Exactly right, ATEOTD this year's total attendances will be identical to last year's which will be identical to the year before etc etc etc. They always have been. If you check back and see apparent difference, that's just because wherever people think they are 'gaining' one year will be lost another year. Yes, i know you may point to trends over decades, but if you check, wherever people think they are 'gaining' one decade will be lost another decade. I think this must logically be true for centuries as well.

No, you're wrong.

By doing a weekly round by round comparison rather than like for like we can see that crowds this year, up to round 9 are UP and come the end of 2015 the crowds will be UP on last year.

It's not rocket science and should be celebrated, but this is RLFans of course, so posts like yours, Jimlav and the rest of the glass full of urine brigade are to be expected.

I think you have missed the point fa. In this instance it is true.

I don't know whether they will be up at the end of the year. The averages certainly will. It would be an absolute disaster I'd they weren't. But that is what happens to averages when you take two of the lower figures out of your data. In fact for averages just to stay the same attendances at the 12 clubs still in SL would need to fall by about 600 each.

If you do week by week comparison you will see that the fixtures don't match and all you are proving is some games get different attendances than others. Comparing Wigan v Saints against a Wigan v Les Catalans attendance from last year doesn't prove a rise or fall. Simply that Wigan v Saints is better attended than Wigan v Les Catalans. It also doesn't help you push your agenda because at some point further on in the season you are going to be looking at a big fall week on week as you compare whatever game it corresponds to this year against Wigan v Saints last year.

Similarly like for like won't give you an accurate comparison because of the million and one variables around a single comparison.

Come round 22 we will have had a regular season and we will know whether more people watched the 22 games last year or this. And we can be almost certain that there will not be a huge difference. We can also be almost certain some will want to push averages because they should be higher because of losing two lower than average attended clubs. Others can push aggregate totals because more clubs and more games will mean that will show a fall. Neither of those will tell us anything.

Well I never claimed otherwise so i'm not really sure what your point is TBH. It's certainly got nothing to do with your post earlier about me setting myself up for a fall.

It's good to see that crowds (so far) are up though, isn't it? I posted the first 4-5 rounds' attendances on another thread. EVERY round had higher figures then last year. I've not bothered since, until the OP started this thread. I took a look at the Easter figures and posted them here, which again show the crowds as being considerably higher for both round comparisons AND like for like.

I know we don't like good news on RLFans and would rather dedicate entire threads to negative stories but it's also fun to be positive sometimes.

Try it, you might like it.

We could always take a leaf out of the Aviva premierships book to boost our avg attendance figures and give all 12 clubs the 30-35k that attend the magic as a home gate

They count the double header attendance 4 times inflating the overall attendance figures by over 190,000 people that never existed

Crowds aren't up. They aren't doing. They are an incomplete and flawed comparison. Neither week for week nor like for like are accurate comparisons.

You say that every round for the first 4 or 5 rounds was up. But if that was because we saw more of the 'better' attended games in rounds 1-5 this year than last then no, it's not good. It tells us nothing useful because we would then expect to see lower attendances later in the year. This is why I am saying you are setting yourself up for a fall because comparing the good attendances this year to crappy ones last ear might look great now, but in a couple of weeks you ate going to be comparing the good attendances of last year to the crappy ones of this


Besides why is last year our benchmark? Last year was appalling mostly because of three clubs, Bradford London and Salford. We have done way better than that. Last year was our worst for a long while and there were largely obvious and specific reasons for it why aren't we looking to 2013? Or 2012? Or our last year with 12 in 2008? People seem awfully invested in a very flawed comparison which isn't going to show us much if anything and wanting to hold up that comparison as proof of success or failure when in reality our success or failure has pretty much nothing to do with that comparison.

Just to chime in here. Every business model in the world will compare like for like sales year on year to measure performance and growth.

Why can't you understand smokey?

Year on year or tournament to tournament comparisons have been done since the dawn of sport - in all sports. You know this, I know this, everyone reading RLFans this knows this.

You're just arguing for the sake of it now, as usual.

Once when I was very bored I did do a set of tables and graph on a club by club basis.

I think SL showed a significant increase, that whilst wobbling over time has generally held up.

What we have here isn't by any measure a like for like, year on year sales comparison .

You can't take your deeply flawed comparison to the bank. You could get every person in the world to ignore the deep flaws in your comparison and believe your figures. It doesn't put one extra penny in the clubs pockets.

If it makes you feel better about yourself, go ahead, but it wont show what you think it shows, however vehemently you argue it does.

a far better and more useful way of us looking at it. We have, largely, and for a long time seen a general upward curve in attendances, we reached a peak in 2012 and saw big drop in 2013 and a smaller one 2014 because of individual issues at clubs (namely Salford, Bradford, London and Wakefield).

We have seen this big change which makes 2014 pretty much incomparable to 2015 and people will simply spin the figures to whatever suits their agendas.

The only things that really matter are the trends in revenue and aggregate attendances and their relationships with each other.

Found it.

It was from about 1980....

The Saints stats start around 5000+ a match and slowly increase over time to 8000+ a match, with a boost to regular 5 digit figures with the move to the new stadium.

Hull FC from the same period performs a bit of a U shaped graph. So 1980 must have been a good year for the Black and whites.

Huddersfield have increased and then platoed(sp) in recent years

Bradfords graph, has a pre-SL level then a sharp increase, with a moderate decline, but still no -where near the levels pre-SL

Salford marginal improvement but nothing massive

Cas again have had an increase but levelled off

Widnes are fairly level with a sharp peak in the middle period. (I'm assuming their golden period)

Leeds have been on a steady increase since the 1980's

Warrington have a similar pattern to Bradford with 2 levels.

Wigan a bit of a elongated U shape but generally increasing.

On the whole the league has been increasing slowly over time, but it depends who is in and out of the league and relative success. SL certainly benefited most clubs, stadium improvements also have boosted attendances.

Takes a while, but you can pull the figures of the RL historical database. Sure one or two figures will be wrong, but on the whole it can give you a trend.