Easter Weekend Attendances figures.

Quote: bramleyrhino "One thing that Rugby Union has worked out is that its important to focus less on the quantity of games and more on the quality of the events.

One of the reasons why we still have these convoluted league structures is because we have clubs insisting that they need to flog out talent as much as possible and have a minimum number of games to survive. The notion that they should do more with less - in other words, generate more revenue from fewer games by selling more tickets, commercial packages, sponsorships, merchandise, digital, reaching new audiences, making the game more attractive to media partners, etc - is alien to them.

The game at Elland Road the other week was an example of what we need to be looking at more of. It was a game played by two good teams, in front of a big crowd, and had a sense of occasion. There was nothing more than 2 points at stake - no trophies to be won or the "jepoardy" that so many people on here argue is 'essential' to bring in the crowds, and yet it felt like a big event - a final or semi final, and it looked fantastic for the neutral.

Leeds didn't do anything particularly innovative, spectacular or indeed expensive for that game. They simply put on an event and they (and to their credit, Castleford) hyped it up and told people about it. Something that every marketing manager at every club should be able to do. It doesn't need an Eddie Hearn or a Peter Deakin - it just needs the marketing people who are on the pay-rolls of each and every club to do their jobs.

Rugby Union gets this. Leicester and Bath can take a game to Twickenham knowing full well that their fans won't start kicking off with the usual moans like "what about season tickets?" and "will there be free travel?" that littered the Wigan board when it was announced they were going to Millwall. Saracens can take games to Wembley or Olympic Park knowing that if they set their sales and marketing team a target, they'll hit it - rather than moaning about away fans or the weather. And London Irish can take a game to New York because they see that the potential of a new audience outweights the cost of the flight, whilst our fans moan about Magic Weekend because they don't want to pay for the train ticket.

Rugby Union clubs in this country still play a lot of games, but they focus their energy on hyping up the ones that really matter. The domestic cup competition is pretty much now just a reserve-grade competition, they release their players for internationals before hyping up the European games the following week. They prioritise their key products.

As a sport, we need fewer games and more hype. We need to find more ways to get our current audiences excited, and to find new audiences to excite. We need some creative thinking, some investment in effective marketing, and clubs to see success as more than simply keeping the administrators at bay for another year.

But we as a sport won't do that, because it sounds too much like hard work and it's just much easier to say "we can't afford it", blame the RL and wait for a boxing promoter to save us from ourselves.'"

Agree with every word. Sadly with Sl clubs looking like getting more power, and an SL1 & SL2 with ten teams each seemingly gathering momentum, looks like the sport will carry on making the same mistakes. SL chairman would rather have 3 games against the same team with crowds of
4k each, rather than having one game, with an attendance of 10k and bringing money in other ways. Attendances are falling because the sport isn't great at the moment, and sadly some think the answer is to have more games against the same teams

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