Also they can fiddle with the date of the final all they want but until the marketing to 'neutral' fans improves Wembley wont get any busier.

Unfortunately even the biggest teams will only sell 25k tickets, so 50k total. So something needs to be done to shift the other 40k tickets. Id like to see more from IMG on what they are going to do on the Marketing front, a new structure for RL doesnt directly put more bums on seats.

On a positive note a tight final going to golden point should please those that went and the BBC.

Need to do something, it's gone from 84k in 2007 to 58k yesterday, hopefully having it earlier in the year will encourage people to go as it avoids the summer holiday season. Need to try get neutrals going again though as we can't rely on just filling Wembley with two sets of fans alone.

They did used to count approx 10k Club Wembley tickets who mostly didnt attend, but even with that 16k have gone missing and the 2007 final featured Catalans who of course didnt take many.

so with Magic Weekend around the same time, give a take a week or two, can't see how it will improve attendances, more than likely make them worse for both if magic isn't moved from the end of may/beginning of June!

Unless they're moving the date of magic to later in the year?

where though? cant see teams like Newcastle Utd wanting a weekend of rugby during the football season on their pitch, (even if it causes less damage than football)

This will be a challenge, football teams will either want it the end of May after the season, or late July just before it. The Etihad makes a fortune from concerts in June.

Apart from that you are looking at Cardiff which I know is popular with Lancashire fans but its a trek from Hull.

Was the first one back at Wembley though so probably got more neutrals than normal.

The myth has been well peddled throughout the media and football though that rugby ruins the pitch, so that must be the truth.

Even when they added 10k to club wembley, there were still people in the middle tier, it is better now it's on general sale though! Crowds are definitely down if you look back on photos from 2007, there were a lot more fans in the upper tier than there was on Saturday...the RFL/IMG somehow need to change the mindset of your average rugby league fan that big games that don't feature your team are worth going to.

And attract the casual fan who wants a day out like Union and Cricket seem to invent with ease. Union get big crowds for Barbarian games for what is in effect a made up team playing a freindly.

In 2013 the World Cup used a marketing agency who got a great crowd to Wembley, I know that comes at a cost (and England WC games have wider appeal) but we cant expect to just email the RFL database like its still the 00s and expect a rush of ticket sales.

I'm sure I read next year's challenge cup final is the same day as the rugby union cup final, so there's a lot of potential new fans the RFL have alienated from attending next year's final

It is yes

More fans turned up this year than did last year to watch Wigan

Wigan were playing Huddersfield who despite Ken Davys best efforts only have a coach full of somewhat elderly fans. Cheap season tickets and league leaders sheild winning form still didnt get the turnstyles clicking at the John Smiths.