Looking at todays Championship 1 crowds made very grim reading, South Wales, Workington & Doncaster all had sub 500 crowds, Oldham had a respectable 800+ but the biggest worry is that runaway leaders Hunslet who are in Blistering form and have been all season could only get 537 to watch a pulsating encounter against York RL on a lovely summer day. How can we improve Championship 1 crowds??

'WE' cannot do anything, how are we going to improve crowds for clubs in Championship 1, when we do not work for their marketing departments?

We can't exactly rave about SL crowds either.

Perhaps a cohesive strategy for pushing the Championship and Championship 1 by the RFL. A club on a limited budget can only do so much PR. If so many clubs are getting sub 500 crowds we are just gonna go round in a constant cycle of clubs going bust, points deductions etc... Which can only be poor for the good of the overall game. A central marketing initative would help. The Centralised Game on match programme was a great idea. The odd double header, better marketing of the NRC ( ie: not having massive gaps between rounds then 2 months between the semi's and the final would help create some momentum ) A TV Magazine programme dedicated to the Championship and Championship 1 leagues. What about the RFL really pushing the NRC Final and the Northern Rail 9's in the media with radio ads, adverts in national papers and TV adverts??

they have marketing departments.

you could have fooled me

Rugby league isn't a good enough product to be any more than a very minor sport over here.

If you watch the average game you would do well to avoid abstract boredom. The refereeing is awful, the standards are awful (Worse at the level the OP is on about) and it's all so stale and dull.

Compare with the NRL and it's a billion miles away.

if you listen to aussie radio stations like 2GB & 2UE,like i do, then you'd know fans down there ring up this stations to complain about how the refereeing is awful and the overall standard of the games has drop...and they wanna to know what they can do about it.....

who are the warriors?

Hunslet Warriors there in National conference league

All the advertising in the world isn't going to make much difference.

FWIW, if the RFL are interested in growing crowds outside of Superleague, they should get every SL club to offer a 75 ...or even 100 quid upgrade to a season ticket/pass. This upgrade would entitle the holder to entry into any NRC, Ch or Ch1 games. The revenue generated would be split evenly between all the clubs in these competitions......every holder of these tickets could be sent a fixture list weekly, once refs have been appointed etc and encouraged to get to at least 1 game outside of SL. As an addtional incentive, anyone who does use their upgraded ticket goes into a draw with various prizes like weekends in blackpool for the NRC final, a box at the GF at Old Trafford, international tickets etc.......
The management and promotion of such a scheme would cost next to nothing and each SL club (especially in the heartlands) would be expected to promote the scheme to their fans.
The clubs from the lower divisions would benefit from this not only through the revenue stream from these upgraded tickets, but also the residual sales of beer, shirts, food etc....and the possibility of getting supporters of SL clubs to adopt them as a second club.

Why is that? too much apathy? or lack of marketing in south leeds?



isn't a lot of that funded by the rhinos anyway? so whilst they might say they are promoting the Hunslet cause, they are paying lip service to it and promoting the Rhinos cause. I know this is the case with the work they are doing on behalf of the Bramley Trust fund.



is that not because the warriors and the rhinos are in your (their) faces more, with more strategic placements of adverts of the games and like?

Some of them really havent a clue have they Martin

People would rather watch a team in the Conference than a team in Championship 1.



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