One'.

Which will be not alot of return for the expense of say a TV advert.

Personally if we are getting gates in the likes of say 13k to 14k on regular matches, then much better to give away 2k worth of child tickets in manchester or liverpool schools. Draw in some new potential fans who of course would have to bring an adult to get to the match.

I doubt any serious marketing will be done until next year or mid this season at the earliest. You have to see what the draw of the new stadium will be on it's own, before you start pumping money into marketing that will bring marginal returns at best or be a loss making venture at worse.

It's all unknown at the moment what the impact will be even 10 games into the season.

I think there are some very valid points there, especially if we get the 10 000 season ticket target. With a couple of thousand walkups don't think it would be cost effective to market a big one.
Maybe a few games were the away support is poor (Catalans + London) like you say, throw in a few thousand tickets for a nominal fee or a freebie, effectively make the away end (Catalan + London) an invitation one.

Personally I'd like to see Saints use their own approach rather than copy what Wigan has done. To begin with, we don't have a Heinz in our town which means our corporate numbers would not be in the thousands for a single match (I think Wigan invite Heinz for one match every season don't they?). IMO this season Saints won't need to do anything special because the stadium alone will pull in the crowds but next year they may need to think up some special marketing ploy(s) and it/they will need to be something relevant to St Helens.

I think Pilks in St. Helens employ more people than Heinz do in Wigan.

I doubt that although obviously I could be wrong. The numbers at Pilks are rising because of re-investment in the town but until last year I think there was just the remnants of Cowley Hill plus Latham (which is outside of St Helens anyway) left. There may be one or two depts left in the old head office building but I seem to remember they were all relocated a few years back. Last year apparently brought 100 jobs back to St Helens when they took a factory out of mothballs and when the extended City Road facility is built/brought back into use, a further 250 jobs are destined to be created. But they've only just cleared the land for that.

I will admit I'm more of a marketing skeptic than most but thats because I'm less prone to itBut it can`tbe doubted it does work. As for copying wigan no problem there if it works then do it.

Can abide dogma when it means harming ones own interests.

Marketing DEFINITELY works, the toss up is the cost & quality of the marketing versus the payback in the bank long term.

We've got that simple equation desperately wrong in the past so many times.

Pray Sir, on what do you base that souposition

And I thought it was because you were being a bit of a pane in the 'arris.

Best wishes to you and all your Family

Pretty much with you on this.

There is no need for Saints to do a 'big one' promotion game as we don't know what our crowds will be like in the new stadium yet. It may be worth assessing in a few years when the novelty wears off but I'm expecting our lowest crowd will be well above 10,000 next season anyway. The Saints should be makreting most games anyway and really selling the new stadium as it could potentially hit near to capacity alot next season if we promote it enough.

Some quick estimates:
Wigan, Warrington, Widnes, Salford! ............ 16 to 18k
Leeds, Hull, Bradford, Castleford.................. 15 to 16k
Hull KR, Huddersfield, Wakefield ................. 14 to 15k
London, Catalans. ..................................... 12 to 14k

If we can get around 200 000 through the Superleague turnstile, revenue could be around 4 000 000 quid.