Well I went with some family to the Leeds game on Thursday and the comment that stood out was how "it's so much better live than on TV". This season as a group we've gone from 5 season ticket holders to 1 (me). That's been down to a combination of expense and changing circumstances. 4 of us went yesterday but the contrast in the quality of the game and atmosphere was pretty stark compared with Thursday.

Once people get out of the habit of going it's harder to get them back, games the quality of the Leeds match help but games like yesterday less so.

I don't have any answers and aren't a marketing guru but it seems to me that you can't simply rely on the same people coming year in year out. There needs to be a big effort made to bring in new fans every year. The bring a friend for a fiver is a decent idea, nothing new, but ok. The problem was that I was unaware of the offer and I doubt I was alone in that. That can cause a decent idea to fall flat.

It seems to me that if the club wants to attract a younger audience they need to do it via schools, college, university and social media.

They're trying at the uni'. There's been a couple of half price with a NUS card deals this year, and they're advertising it through the Student's Union's Facebook which has a pretty wide reach across the student body.

Could they offer them a free traffic cone with every ticket or something?

I had a season ticket for the last two years because it was cheap and now I don't have one. I've only been to two games this year, I just don't enjoy going as much as I used to do and can find more cost effective ways to spend my leisure time.

My friends who would come to occasional games with me in their teenage years would never go to matches now because of the cost, and that for the same price they could sit in the pub all Sunday afternoon having a few pints and watching the football on the television... plus now more and more people around my age group are starting families, getting mortgages etc so time / money aren't as freely available... so there is a need to attract a new generation.

I think something like the membership scheme might help, well you pay an upfront membership fee and then get cheap admission to games / offers etc - it'd take away the financial commitment of buying a season ticket (don't Bradford City do something like this?). Another one might be where you pay quite a bit of money for a season ticket but then get money back for attending - I'm sure Walsall FC are doing this for junior tickets.

I've no idea where RL / the Bulls can position themselves nowadays. Attracting a younger generation of fans not only has to compete with other leisure interests but the fact that Bradford has one of the country's highest youth unemployment rates. Generally disposable income left for leisure activities is shrinking, so people would be more unlikely to pay £20 to watch a game of RL... and finally the general perception of RL needs to improve against other sports. Any marketing experts in the house?

Good point about the lack of disposable income for younger supporters. The club need to be imaginative here to bring in a new generation of fans. Time for Kate Hardcastle to show what all the publicity is about.

The half-price with a NUS card is a good start.

What about some tickets for small groups of games? They could be targetted at schoolkids with the caveat that they bring an adult. 1st game would be free. Then subsequent games the price goes up by £5 a game. We need to get people hooked but they need tempting through the gates. It's harder than ever to get the crowds in so it may mean a short term loss.

I think giving free season tickets to kids at junior clubs would be a good idea. Give them up to about 10 years old. If they've got a free season ticket, they will want to use it and get to plenty of games, unfortunately they probably weren't be able to go without their patents taking them and paying. This is where they club gets it's money, while keeping the juniors involved.

Maybe though we are where we are, and maybe you just can't get a significant gate increase, choose wht you do, without either spending more than the revenue increase on marketing, or else going back to silly prices.

Maybe there just aren't the thousands of extra people out there who are able to be persuaded to come week in week out. I think that's about it, in a nutshell.

I think if the club is working for the medium to long term, i.e. throwing resources at finding any way you can to encourage kids to come back, thus with parents, and aim at recreating the Bulls family we once had, then that is probably the way to go, but times are hard, and as has been said already, many young kids are much more interested in communicating with their little virtual world and have little inclination to bother with the real world.

This year, ANY kid under 11 can have a FREE season ticket, and I'm not quite sure, if that doesn't attract plenty of young 'uns, what else they can do. Pay kids to come? I expect the answer is that free or not, you need to persuade the corresponding adults to take them and that isn't happening like it once did.

There are even those committed enough to bother browsing RAB who yet say that they pick and choose, or don't go at all. If people with that level of club connection can't be persauded then what else can they do?

