Back when Wembley was a sell-out every year, the world has moved on. It was often the big trip of the year for many people, but now people enjoy city breaks and overseas trips all the time. Going to London is nothing special anymore, and the loss of the old Empire Stadium takes away the traditional feel.

It was also the only big event, and the RFL can't have that many. They either have Magic or they have the Challenge Cup, and they have it at a time when perhaps 10% of the audience isn't on holiday, but they can't have both. They could easily make it a whole weekend thing somehow. Take it on the road. There are many ways to reinvigorate it, but watching a half-empty stadium isn't one of them.

This.

For supporters of teams who are unlikely to get to finals their day out at Magic is their Rugby League 'big stadium event'. In years gone buy many of them would have attended the CC Final as a neutral. Another thing which is overlooked, the demographic of a Rugby League crowd has changed (mostly intentionally). It's been marketed as 'the family game'. There used to be more men who go with their mates for a good session on the beer. Nowadays there's more families, kids etc which makes a more expensive day out for the whole family.

Stadiums are mostly designed these days with viewing and comfort in mind which has a significant effect on the atmosphere. The sense of occasion can be lost.

Also a lot of fans from traditional but smaller none SL clubs and amateur teams used to go as a regular event, regardless of who was playing. However, over the years the RFL/SL and the snobbish nature of many posters on forums like this has managed to alienate them.

There is no incentive or people at these clubs to organise trips because to them SL is a different world to which they no longer feel an allegiance too, a bit like the International game.

Get these people incentivised again and you will fill far more seats, maybe not the sell outs we used to get but certainly a lot closer. I'd guess we are talking maybe 5,000 extra fans.

Well said.

Wait, hang on...RLFans.com is responsible for lower Wembley crowds...

Challenge Cup is a dying/dead tournament, poor attendances in every round. Throw in there's too many games it's just time to get rid of it.

Could you imaging football doing the same with the FA Cup ??

Clearly the Challenge Cup is not quite right at the moment and THE main reason is the move to summer rugby and the emphasis for success all driven towards the GF.
To abolish the cup, along with almost 130 years of history would be a very, very sad day for the sport.
As with many things that are wrong with our sport, the promotion of the cup is terrible.
Even the addition of the 1895 final to Cup Final Day was done the wrong way round.
Having the lower ranked game on after the main event was mickey poor.
IF we ware going to have any double header events, the lower grade game has to be played first. It's like going to a gig and putting the support band up second

I agree

The final needs moving back 6-8 weeks away from summer holidays.

Scrap this seeding system aswell and go back to random draw. Losing the shock factor of two big teams going head to head in first round proper just takes the excitement of the draw away, now every super league team knows they are more than likely having to play pretty much 3 super league teams to get to the final. Each round should be every 3 weeks and 4 weeks from semi to final.

Scrap magic weekend as that's has served very little purpose, attendance their as stalled and was never really that great anyway. Make the CC weekend the big day out weekend again. Having it 2-3 months away from the grand final means they two events will not interfere with each other so much.

I don't see why creating that bit of random draw surprise rounds played at regular intervals and only the grand final as the ther. It occasion will not help get some cup magic back again. It's never going to be the biggest event ever again the Grand final has that and so it should be, be no reason why it cannot be a close second.

I agree with an unseeded draw.
The magic of the cup, be it football or rugby league is that the smaller teams have the chance of playing the big teams. Ok, so they may risk running up a big score, but SL teams have big enough squads to make use of.
Big boost to the smaller teams coffers too.

Put the end of season back to Oct 31st

Top 30 pro clubs plus top 2:amateur. split into East and west. round 1 replaces magic and summer bash with 16 west clubs playing at Blackpool and 16 East clubs playing at Newcastle. Unseeded. (solves problem of the 'odd' fixture.) Play for decent prize money.

Further rounds normal CC but let's use the Oct 31 end to allow clubs plenty of rest weeks (and the fans a holiday). These games not being on SKY should be played on traditional weekend afternoons.

London Wembley is an outdated tradition and with folk travelling 4hours by car and coach it's a complete waste of human endeavour. Etihad stadium is having its surrounding redeveloped with hotels and restaurants - 55000 capacity will mean sell outs and a higher ticket price made affordable by easier travel which will give the RFL the revenue they need.


.

But is it defeatist I love Wembley the old Wembley I have been to the new Wembley loads of time has well it is not has good has old I think time to move it from their with a better date