This competition used to be the pinnacle of the sport. If your team were drawn at home in the challenge cup, you could bet that the town/city you lived in would be buzzing with cup fever. On the day/night of the game you could gaurantee a bumper crowd, especially if you were playing a team from the same or higher division. Why does it experience such apathy? Salford v Hull KR tonight saw just 2096 fans attending. If this was a league game, there would be double that. The semi-finals of the competition used to be played in front of sell-out crowds of 16-18000 at Headingley and the old Burnden Park Bolton. Now they struggle to sell 10000 tickets. The only time the competition comes alive is when we all go down to Wembley on the bank holiday weekend. How can the sport re-invigorate this wonderful competition.

For one, they should never be played on a Friday, two, cheaper tickets.

No on cares about it except warrington fans,

Its just an incovenience for the big clubs, Saints, Wigan and Leeds.

0/10

Typical RL fans. People wonder why the sport gets no national interest when all we do is complain ourselves about how crap everything is.

I have a copy of the book put together by Robert Gate about the '54 cup final replay, in it there are a lot of mentions to RL fans & press of the time complaining about and being concerned about waning interest in the Challenge Cup. Considering this waning interest stretches back so far I reckon crowd figures ought to have hit negative figures by now.

Free for kids, £5 for concessions and £10 for adults across the board. No free tickets rubbish, demeans the cup I think & stops the financial gains small clubs get.

The cup final used to be on the last day and the showpiece occasion of the season. It's now stuck in the middle and has been replaced by the grand final. That IMO is why interest has dropped recently.

It used to be scheduled for the backend of the season. I'm almost 100% certain (but can't be d spending time poring over historical records to prove it) that it was never explicitly scheduled to be on the last day of the season though, I think your memory has made that fact up.



Efficiently marketed by Sky. There was always a premiership playoff series involving the top few teams from the league at the end of the season, it's just that nobody cared about it unless their team was actually IN the final.



People have been saying "interest has dropped recently" for the past 13/14 years that I've been using usenet/internet forums.

It clearly needs over time to become not only a publicised event again but also rugby league's European Cup. All the same English teams but also those from the other nations of Europe. 3 French teams...waste of time. All should eventually be involved. This will clearly also help the French. For the inevitable trolls, the Heineken Cup started around 5 minutes ago. The Challenge Cup, not so.

nothing wrong with the challenge cup, maybe the rl should put the prices inc in season tickets some how.also well done warrington fantastic achievment to score over a hundred points no matter who the opposition is. just hope hull dont do the same to us.anyway ill be there supporting my team this afternoon win draw or lose.

There are two rounds of super league after the challenge cup final, hardly call that in the middle

The semi's and final are usually well attended, its only really R4 and R5 that have dire attendances

what was the attendance at Wembley last year for this 'non-even't in the RL calender? 80K+ of people who turned up because they had nothing better to do wasn't it?

The BBC ruined it in my opinion.

IMO the challenge cup needs a huge revamp. I'm not sure how to revamp it but it's lost it's romance and we are in danger of losing what was once a great cup to win.

The gap between super league sides and championship sides now is so huge it's becoming embarrassing with some of the huge score this year. Leigh and Halifax give a good account but I can't remember a year with such huge score which IMO isn't good for the game.

Maybe some sort of seeding between the championship sides?