To those who are of that reluctance - what WOULD encourage you to start paying regularly again? (Serious question). I expect that if the Bulls became seriously good again, the "glory hunters" (and I have NOTHING against them at all - my firm view has always been that nobody has any obligation whatsoever to spend their own time and money anywhere except their choice) will be back in reasonable numbers - but that is the arch chicken and egg situation since it is hard-to-impossible to get to those heights without spending the money on the players and so again you would question whether economically that would be working. Yes, 10-12K crowds, but any more money coming in NET??

As for chairmen, such as Caisley, berating the citizens for not supporting their club, that's probably the most counter-productive and irritating thing any chairman could ever do. For one, it won't get one single person extra through the gate - so what is the fookin point? For another, why would even an understandably peeved chairman think that if Fred Bloggs isn't coming despite a great team, good atmosphere, succesful results etc., yet he might come if he gets a bollocking in the press? The chairman may [ifeel[/i that way, but if he [isays[/i it, then he is truly a moron.

Finally, those who are going can, in my view, be easily the best marketing we have at the moment. Persudae friends and family to go. If YOU can't sell it, what chance has expensive ads in the media? I would suggest none. You shouldn't be surprised that people are now in a negative mindset about spending what is a lot of money in choosing to re-form an attachment/association with the Bulls. We that go, and can vouch for what a great time we now all hav,e and how well the team is doing are the converted. But those who stopped going will only come round very gradually, and only if the progress continues. I don't care how much you spent on marketing, I can't see it would make any real net cash difference.

Although I still go:
i) I am fed up with seeing games ruined by poor refs, both games we have woon and lost (and please don't say we wouldn't have a game without them)
ii)Last year left a very bad taste in the mouth - all the main players have drifted away and we still don't know what went on.

TBH, looking round at the crowds this year, they don't look physically any bigger than they have for the last 2 years. IMO if you actually counted the people through the gates, you'd have similar numbers to what we're getting now.

Yes, I know the attendances for the last two years have been given as over 10k, but that's taking into account all those cheap season tickets. Trouble is, I don't think all those 10k showed up every week. Which is probably a large part of the reason we ended up in the mess we did as it's likely the board were hoping to make up the short-fall from the ticket sales from concession sales (food, drink, etc) and as people were picking and choosing which games to attend that plan sort of fell on it's backside.

What about a season ticket scheme that rewards loyalty?
Something like:
Attend all 13 league games - 20% off next years season ticket (could be graded - 12 games 10%, 11 games 5%).
Challenge Cup games 2% off for each game attended.
Play off games 5% off for each game.
Friendlies 2%
And so on. I think it would encourage people to attend more games and spend money while they are there.

Sorry, but IMO in practice a very poor idea mate, once you think it through.

Some of us have to work sometimes on matchdays. Or even, heaven forbid, manage to take a holiday. Or maybe fall ill. Or close family members do. Or have domestic emergencies. Or whatever else. Or have to accommodate partner's or otehr family commitments.

That does not make such people any less loyal fans.

Can see where you are coming from, but IMO would be highly counter-productive as would probably pìss off as many loyal fans as it might incentivise. It certainly would me.

Certainly a difficult question with no easy answers, so interesting to see the ideas

As Adey says even with a season ticket there will be reasons you cannot get to all the home games, and I have to be honest and say the games I make a real effort to see are the Leeds Derby, and Saints, Wigan and Wolves because by and large they play good football and you get a good feeling if you get some points from them - sorry if I have offended someone there. We have 3 of these games still to come this season which will hopefully push up the average gate, and the Saints game was messed about which probably cost a few thousand bodies on the gate.

However if we can say that at 7500 attendances are at base level - fingers crossed - and the majority of the club's main costs are fixed - then any additional marginal income you can generate has to help. My thoughts - and some of these might already be in place would be a) to target the younger supporters, and b) put some extra incentives in place to bring back some of the fans who have either lost some interest or are finding their incomes squeezed. So:
1) free season tickets for youth players registered at clubs in the area.
2) £2 tickets for school age children
3) A £2 UB40 ticket
4) If you buy a £20 day ticket you get a voucher for a pint/burger.
5) Ticket deals for away fans made available through their clubs.
6) More deals like the £18 lunch in the coral for the Salford game, with say a family of 4 meal and game ticket
7) A five games for £50 mini season ticket


Tickets through schools - maybe with a family bundle free - as you would hope at least some might enjoy the experience and come back as paying customers.
9) Ban television - OK I know that one is a bit radical:)