Only one Australian RU club has decent support
Queensland Reds 31,962
New South Wales 15,651
ACT Brumbies 14,450
Melbourne Rebels 11,998
Western Force 11,937

To be fair, they all get higher than the SL Average, also Rugby League in the UK wish they had a club averaging 32,000 a game.

I see that the first week of the Premiership football this season has seen an increase in attendances, which throws further doubt that 'the economic climate' is responsible for the drop in attendances at Super League games.

I think it's clear from William Eve's figures that attendances this season are down. I think it's also clear that the main reason for this is the league structure/8 team play-offs. The top teams are taking it easy for large parts of the season, and there are more 'meaningless' games than ever, played at a really low intensity - so people are saving their money. As a result, people are getting out of the habbit of attending games, which would also play a role why the Challenge Cup and play-offs are poorly attended.

I think we're at a really important crossroads for rugby league in this country. The RFL have obviously recognised this with their re-org plans for the league, I just hope they come up with the right answers. (And I dont believe a re-org is the only action needed)

I think people just coming up with the conclusion 'it's because of the structure/format' is incredibly lazy.

If so why are Widnes, Wakey and Leeds showing an increase? The results need to be individualized to each club. The reasons that Wigan are down will be very different to Salfords reasons, Saints will have different reasons to London etc.

As a Leeds fan I heard quite a few fans before AND after the GF win say they wouldn't be attending as much during the next regular season and some have stuck to that.....yet we're up so far with 1 game remaining so we must be getting new people through the door.

The people of Canberra are very strange.

I'm not from the RFL but I've done it dozens if not hundreds of times - only once with any real difficulty.

Figures I have for S15 2013 are as follows:

Brumbies 14,287
Tards 16,960
Farce 12,427
Rabble 11,947
Reds 31,848
Total Average, 17,494 down 9% on 2012.

The average for the whole comp is 20,242 over 120 regular season games down 2.5%

Australian Union is in real trouble at the moment. They talked themselves up after the 2003 RWC, but in reality, they have gone backwards ever since. The Lions cash from this years tour will paper over cracks, but in reality, they need to rely on the Wannabees and the end of season tours up north together with touring sides coming south.

The sport that is making the most gains in Australian attendance numbers is soccer

18% up last year and a whopping 35% up on 2011. Soccer has a pretty clear run at the sporting $ with mainly big-bash cricket being the only other big time sport, but it is growing at an alarming rate....The Western Sydney Wanderers averaged 12,466 at Parramatta Stadium last year...Parramatta eels average 11,160....

True, I have no doubt the reason for HKR's dip is the lack of the north stand whilst it was rebuilt. If anything the closeness of the comp this year with a number of teams battling for 4th-8th spot and a playoff position should mean even more meaningful games and bigger crowds. There still isn't the mentality in SL of making the playoffs=good season, failing to make playoffs=disaster. Until that develops the batlle around mid table will not be as attractive as it could be.

I don't think it's lazy at all. Yes, there will be a number of things that affect attendances, however, the poor quality that is being served up on a regular basis during the weekly rounds has to be the main reason. And I dont just pluck that reason out of thin air - It comes from discussions I've had with plenty of people from in and around the rugby community, whether that be people at the games, mates/blokes in the pub or lads that I play rugby with. The most common reason people are losing interest in Super League is that the regular season games are not of decent quality. Leeds have shown for the past few years, that the form of the top teams throughout the regular season means nothing, and they can afford to pick and choose what times of year to play well and raise the intensity. This has de-valued the regular season in many peoples eyes.

What was the attendance in the north stand before it was rebuilt?

I suspect the reasons for the worrying drop in attendances are wide and varied but I no longer attend SL games for the reasons you've highlighted above, along with the complete lack of genuine quality world class star players. I still maintain that the SL season lacks credibility and doesn't kick off for real until the 3rd week of the play-off's. That is completely unsustainable and unacceptable. What is lazy is blaming it all on the economy, or the weather, or Sky Sports scheduling.

This drop in attendances is a drop since last year. Prior to this year, we experienced sustained growth for about 15 years. If this drop is down to the lowering of standards/lack of intensity, why did it not affect attendances last year? Or the year before? Or the year before?

We have had play-offs for 16 consecutive seasons now, we have had a position where a team from 5th could win it for 16 years. Why, if this effect can be attributed to that cause, did everyone only decide this offseason it was an issue?

