2016 attendance was 6219
Rearranged 2017 fixture was 6561

Damn those statistics

I totally agree with that part of your post; Widnes should be recognised in some way for the inconvenience and their flexibility in finding a way for this fixture to go ahead. Whether 2k is the appropriate sum or not, I don't know, but it should have gone to Widnes, not the RFL.

I thought Wigan made a (financial) arrangement with Widnes regarding the ticketing of the hastely rearranged game and their following meeting?

No problem with the fixture being moved to Widnes' ground, but should've still been the Wigan home game.

With this and the Saints - Hudds game, seems that teams can just play the games when they game when they want, where they want, to avoid any inconvenience.

That's the rumour.

It's not rumour, IL said it:

"The Wigan Club will make a significant financial contribution to compensate Widnes for the short notice of the staging of this game and our sincere thanks go to Widnes CEO James Rule who has worked tirelessly with us to get this fixture on."

Maybe we should have surprise fixtures on a more regular basis then


They could come under the heading of "RL innovation"

The attendance was 300 UP on the corresponding fixture in 2016!!!

No point in comparing attendances, as the hastley rearranged fixture just charged a flat £10 admission fee, noting an arrangement between the clubs that Wigan would cover any financial losses.