Having read through the arguments for the validity of both methods to calculate the averages for the World Cup, I would say that there is no ‘right’ way of doing it as both methods could be argued as being correct

So, as a Rugby League fan (as we all are on this site), I am going to go with the one that paints our game and our hugely successful World Cup in the best possible light…. i.e. the higher one!

I've previously tried to use the Magic Weekend as an example of why treating the double headers as one event rather than 2 games is the best way to calculate an average. Tickets are available for Saturday and Sunday, so those 2 attendances are given (this way does count people who have bought the weekend ticket twice, but as they are avaialble as separate tickets I think this is fair enough). If you were to take the 550,000 figure that would be like saying that the total attendance of the MW was 180,000, when in reality the figure given is 60,000.

Another way of looking at it, say there were 18,000 at the Froch v Groves fight the other week, does that mean that the attendance of all the undercard fights is taken and the total attendance was over 100,000? - No, of course it doesn't. This is the same, you can't take the number of games within the average as this either means doubling the actual number of fans in attendance at the DHs, which adds about 3,000 to the tournament average, or you half the total which knocks about 3k off it.

I know this thread is tedious and in reality it really doesn't matter. But people are using statistics to either over or underwhelm the true figure. I don't care what other sports do, there was not 45,000 at England v Australia and 45,000 at Wales v Italy, nor were there 22,500 at each game, there were 45,000 in attendance for 2 games as part of the same event.

You can't divide 67k by 2 because theres 2 games. You are then saying there was only 33.5k at the england nz game, when there was clearly nearly 70. And there was clearly more than that at the start of the aus fiji game.

Only way is to treat it as one game one event.

Whoever is dividing it by 2 if a ******* k**t and is doing it purely for their agenda, to draw people into a argument they know they can't win.

Yay for boring, relentless, repetitive trolls!

If only the RFL had staged a quadruple header along with a triple header on the same weekend instead?

The RLWC2013 attendances could have then been fudged 4 times on the Saturday at Cardiff and 3 times on the Sunday at Wembley to arrive at a smokeycalc-induced attendance of approximately ((45,052 x 3) + (67,545 x 4)) = 405,336 and a daily average attendance of 202,668.

They could have called it the [i"Half-Priced Coded Discount Applied To Already Heavily Discounted World Cup Tickets Magic Attendance Double Big Hit Weekend of the Extraordinary!"[/i That's one way of ensuring the average attendance is higher than the full-priced 1995 or full-priced 2008 World Cup



OTOH, they could calculate the total aggregate attendance and divide by the number of games played in order to arrive at the average. That's how it's always been done in previous full-priced RLWC's.

If we count Cardiff, Wembley and all the rest as events instead...

RLWC2013 Aggregate Attendance = 457,133
Number of events = 26
Average Attendance = 17,582

RLWC1995 Aggregate Attendance = 265,609
Number of games = 15
Average Attendance = 17,707

The full-priced 1995 World Cup average attendance is still higher than the average attendance at the half-priced discount on the already heavily discounted 2013 World Cup.

One major difference is 191,524 more people watched games in 2013 than did in 1995. The economy in 1995 was far more bouyant than now so I would suggest given the small number of events the attendances were disappointing.

The average in 1995 has been raised due to the relationship between the final and the number of events. The 1995 final added 4,436 to the average whilst the 2013 final added 2,864 a decrease in effect of 35%.

Do you honestly think if you added another 11 games in 1995 they would have drawn a further 195k?

This world cup was a huge success well beyond everyone's expectations - your crassness in trying to portray pre-super league as being far supperior is duly noted. Amazing how a final with England in it at Wembley didn't even attract 70k given how superior pre-SL was (sic).

To get a world record crowd for an international should be applauded - shame it doesn't suit your agenda.

Is there any reason why you decline to mention the fact that there were only 5 games in the 1995 WC that didn't include one of the big three draws (England, Australia, NZ), whereas in 2013 I think there were 14 such games?

Thanks for [ufinally clearing up the events thing once and for all[/u. If we look at the breakdown between the two tournaments it provides a more realistic comparison.

Final
1995 66500 (1 event) = Ave 66,500
2013 74,000 (1 event) = Ave 74,000

SF
1995 46000 (2 events) = Ave 23,000
2013 67500 (1 event) = Ave 67,500

QF
1995 No Events
2013 46,900 (4 events) = Ave 11,725

Pool Games
1995 152500 (12 events) = Ave 12,708
2013 269100 (20 events) = Ave 13,455

England Games/Events (All games)
1995 177,500 (5 events) = Ave 35,500
2013 184,500 (5 events) = Ave 36,900

England Games/Events (Pool Games)
1995 83,000 (3 events) = Ave 27,700
2013 94,500 (3 events) = Ave 31,500

Non-England Games/Events
1995 88,500 (10 events) = Ave 8,850
2013 272,500 (21 events) = Ave 12,976

Difficult to compare 28 game (26 event) tournament against a 15 game tournament with no QFs etc. but this seems to. Both great tournaments and should be celebrated.

Let's just have a final instead then. That would surely be better. The average could then be just 74,500.

There's not a mathematician, a level maths student, GCSE maths student, 11year old of a normal iq who would divide 28 data points by 26 and call it an average. The fact there are only 2 people doing so, and those two people have spent months before the WC telling us all how terrible it would be and how nobody would attend pretty much tells us all we need to know.

Everyone else accepts it's either 26 data points divided by 26 or 28 data points divided by 28, if Gutterfax and William Eve need to redefine what an average is to rescue what they think is some level of credibility, let them.

Excellent post putting this thread to bed.

I doubt it