As for the intensity of the regular season, This doesn’t seem to be borne out by the facts. The past 4 years we have seen 3 different LLS winners, 4 different grand finalists, and in this year almost certainly a 4th different LLS winner. Under P+R and top 6 system in the 4 years prior to franchising we saw 2 different LLS winners, and those 2 took up 7 of the 8 grand final places.

Teams throughout the league are capable of beating each other, whether HKR beating Leeds, 10 man Widnes beating Warrington. For years and years and years and years people complained that the NRL was more popular and a better more intense, league because any team could be anyone on any day. When we see some shocks in SL and some top teams losing to lesser lights, its down to a lesser intensity. How the hell does that work? How can something which is evidence of a more intense NRL also be evidence of a less intense SL?

There have been some great games in SL over these past 5 years, some fantastic entertainment. The reason for the fall in crowds is because of the same reasons RL has always struggled, lack of marketing, lack of profile, lack of investment in youth development, lack of imagination, clubs who would rather make excuses than find solutions, and the fact that the game still cannot grasp that success will come from improving lots of little things, and solving all the little problems and not searching for a silver bullet they all know deep down doesn’t exist.

An attention whore with a spreadsheet who is desperate to take the game backwards 20 years wont change any of that.

~2000. I've no doubt Rovers attendance will increase next season, maybe to their highest since entering SL/ever.

I believe the clubs would rather die altogether, than contribute 10% of their TV cash a year for 10 years into exploring ways to make the game more marketable and implementing some of the stuff you have typed above.
BTW.....10% of their TV money is about 3% of an average clubs turn over....or 650 fans per home game at 20 quid.....but they'd have you believe it would send them into bankruptcy

As you will well know the main gains in soccer were caused by the Gold Coast being scrapped and the Wanderers being brought in. There wasn;t any great increase across clubs other than this. it was a good move by Soccer bringing in another Sydney club but lets see if they sustain that support before getting too concerned about them out drawing the Eels who are an absolute basket case at the moment and more than capable of avg'ing 17k+ if well run.

Quote ="gutterfax"eusa_clap.gif I believe the clubs would rather die altogether, than contribute 10% of their TV cash a year for 10 years into exploring ways to make the game more marketable and implementing some of the stuff you have typed above. BTW.....10% of their TV money is about 3% of an average clubs turn over....or 650 fans per home game at 20 quid.....but they'd have you believe it would send them into bankruptcy '" And it should never even be an option for the clubs to vote on. The fact the RFL gives most of the Sky money to clubs and keeps very little to market and develop the game is ludicrous. In the NRL the annual income has gone up $150mill a year. out of that only $8million went to clubs as a one off payment and a further $32million a year in grant increases. Clubs can apply for a further $18million in extra payments if they meet development cirteria. That is a whopping $100mill or 66% of the games extra money the NRL has kept back to help fund the promotion and devlopment of the game. If the RFL just kept back 25% of the Sky money to invest in promoting and developing the game the outcomes would be significant. www.foxsports.com.au/league/nrl- ... 6507814512

Quote ="gutterfax"eusa_clap.gif I believe the clubs would rather die altogether, than contribute 10% of their TV cash a year for 10 years into exploring ways to make the game more marketable and implementing some of the stuff you have typed above. BTW.....10% of their TV money is about 3% of an average clubs turn over....or 650 fans per home game at 20 quid.....but they'd have you believe it would send them into bankruptcy '" And it should never even be an option for the clubs to vote on. The fact the RFL gives most of the Sky money to clubs and keeps very little to market and develop the game is ludicrous. In the NRL the annual income has gone up $150mill a year. out of that only $8million went to clubs as a one off payment and a further $32million a year in grant increases. Clubs can apply for a further $18million in extra payments if they meet development cirteria. That is a whopping $100mill or 66% of the games extra money the NRL has kept back to help fund the promotion and devlopment of the game. If the RFL just kept back 25% of the Sky money to invest in promoting and developing the game the outcomes would be significant. www.foxsports.com.au/league/nrl- ... 6507814512

So depite this complete lack of basic business common sense the sport at SL level has grown , so why has it took such a significant drop this year ?

Just asking , I do actually agree with your post

It hasn’t taken a big drop in most areas. Most of them have been standard fluctuations, some probably don’t even exist and simply fall within the margin of error. A drop in the average of 1 or 2% could simply be the weather and scheduling etc. I wouldn’t even bother looking at the Leeds, Wakefield, Widnes, Hull changes because they are insignificant. The drops at Wigan, Warrington and Les Catalans are no doubt due to a fall off in performance. Its also no coincidence that these three have all experienced a pretty large growth in attendance over the last few years which coincided with good performances, and a slight drop when they haven’t met them.

