The attendance issue would be fixed if they gave discounts to St holders. With next weeks magic to pay for suddenly 20 odd quid each plus a tank of fuel suddenly doesn't seem to attractive. Doesn't stop them being fans though. For a family of 4 your looking prob 100 quid so it's either that or a weeks shopping. No brainer for some low pay families. Add to that the fact if you don't finish till late...

It's a bit rich for both fans granted, but consider the fact that Wakefield play out a dump, and Huddersfield play out of a modern football stadium, and who were five years ago one of the most exciting teams to watch, who do you think has more reason to be embarrassed?

Not going on about attendances just correcting someone posting wrong information. Do Huddersfield still do cheap season tickets surely that should boost their figures.

Up the Trin

Don't get me wrong I'm not having a go as I've stated before Wakefield is my favourite away day and I hate going to Huddersfield 5,000 fans in a 25,000 plus stadium is depressing

Where were they hordes of Wakey fans at Huddersfield then? You don't have to worry about Finals tickets now either.

Cas had ST holder discounts, my ticket was £15 and my Dads concession ticket £8.

The game clearly needs to have a serious look at the Challenge Cup. We need to find some way of making the earlier rounds an event again, or we'll be reading this sort of thread forever. Personally, I'd like to start with getting more people at the CC games, and if that means clubs giving tickets away sobeit. I'm sure better marketing people than me can come up with ideas for the long term, but we need to do something in the short term, or we should just write the whole thing off apart from the Final.

Surely the solution isn't flogging off the product as cheaply as possible (that's what gets RL into so many of the messes that it is already in), but is making the actual product something worth paying for? RL is already one of the cheapest professional sports to watch in the UK so if the problem for our fan base genuinely is cost, we really need to start finding new audiences. Cheap tickets in large quantities is not marketing - it never has been and it never will be.

A Friday night in Widnes is not a big draw - plain and simple. We can start calling out certain groups of fans as being "bad supporters" or whatever we want to do, but it doesn't change the fact that traveling to Widnes on a Friday night sounds about as appealing as hemorrhoids. There's a lot that you can spend your money on in Leeds on a Friday night, and that's what the game is competing with.

The solution lies in making the game, and the CC in particular, more marketable. This forum is often a bubble in that we convince ourselves that this sport is an amazing product that most people simply haven't fallen in love with yet, yet when the people who have fallen in love with it are asked to put their hands in their pocket for £20, they run away in their droves. The reality is that, when it comes to Widnes v Leeds on a Friday night (and so many other scenarios), the product just isn't that appealing.

Look at how this plays out in other sports. Football fans aren't as excited about the FA or League Cups but they will happily pay three times the price of a League Cup ticket for a Champions League game - the issue isn't cost, but the quality of the product. The same applies in rugby union. RU fans don't give a toss about the Anglo-Welsh Cup or the domestic competitions before it, but they'll follow their team across Europe in the European Championship - the cost isn't the issue here either, the issue is the product.

do clubs still have to split gate money accordingly? whats the ratio nowadays?

The reason I ask is that I was at KR yesterday and the attendance was given at 3.5k, and wigan probably brought about 800 give or take.

It was definitely quieter then normal, but both the east and north stands were fairly full. I would guess there was closer to 4.5k - 5k there, so to lose roughly 1k for the "official" attendance seems like clubs may be trying to keep money themselves or not fully counting walk ups for example and just tickets sold

Pure conspiracy this, just would explain a couple of things like

There isn’t much of an incentive for clubs to announce lower attendances than were actually present. Yes they get to keep a tiny amount more money from that gate but they also have to report that attendance to sponsors who will see they are getting less exposure than they expected/paid for. If clubs are under-reporting gates then they’re morons.

Personally I think we need to include the Cup in the season ticket. Obviously free for home fans, maybe half price for away season ticket holders.

I’d even go further and make all season tickets a Rugby League season ticket rather than a Leeds/Wigan/Halifax etc season ticket. It would obviously get you in to all your chosen clubs home games but would also get you in to events through the season like Cup Semi Final (which I’d make a double header), Magic Weekend, and home internationals.

4055 still poor.

no away fans? hang on, one wakey fan just said there was 40...make your mind up!

in terms of distance id say halifax is the nearest derby for huddersfield.. need to be in the same division first mind so they are pretty irrelevant! you asked the question.

yes indeed

more fans than widnes, salford and wakefield.

I`m not surprised with the amount of free tickets for your game flying around... 4 of us went on Friday night and not one of us payed! Seems to be free ticket galore. I cant remember the last time I payed in for one of your home games tbh. You give 50 tickets to your sleeve sponsor for every home game and even then they don`t take advantage of them with a lot of them unclaimed.. I wonder if they are counted towards the attendance along with all the other unclaimed tickets from the rest of the sponsors?

Lets look at the last time there was a lot of free tickets around for Wakefield games, was around 2012, we averaged 8k attendance that year.

Ive said for ages that RL has the cheapest fan base. The amount of people asking for cut price deals for internationals year in year out is embarrassing.

sure all clubs have some free tickets going round for every game.

none for me, fully paid up season ticket holder and paid into the cup game too

if you want to see the stadium full can always go to watch the football team !