I really cannot be bothered trawling through that lot.

Can't be bothered or not it makes perfect sense. I'm sure the crowds at the playoff games will again show how poor we are at marketing our game, and the scrapping of licensing will do nothing to improve any of our competitions.
When will the book open on how many of the top 24 (28?) clubs go in to administration by overspending to jockey for position in the 12/12 8/8/8 for 2015?
Personally I think Super League should never have gone to 14 clubs, but the 12/12 model should only have been contemplated on the back of a MASSIVE hike in TV money, and perhaps a Super League sponsor paying anything at all?

Can't argue with any of that logic Gutters. our best avg in SL was 2009 when we finished 4th and avg'd around 8500. I don;t think HKR have avg'd over 9000 in our 100+year history. Cats,London or Crusaders made little difference, most fans refuse to travel to the end of the M62 anyway.

The North stand will make a difference and the club is developing a membership model starting this year with a more affordable payment scheme so that should help.

Attendances for the play-offs are a more accurate reflection of the current popularity of SL, particularly among it's very own core supporters. Therefore cheapo ticket offers of £10 for Huddersfield/Wigan and £15 for Saints/Hull KR and Hull/Catalan have been introduced in a last desperate attempt to ensure attendances for the play-offs this year aren't as embarrassingly low as they've been in recent seasons.

However, it's nothing more than another papering-over-the-cracks exercise. Which other full-time professional sport has to flog tickets for it's big games and finals at such knockdown bargain-basement prices in order encourage fans to bother attending?

Perhaps the game has to offer such bargains because the SL product isn't anywhere near as good as it's most ardent apostles and missionaries profess it to be? Fans have become used to attending SL games on the cheap via cheap season tickets. They clearly do not value the SL product at a price of £20+ a game.

...or perhaps the fans are unable to afford £20+ a game.

It would be interesting, though I suspect impossible to do, to look at an age profile of the spectators.

On a purely subjective impression I believe that the average age of spectators at RL is increasing steadily. My worry, if that is true is that the downward trend that William Eve has identified is therefore inevitable.
To stop the rot and turn things around the game must look at it's attraction for the younger supporter (having a oversize mascot waving doesn't really count) and for families as a whole.

I agree with William's question - "Perhaps the game has to offer such bargains because the SL product isn't anywhere near as good as it's most ardent apostles and missionaries profess it to be?"

If it really is the case that £20 is no longer an affordable price to pay among the SL supporting demographic, how difficult could it possibly be to attract an appropriately named sponsor for the SL competition like Poundland, Cash Converters or Wonga for instance?

The fans of SL have been abandoning the play-off fixtures long before the economy turned to excrement.

Hull FC had two home play off games in 2007 and the attendances were 12,140 against Huddersfield and 16,291 against Wigan. Both up on the regular season attendances (the Wigan game by 3,536). We got 16,087 against Bradford in 2006 and 17,699 against Hull KR in 2010.

The lower the crowds for the first week of the play offs the better for me. Will hopefully make the clubs realise what a poor format it is. Although for some reason they will probably vote it in again for next season.

The guy who owns cash convertors brand is a massive RL fan, here in Perth. Reckon he would be up for sponsoring SL.

The RFL will love it. They converted 1.7 million in cash into a few refrigerated Trucks last time....





Slightly off topic, but worthy of a mention in this thread, Magic Weekend saw 895,000 people tune in to watch the games on SKY TV.
Catalan v London 88k
Cas v Wakey 110k
Hull v Hull 182k
St's v Wire 167k
Salford v Widnes 53k
Bulls v Hudds 90k
Leeds v Wigan 205k.

An average of about 128k a game....what do the RFL need to do to get these fans into stadiums? The NRL brokered a chunk of their TV deal in advertising airtime.....do the RFL need to do the same? There were TV adverts here in NZ for every Warriors home game this year promoting event games with KO times and information....maybe SKY need to be squeezed into doing the same in the UK??

where did you get the sky viewing figures from?

Go to BARB.CO.UK
Select top 10's,
Highlight Sky Sports 1,2,3,& 4 and select May and the last week.
It gives the times of KO so that's how I knew which game was which.

Oh, TV viewing figures and stats:

"Magic Weekend saw 895,000 people tune in to watch the games on SKY TV."

Really ?

Are you sure that they're not just double counting the same people. If the peak figures were 205k for the Leeds game, there's a fair chance that these were exactly the same people (but in lower proportions) that were watching the other games.

You simply can't just add all the figures together!

Oh, TV viewing figures and stats:

"Magic Weekend saw 895,000 people tune in to watch the games on SKY TV."

Really ?

Are you sure that they're not just double counting the same people. If the peak figures were 205k for the Leeds game, there's a fair chance that these were exactly the same people (but in lower proportions) that were watching the other games.

You simply can't just add all the figures together!

Look that's 2 posts on the same subject, not just 1 that's been repeated !

More than 1.6 million people attended a SL game this year, that's 1 in every 20 adults in the UK!

And you can't get your facts right, the 205k was for the Wigan game.

Sorry, you're right, so that's 205k for the Leeds game and 205k for the Wigan game so 410k overall for that fixture.

I’ve thoroughly enjoyed Williams thread, whether he had an ulterior motive or not.

I hope he has the time & inclination to do it all again next season, but it’s going to be a little trickier the year after, what with the proposed split and all

.

Perhaps we could predict the league positions ala the real thing.

I’ll go for.

Percentage increase for league - 1.5%

Top club. Salford – Increase 35% (remember Salford fans, that’s just the top club in terms of attendance

)

Bottom club – Wakefield – Decrease 27%. (Unfortunately Wakefield fans, probably correct on both counts

)

For next year Hull KR should see a small increase with the North Stand open and season tickets being sold for in there. Also bigger potential gate for the derby.

I thought it was just for away fans?

I have been advocating for 3 years now that Leigh do a full crowd ' Census ' every year to identify the trends ( including the average age of the clubs supporters ) for attending and to gain every ' customers ' details

Every business that has repeat customers will as a matter of course have all their details, basic business practice, it is criminal if they dont have them

you'd think, wouldn't you.

The most valuable commodity any business can have is Cash, cold hard currency in the bank

2 nd to that is Assets , especially those that can earn income

3 rd is information, information of your existing customers, and of potential new customers

Few clubs have cash, a few more have assets, all should have information, given the simplicity and cheap cost of communicating with modern methods ,it should be at the top of every clubs priority, probably more so than the big prop and fast winger