... from Red Hall?

Indeed, I agree.

Any advance on 355,000?

I don't know why you're starting to include Australian sport in this as this different countries have different attitudes towards sport. No quoting one large fan-based team (especially when they couldn't reach 30,000 in the FA Cup at home a few years ago when they were pretenders) will change what is an obvious and probably bigger decline in interest in their domestic cup. You've even pointed out the less well supported teams suffered from more empty stadiums.

Truth is the FA Cup has followed a very similar path to the CC in terms of importance. The 70's, 80's, early 90's it was known as FA Cup Final Day with that being the sole attraction and attention.....in 2011 Man City won the cup on the very same day Man Utd had a lunchtime kickoff that claimed that seasons title for them. If that's not a true example of where that competition stands then I don't know what is.

League titles decided on the same day, change in traditional kick off times, managers saying they'd rather not be involved in the competition. No diverting off to the Auckland 9's will change that. Oh, and for 4 years in the early to mid 00's the FA Cup had no main title sponsor.

Fair enough. BTW, I'd steer clear of calling the events I named "Australian" when discussing them with a proper Kiwi

Trademark.

No just shows what we know all along, football is a bigger deal than RL in England.......but no amount of numbers can help with the obvious fact that people's interest in the FA Cup has dwindled from what it use to be. I live in the country surrounded by football mad friends and work colleagues, the obvious disinterest compared to other competitions is massive. Some may still attend the match, but I doubt many Chelsea fans are still gutted about their exit from the Cup like they will be if they exit the Champions League when that starts up again. Or had they lost the league game there.



Aww bless, another excuse for the others sports. It's the "tv schedulers" to blame. Note when games are shifted around in RL it's the end of the sport as we know it and the RFL are to blame for this happening. There is inconsiderate or poorly planned tv scheduling, then there is having the league title and FA cup decided on the same day, that's hardly bad scheduling, that's an example of how the FA Cup is thought of. As for telling us how many were at Wembley, yeah great, many were they for the CC Final too.



Damn me mentioning one final from 3 years ago, how dare I, it had no place in this argument.



It's not an opinion about what people were talking about, it's fact. I'm actually in the country, reading the papers, watching the sports news on tv, surrounded by football fans.......who progressed was a mere afterthought, the focus was how it'd effect the title race. Journalists are going on about Mourinho's war of words with Wenger, not who Man City play in the next round.

Oohhhh Australian Sports eh?
Both games are ENGLISH sports, both games were played in NEW ZEALAND CITIES and your clutching at straw (men) now.

actually, I'll answer the question of the blitzkrieg poster when he admits he is wrong......

Nice try....but I mentioned and then you hung your hat on 2 events.....16 at both, so 16 Australian and 16 NON Australian.....yet you claim them both as AUSTRALIAN SPORTS.

If Sid James were alive he could play you in "carry on failing" (babs Windsor as loiner81)

If the RFL's audience figures don't correspond with BARB's officially published figures, then whose figures do they correspond with?

Be fair Bill. Knock-Down Nigel's bumper book of Spin has delivered so much in the way of Legacy from the RLWC, surely the odd "mistake" can be expected

BTW.....BARB take the entire viewing figure for the programme and create their own average. This is the industry standard figure that is accepted by agents and advertisers alike. The RFL did nothing wrong except compare the BARB averaged figure from 2013 with the "raw" data from 2014......if they had waited a couple of weeks then they would have been accurate/precise, but they got ahead of themselves and now they look stupid.

at Least the adjusted average figure makes the TV deal starting in 2017 but agreed no look a little better than it did before