[iI posted this on the Saints redvee forum earlier in the week but it could work across the board really. Please excuse the Saints specific references...[/i


There's been plenty of concern in the media since the weekend about poor attendances for the Challenge Cup ties. Only our game at Cas and Toronto v Warrington managed to attract a crowd in excess 5,000. Obviously there were plenty of travelling Saints fans in the figure of 5342 so that still means that there was a very poor turn out from home fans for what was the tie of the round. The fact that only 1,800 turned up at Widnes to see their game against Leeds is beyond worrying.

So my theory is that season ticket holding supporters simply aren't turning out for matches that are not covered by their season ticket?

It's noticeable in recent years that crowds are drastically smaller for cup games and play-offs. Even at LP (not that we've had many Home knockout ties of late) the empty seats really do tell their own story.

So what do we do about it? Well, here's an idea. The maximum number of home knockout games (Challenge Cup and Play-Off semi-finals) that any Super League club can play in a year is 4. That's based on a team from the previous year’s Qualifiers having 3 home ties in the 5th & 6th rounds and quarter-final and then also finishing in the top 2 after the Super 8s to get a home semi in the play-offs. That's not overly realistic in my opinion so let's say that on average a club will get 1 or 2 home knock-out fixtures per year. Saints are charging around £20 for members to take their seats for the quarter final against Hull. Why not stick an extra £30 on the cost of season tickets and say that all knockout fixtures are covered as well?

I think that would be a fair enough deal. 10% on the cost of a season ticket to give members their seat in the ground whatever the competition would not only put a fair few extra bums on seats for cup games but it would also add 10% of revenue to the clubs accounts before the season starts to invest as they see fit. As a member who pays by direct debit it would mean shelling out an extra £3 a month. Even I can get that kind of financial arrangement past the wife without causing an argument.

From both sides there's an element of risk involved. The club may end up with no home ties and have some extra cash to go and sign a new star from the NRL. Equally it could go the other way and we have all of our knockout games at home. If that were the case though a good percentage of what the club loses on the gate receipts could come back from the added merchandise and refreshments sales that go with having a much bigger crowd. So there's an element of jeopardy involved but We currently have to roll the dice on the number of home fixtures we play anyway. Due to the Super 8s the top 4 teams get 15 home games a year while 5th-8th only get 14.

So what do you think? Worth the risk? Or is the Challenge Cup simply not relevant anymore?

To me the challenge cup is the best comp of the lot I like what you say but it’s the timing has well that is all wrong move it back to we’re it was and the gates will improve

I think that is a decent idea, there is little doubt that something needs to be done and I certainly think that the SL clubs coming into the comp so late has utterly destroyed the romance of the cup.
Small clubs never had a "good" chance of making it but, it's certainly more difficult now.

The real answer is to get to the bottom of why we have a product that the people who apparently love it more than anyone else and who refer to it as "The Greatest Game" aren't prepared to pay £20 for.

We don't see football clubs discounting Champions League tickets or Premiership Rugby Union clubs discounting European Cup tickets, and those events don't have the issues that we seem to have with not only the Challenge Cup, but the Super League play-offs as well.

Again, it's convenient to look for the easy answers but for me it comes down to at least one (and more likely a combination of) three things:

1. The product isn't good enough. The people we're selling this to simply don't think that it represents value. In which case, we need to improve the product.
2. We're selling it in the wrong way. In which case, we need to address that. Are we making it easy for people to buy the product? Are we playing games at the right time and in the right places? Have certain clubs perpetually discounting tickets simply devalued the value of the sport to the point where people aren't prepared to pay what is still, by UK professional sporting standards, a relatively low admission price?
3. We're selling it to the wrong people. In which case, we need to find new audiences.

Including the cup in season tickets is a stop gap solution but the cup ultimately exists to make money. If it isn't doing that, it's wasting a lot of people's time.

It's happening across most sports by the looks of it. Interest in domestic club competitions is waning. It seems to me that sport is more about the event than the actual spectacle. Clubs and administraters need to figure out how we create that atmosphere around these games. Simply debasing the price won't change things. I mean £20 for professional RL game is a bargain.

It is, but where interest in the League Cup or FA Cup is falling away, football has European competition.

