Id agree with most of that. Id say there are probably more than 15k of the current fans. Probably 17/18k. But you also need to take into account, that all the prospective fans would be available to the new club. Fans who dont currently have an affiliation would be available to the new club, so they would have the growth areas of both clubs. Which is also importance.



Im not sure what you being on earth has to do with the sense in them merging, they may have to in the future.

If merging Leeds and Hunslet made them stronger then I would have no problem with it. But I cant see how it would. Wakefield do have something to offer Cas, access to a huge potential market

Huge?

How many people do you think there are in the Wakefield area who aren't already well aware of rugby league and the local professional teams but choose not to bother going to support any of them?

Why should that change just because you artificially create a merged club?

Wakefields promotion of themselves is pretty poor, their stadium is god awful and the first team just as bad. Cas simply have a very limited market.

It wouldnt only be the name that would change, but a stronger club, based out of Glasshoughton would offer stronger promotion, fantastic facilities and a better product.

The first question is, if, as we all suspect, Wakefield go down, their attendances are likely to drop from around 6k to around 1-1.5k. there are 4.5k people in that district who want to attend SL rugby league, how do we keep them, and their money, in the game?

The second is, there are 330k people in the Wakefield district. We cant have a club in every one of the small towns that make up the district, so how do we tap in to that whole market with a single club?

Those 4,500 people don't want to just attend any old Super League game though, they want to attend a game in Super League featuring their particular club.

What you're suggesting (even based on your estimated crowd figures turning out to be right, which I doubt) completely ignores the idea of supporter loyalty. It's the equivalent of suggesting that Widnes coming into SL is going to significantly reduce Warrington's attendances because a portion of their crowd will suddenly desert them to go watch another local team instead.

Yet when Wakefield were in the lower leagues, their attendances were tiny, there has been huge growth in their attendances over the past 10-15 years, and I think we all accept that their attendances will fall when/if as we expect, they are relegated. Supporter Loyalty is vastly over-estimated.

Ties are made and broken, Clubs grow and they shrink. Many would argue that Bradfords efforts in the early part of SL negatively affected Keighley's attendances, and many fans from Keighley moved over during Bullmania.

The point of merging the clubs rather than simply having Wakefield die and hoping Cas can pick up some remnants is to change 'their particular club' sell it as part of something bigger.

So because you have a team playing out of a stadium in Castleford but incorporating a few players and members of backroom staff from Wakefield, fans of Wakefield will still identify with it as their club and go along to support it in large numbers?

I'd love to see some market research to back that idea up, or have you forgotten the reaction from the rugby league public the last time mergers were proposed in that area?

No. I havent suggested that a taking a few players and backroom staff would constitute a merger anywhere. It would go much deeper than that and be a new club representing both areas. Glasshoughton is in Wakefield you know, and only 1 whole junction on the motorway from where Wakefield wanted their stadium built.

Wakefield fans wouldn't go watch a team playing in Glasshoughton, Cas could market the current team anywhere they want, you don't need a merger to do that.

The fans don't want it, the boards don't want it, only you want it and you're a blinkered Leeds fan who seemingly knows nothing at all about why people get associated with sports teams, I'm going to assume you didn't watch RL before LUFC got relegated and you jumped on board the band wagon like half the folks who go to the Rhinos games now.




2 junctions.

And GET IT INTO YOUR HEAD!!!! Fans WILL NOT support a merged team so why keep blabbing on about something only YOU think is a good idea?

So you're kicking the existing Castleford club into touch as well then, in creating this new entity that is suddenly going to bring together the rugby league supporting public of the Five Towns area?

I know very well where Glasshoughton is by the way, I've got family in and around the area. Try telling them they live in Wakefield and see where it gets you, irrespective of their postcode or who they pay their council tax to.

But apparently

So Cas cant attract these fans can they.

You are literally going from the slip road off junction 32 to the slip road off junction 30. You pass one junction.

Not suddenly. But over time.

I did, i was doing some work for a company just outside the Xscape, pretty much exactly where the stadium will be built, spoke to lots of people about RL and coming from Leeds to Wakefield every day, nobody seemed to care about the difference between Wakefield, Glasshoughton and Cas.

Yes, because if you didn't miss words out that change the entire context of a sentence to suit your inane ramblings, you'd see the MAIN of the fans, i.e. the core support come from the town - however just look at the locations from where fans come from to watch Cas you'll see:

Castleford, Pontefract, Featherstone, Wakefield, Normanton, Knottingly, Doncaster, Leeds, Hull, London, some fans came up from BRISTOL last year after seeing a Cas game on TV.

So yeah, a merger isn't needed, stop banging on about it we aren't interested.

So you acknowledge that there will be drop off in support in the initial period after a merger, that a new club won't necessarily acquire all the fans of both the old clubs?

So once these fans disaffected by the merger walk away, where are their replacements going to come from given you've already acknowledged in response to Gaslight that Cas can't attract new fans from the surrounding area at the moment?

A drop off from what level? I certainly think a merged club would immediately get attendances at least comparable with the clubs individually, likely not cumulatively.

Some would come back. And as Cas will struggle to attract fans from the rest of the district as they dont represent the rest of the district, a merged team which did represent the district wouldnt have the same issue.