St’s attendances are a regression to the mean. Their attendance was much higher last year because of the new stadium factor, the drop has been exacerbated by a terrible performance for a large part of the year. Hull KR have seen a fall of about 700 which is probably just their building work.

Salfords problems are well documented. Even if the game was in the rudest of health Salford would have struggled this year. Bradford similarly.


The only attendances we should be worrying about are the ones at Hudds, for which the increase in prices shouldn’t be an excuse. It is clear they are doing something wrong in getting people through the doors, even if they are getting it right on the field.
Cas just don’t seem to have any other ambition than existing, they seem to have no plans for the huge growth they need, and seem content to be a lower mid-table side, with an appearance in the 8 the only realistic achievement.
London are run by an idiot and going backwards at a rate of knots.
Bradford and Salford, whilst their drops are explainable and understandable, they aren’t good, and their attendances weren’t where we needed them to be to start with.

Aye lad... things were backwards around 20 years ago. GB underook a full tour which included PNG, Aus and NZ. There were 103,000 in attendance at the three ashes tests... 41,000 in Sydney, 31,000 in Melbourne (famously won 33-10 by GB) and 32,000 in Brisbane for the decider won by Aus 16-10. Then there was the RLWC Final at Wembley attended by 75,000. Then there was the 140,000+ attendances for the Ashes Series not long after... 57,000+ at Wembley, 44,000+ at Old Trafford and almost 40,000 at Elland Road.

Wigan won the 14 team Championship on points difference ahead of St Helens, who got their revenge by beating Wigan in the Top 8 Premiership Trophy Final 10-4. Leeds finished 5th (no surprises there) but weren't rewarded for their mediocrity back then... Around the same period, Castleford thrashed Wigan 33-2 in the Regal Final, Widnes thrashed Leeds 24-0 the year before... is it any wonder a Leeds fan like you despises that era?

... Wakefield won the Yorkshire Cup and Featherstone earned promotion on merit by finishing top of Division 2.

Terrible backwards era it was though... a game played by muddy, pot-bellied players on boggy pitches in decrepit stadia surrounded by cobbled streets, flat-cappers, whippets and [url=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TOWJECdobqkadvertisements for Hovis Bread![/url Richard Lewis always said so about the era preceding Sooper Dooper League and it's lovely jubbly licensing ideology therefore it must be true that things really were that bad back in't day but it's really fantastic now.

What were the attendances for games that year?

There is no reason that these things wont happen now. We play more internationals, in more countries than we did before. The international game is in probably the best health it has ever been.
And sadly, next to nobody watched.
Your agenda is as boring as it is stupid.

Just found a game HKR v Wigan in 1995 that had 3000 at it. Would seem these glory eras didn't extend to crowds?

Hull KR were in the 2nd division in 1995 and didn't play Wigan.

The attendance at the game you are referring to was 3,026 and was during season 1993/94 and played on 10/04/1994. Hull KR lost 10-21. The attendance was poor because Hull KR were utterly crap and were relegated that season.

There were 7,610 in attendance for that fixture during the 1991/92 season when Hull KR finished a more respectable 9th. In 1990/91 season, the attendance was 5,642 (Hull KR just avoided relegation in 11th). In 1988/89 season the attendance was 5,526 (a season when Hull KR were relegated). Then there were attendances of 9,130 in 1982/83 season, 7,017 in 1983/84 season, 7,609 in 1984/85 season, 9,456 in 1985/86 season, 7,693 in 1986/87 season... etc.

7,894 in attendance in 2013.

I can see why your agenda would single out an isolated attendance for that particular fixture which just happened to be the poorest you could find.

But don't forget to keep repeating that agenda-driven Super League era mantra that hardly anyone/next to nobody attended any games prior to it's existence.

1.4m people watched any game governed by the Rugby Football league during 1993. With two rounds to go, 1.42m people have watched a Super League game this year.

That can't be right surely?

Earlier you said "next to nobody watched" the game back then.

Could you provide the source for your 1993 attendance figure of 1.4 million along with a simple breakdown of that figure... number of fixtures... average attendance... did that figure include Challenge Cup attendances? Attendances at other cup competitions? Thanks in anticipation.