Rugby Union has never really taken its domestic cup that seriously since turning professional (The Anglo-Welsh Cup replaced the Powergen Cup and is largely a development competition that's played during Six Nations weeks), but the European Championship is what matters.

We don't have that. But what worries me more is that this isn't just a Challenge Cup issue - if interest is falling in that then it's perhaps more understandable, but we have this issue with the Super League play-offs. If our sport and our clubs can't generate an event and a quality proposition from the four best teams in the country facing-off in a 'winner takes all' tie to get to Old Trafford, what's going on?

Even the £1m gane - after we were constantly told that "jepoardy sells" - doesn't shift that many tickets.

i actually think its that clubs have conditioned their fans/customers that buying a season ticket/membership is the best thing and most cost effective way.

So if you've got x thousand fans used to not putting their hand in their pocket during the season, its hard to change that mindset. Certainly on families who now need to find upwards of 40 quid in some cases.

For Super League clubs a cup run is now only 3 games and your in the final. Win one game and your in the quarters! Hardly a cup run or a 'Challenge' as the cup is named.
Most clubs do a discount for cup games, people just don't want to pay extra on top of their season ticket for some reason.

Maybe it's called, "not being able to afford it".

So nearly every single Season ticket holder who has paid and can afford over £200 quid for a season ticket can't afford a one off £15 to watch a game?

Marketing, in the wide sense, is the biggest issue. Crowds for most CC ties have been pretty miserable and on the wane for years. You can say what you kie but bottom line is that for ANY event if you market it so that people find it an attractive proposition then they will come, and won't even be that bothered by the price.

Whereas if the event is not interesting then people will not come even if the admission is free.

This is not an issue of price. It is an issue of perception. The early rounds are largely viewed as a waste of time and people would rather take the week off to go to B&Q or dig the garden or catch up on stuff.

Interest in the Cup has not been lost, although certanly screwing about with it and moving the traditional fixtre times has damaged it but you still get a near full house for the Final which could easily be between two teams who had they played in the QF would have attracted only a meagre crowd. So this proves it is not the sport, and not the teams, but the event. The aura of a big Final down the smoke is viewed by 90K as well worth taking the day out for, and spending a LOT of money, EVEN THOUGH THEY KNOW IT IS LIVE ON TELLY.

It's not my job to find or state the marketing methods to revive it. I just know it could be done. I do think though that it would involve a complete reconsideration of what we want from the Cup. It was of course screwed over deliberately so that the GF was pre-eminently THE big kahuna of the game, and I sort of get that given the Sky sponsorship, but it is a shame the RFL agreed to this, as taking the view that there could be only one major comp is rather insulting to RL.

One big thing that would need to change apart from the fixture timings, is the attitude of the SL clubs. If they came into the hat 2 rounds earlier then that itself would instantly restore some of the magic of the Cup, and you would certainly get decent crowds for potential giant-killing fixtures. But I fear the SL chairmen would never agree as they seem to be heading down the route of limiting numbers of fixtures, rather than increasing them. One part-solution to that of course would be to roll back the ridiculous playoffs system where soon every tem in the Sl will be involved. Say top 4 play off. But then the same SL chairmen will bleat that this will likely deprive them of a couple of games in the playoffs!

That's what i said.

If that's genuinely there issue (and I accept that everyone has their own financial pressures), then why are we creating events to sell when our target audience can't buy them?

You don't see Waitrose putting supermarkets in council estates for that very reason.

I think cost is only part of the issue, and perusing that as the easy answer is only going to devalue the sport further.

It all comes down to the "event."

The event (whichever of the earlier rounds) doesn't seem that big. To go out in the sixth round is no big deal because you're not in the competition long enough to invest much bother. You're often against teams you're familiar with, have played before, or are of a really low standard, so interest there wanes too.

I think a rugby league festival style event, like Magic, for each round would be brilliant and revive the cup personally. I love Magic as a concept, but it's an artificial extra round to be fair. Moving it to the CC would free up a fixture, reduce costs for hosting clubs, provide rugby league in a new area and probably not event affect the combined attendance in the process.

Yes,my apologies,that's what i meant. What part (amount) we'll never know.

You don't see rugby league clubs in posh areas either.