You change your signature every week. Did you even read the article??

Atmosphere is all well and good.....but its not a luxury English RL can afford. As for your "if they see it on TV they will come" marketing strategy, you are Nigel and I claim my fiver......

Actually, atmosphere is one way to try and encourage support and interest. Plus sponsors might be more encouraged that people actually watch the sport. TV veiwing figures are less tangible or immediate.

And LOL at the fiver response, I guess that's one each.

How are TV viewers less tangible? They're the single biggest revenue source for most of our professional clubs.

Lies, damn lies and statistics. Bums on seats (or feet on terraces) you can actually see.

Ultimately though, even for TV viewers, if less people attend matches, it reduces the atmosphere of the game and the enjoyment of watching it especially for neutrals and those without a specific allegiance. Away fans play a part in this.

As for the atmosphere not being important, Leeds always have their band playing. If crowd atmosphere wasn't important to the overall feeling you get in a live match, they wouldn't bother. You may not comment on it afterwards, but you notice when its not there.

I have nothing against Toronto or Toulouse getting promoted (just not at our expense obviously). If they get there then it might add a new dimension to SL but expansionism isn't the magic bullet to fix the game's financial situation. Money is (obviously) and getting bigger crowds, generating more interest locally and word of mouth about how good it is, is all part of that solution. You can't force people to like the sport because it's now global, you encourage people to like it if they like what they see in person and on the TV and an atmosphere in the live games is all important to that aim.

A lack of away fans need not be a problem. Clubs without any away fans should instead buy up a load of mannequins on the cheap from declining high street stores like Debenhams and Marks and Spencer. Dress them up in your team shirt and have them transported to each away game where they can be put into a section of the stadium so that they look like a dedicated away support. You just need one real fan with them, equipped with a 1980's style ghetto-blaster and a tape containing various pre-recorded songs and chants in support of that team. Press the button when appropriate and unleash some atmosphere. Job done.

You can "see" TV audiences. It's what broadcasters look at when they determine whether or not a sport is worthwhile investing in. It's what potential sponsors look for. It's absolutely tangible and, as the sport's biggest revenue source, it should be prioritised.

Nobody is saying that we want fewer people to attend games. What I would suggest is that making decisions about the direction of this sport based on spurious ideas about "away fans" is misguided. We can generate atmosphere without away supporters (as evidenced by the atmosphere at many international events) and by other sports where 'away fans' is less of a factor. Most American sports are "made for TV" and command huge TV audiences, yet away fans and the contribution that they make to the TV product don't even register in the debate.



I never said it wasn't. My argument is that you don't necessarily need "away fans" to generate that and, given that you brought up the idea of what is and isn't tangible, the value of "atmosphere" is about as intangible as it gets.



I don't think there is any sensible poster on here who believes it is. It is simply one part of the equation and expansion is, in my opinion, an opportunity cost worth taking.



So we're back to "the way to improve this sport and get more money into it is to focus on the heartlands". The problem is that nobody seems to have any idea as to how doing that makes this sport relevant in the modern sports and media market. We have an aging audience that advertisers and the wider media don't care about, an audience that is generally hostile to any attempt by the clubs of governing body to try and generate more revenue from the supporter base, and people still think that focusing on this audience is going to change that? Word of mouth marketing isn't going to scratch the surface here simply because of the biggest failing with word-of-mouth - that people only tend to talk to people who are like them.

You're right, you can't force people to like this sport - that is not and never has been what marketing is about. But you can take this sport and make it more interesting, more exciting and more accessible to new audiences. And that's where expansion (amongst various other things) comes into the equation. If the existing clubs can do that, fantastic. But I don't think that they can.

And who's going to pay for the security at that end?

Perhaps we need a rerun of Kerry Packer versus Rupert Murdock. Perhaps a cash rich Chinese consortium willing to create a world league of brand new teams to bring rugby league to the downtrodden masses and make the game the dominant sport in the universe. I, of course, have absolutely no idea as to how this will happen but it is more likely than anyone fighting their way across the Pennines on the M62 on a Thursday evening.

I wonder what the average away following in Super League is? For Saints, we have Catalans, Huddersfield, Salford, Wakefield, Hull KR bring no more than a couple of hundred fans. Only Wigan and Warrington consistently bring more than 1,000. That's not a criticism. We play on a Friday night, fans work on a Friday, it's tough to make it to a match.

For the Hull clubs, I doubt that any side aside from the other Hull side, Leeds and maybe Castleford take more than a few hundred fans. If Widnes went down, would it make that much of a difference if they take 50 fans to Hull and Toronto take 0?

Maybe clubs should focus more on filling their grounds themselves rather than relying on others?

Summed it up perfectly.

Regards

King James