Got my tickets booked for the opening ceremony. Not booked for Wembley yet but I'm hoping to take 5 or 6 southerners with me. My boss who usually goes to the RU events told me she was going the other day as well, which is encouraging. Hopefully if they have matches at Wembley more frequently, for Four Nations etc. these people will carry on going

We could get a million total attendance and william would still find a new angle on it, or a way to somehow miraculously twist the stats to fit his agenda.

It's completely flawed logic anyway as someone has mentioned. You can't average it out per game and compare 15 games to 28 when the only thing increasing is the number of smaller games (semis & final remaining constant). He's only using that unfair method as it backs up his agenda on here.

Back in 1995, the final & semis represented 20% of games, here it's just 9%. You have to average the group games & compare em, then compare just the semis vs the semis, final vs final etc. That's if you want a fair comparison. You gets me

?

It's already looking better than I had imagined it would. Happy days, leave William to it and hope he one day finally finds a girlfriend.

Lets not forget the RLWC organisers are targeting this figure. So they may yet reach it.

It would be quite something to be able to publish near double the tickets sales of previous and also beat the average. It's possible but certainly a tough target.

I think we should certainly be keeping games at Wembley in future as well as other big stadiums. I think we've downsized for too long and it's hit the international game. It served it's purpose for a couple of years after the last world cup here but it's started to make us look small time and we need to start thinking big again.

I'd love a day billed as a rugby league festival at Wembley with England, Oz, NZ and another team involved in four nations games after watching the Knights play and the academies. Get the junior kangaroos over and the junior Kiwi's and let our youngsters and the welsh or French have a crack at them.

There are sold out areas at Old Trafford that are still available via ManUtd.com. A bit misleading to suggest they are.

If it works then it works. Even if it's another double header, then it's still 45k per match if you can sell it out?

I agree. As I was getting my hair cut this morning the barber said it is a disgrace that we are playing at Cardiff and Wembley, England should be playing at the Reebok. International football needs to be played in stadiums built for that purpose.

I am really getting excited now and plan to buy further tickets for Cardiff, Wembley, Huddersfield and Hull.

Ah, that makes sense! Was just what I'd seen on the French ticketing website.

I can't wait for the World Cup and I think it is shaping up already to be a fantastic tournament before a ball has even been kicked but all this William Eve bashing is slightly unfair.

His central point that SL has created a large army of fans who have little or no interest in attending Rugby League matches that aren't included in their club season ticket is valid. I find it baffling when clubs bring in less for play off/big cup games than they would for the corresponding league fixture. As frustrating as this is, on balance I'd rather have the situation now where several clubs are averaging 10k per game than the pre-1995 situation where almost no clubs did. In 1994-95 only Wigan and Leeds averaged over 10k.

It may be that 91 pages of William Eve stats on this thread and the SL attendance thread can be summed up by saying there are probably more people watching rugby league now than there was 20 years ago but the people back then as a collective, were probably more interested in rugby league as a whole, than people are today. This is of course entirely based on the mid-80s and early 90s when the sport had a fight back under Oxley and overlooks the 70s when the sport was on the bones of its 'arris.

If William wanted to continue his research he could dig up the average price of a ticket for the 1995 RLWC and adjust it for rugby league inflation and see how the prices compare to tickets for this year's tournament.

Quote JB Down Under="JB Down Under"You want to put on a bet that this World Cup will have a higher total and higher game avg than 1995? en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1995_Rugby ... _World_Cup'" the 89-92 World Cup had over 300k in attendance and has the highest aggregate total of all 13 events since 1954. Given the RFL's propensity for copious tissue usage when there's good news regarding anything about the game, ticket sales overtaking the 300,059 figure from 89-92 would surely prove too tempting for fat Nigel et al. As for wagering what will be the biggest, I have no doubt at all that this will be the biggest, best attended RLWC in the games history......this was never in doubt. (although the 1957 average may be a bridge too far) What is in doubt is how big an opportunity the game has missed through a number of bad choices, starting with venues, through to TV partners and the lack of a MAJOR brand in the sponsorship stable of contra deals...... Put it this way, we will all be applauding a brilliant tournament in a few weeks time, but ask yourself this. If the idiots who are destroying the domestic game through bad decision making and self serving policy reviews, then imagine how much better it could have been!

Quote JB Down Under="JB Down Under"You want to put on a bet that this World Cup will have a higher total and higher game avg than 1995? en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1995_Rugby ... _World_Cup'" the 89-92 World Cup had over 300k in attendance and has the highest aggregate total of all 13 events since 1954. Given the RFL's propensity for copious tissue usage when there's good news regarding anything about the game, ticket sales overtaking the 300,059 figure from 89-92 would surely prove too tempting for fat Nigel et al. As for wagering what will be the biggest, I have no doubt at all that this will be the biggest, best attended RLWC in the games history......this was never in doubt. (although the 1957 average may be a bridge too far) What is in doubt is how big an opportunity the game has missed through a number of bad choices, starting with venues, through to TV partners and the lack of a MAJOR brand in the sponsorship stable of contra deals...... Put it this way, we will all be applauding a brilliant tournament in a few weeks time, but ask yourself this. If the idiots who are destroying the domestic game through bad decision making and self serving policy reviews, then imagine how much better it could have been!