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.

Did you even read my earlier post are you just that keen to get your point across that you've already got your responses ready?

Just because you think something's flawed, doesn't make it so, so instead of just arguing the toss and making things up please do feel free to explain how crowds in SL being well up this season on this stage last season isn't A GOOD THING.

im not sure how much clearer in can be, but because of the flaws, your comparison doesn't show what you think it shows.

Let me give you a clear example of why, (and let me be clear, this isn't the only way this will work, this is an exaggerated example, and is only to illustrate the problem).

Year 2
Leeds first 8 games are
Salford A, Hull KR A, Saints H, Wakefield A, Les Catalans A, Warrington H, Easter Weekend Cas H, Wigan H

Year 1
Leeds first 8 games are
Salford H, Hull KR H, Saints A, Wakefield H, Les Catalans H, Warrington A, Cas A, Wigan A,

That would almost certainly show a big rise from year 1 to year 2. But that's not crowds being up from year 1 to year 2. Its not growth. Its not a fair comparison. It is flawed. We know that in year 1 there are leeds best attended home games to come, we know there is the easter boost to come. We know that Leeds v Salford on a nice summer night almost certainly gets more than Leeds v Salford on a cold January one. It would actually be prudent to look at small growth from year 1 to year 2 as a bad thing, year 2 should be way ahead at this point.

You cant repeat the data in a different order, under different circumstances and conclude anything from less than half the data.

You cant simply remove two of the lowest data points, see the average go up and call it growth.

We can't simply play more games, and add up the aggregate and call it growth.

We can't include rounds 28 and 29 (and in some cases round 30) to the season ticket when previously those rounds were pay games, see a bigger attendance and call that growth.

We can't even look just at the SL figures for growth because we have seen both Bradford and London see relatively huge falls in the championship.

Of course there's going to be flaws. It's not supposed to be a definitive result which is why the figures are averaged out.
It's a very strong indication that the season's going well though, despite what all the naysayers were claiming when the new system was announced..

Just something else worth mentioning: This year's Easter attendances are the 2nd highest of the last 10 years. Flawed? maybe. But true.

Nighty night.