I was at the Carlisle United v Southampton final at Wembley the other weekend. Despite both teams being from the third tier of English football the 73k attendance was the biggest sporting attendance of the weekend.

Back to RL - We have some formerly big teams in the Northern Rail Cup and many who have lifted the Challenge Cup in the past.

So how comes the third tier of English Football can have a respectable Wembley attendance where the Northern Rail Cup can fit in Bloomfield Road in Blackpool.

How would you improve it?

Turn it from a pre-season comp to overlap with the League season perhaps cumulating in a double header at Wembley with the Challenge Cup?

Get the French Elite involved in their own pool prior to the knock out stages?

maybe because football is the National sport and is a lot better supported than RL.
I dont think you can really improve the attendance for the NRC to anything like the JPT standard simply because its never going to get an attendance anywhere near Football be it 3rd tier or whatever

The two aren't comparable.

Even in the 3rd tier of English football there are 5 teams with higher average attendances than any Super League side, it's in a different world in terms of profile compared to Championship rugby.

What are Championship attendances comparable in Soccer? Sunday League Lads 'n' Dads or something?

Not really sure, but I was at an 8th tier football match this afternoon with over 3000 in attendance, OK that's not the norm but it's a stark indicator of how far behind RL is in terms of interest and profile.

Isn't that Unibond Division 1? I've been to a few Warrington Town games, and they usually get a couple of hundred.

People will go because it's at Wembley. Bloomfield Road? Doesn't inspire confidence that the NRC has any presidence, does it?

rename the NRC the challenge shield/trophy and play the final as a curtain raiser to the challenge cup final



as the advert says..SIMPLES!

Spot on. I reckon most clubs would take more than 10,000 to Wembley just because it's the special place it is.

Most of them will have never seen a game in their lives and will probably never go to see another one but turn up as gloryhunters just to be able say I was there when we played at Wembley back in the day.

yes i see what you mean,just like warrington in the final at wembley.

Much as I dislike Blackpool [ the town ] I dont really see any better option at the moment , personnally having the NRC final as a curtain raiser would just detract from it as a competition IMO , As for the attendance of the final , a bigger concern is the low interest in all games played in the lower tier games , that should be the main focus

What about playing the NRC final either at Murrayfield?

Or as i have said in the past, play one of the big SL games at a big stadium and play the NRC as the curtain raiser for that. What crowd would you get at Anfield or Goodison if Widnes v Leigh and then Saints v Wigan was played there?

So in your opinion we are worth nothing more than a pre game entertainment for a SL match , do we go on before or after the cheerleaders and the stiltwalkers ?

I think the NRC final being a prelude to the Challenge Cup final is a good idea, but the tv rights and sponsorship deal would have to be brought in line with challenge cup to make it work.

Not sure about Murrayfield though, I don't think being a sideshow to Super League games does it for me.

FWIW

If you played the NRC final at Old Trafford and allowed FREE entrance it STILL would not be a sellout.