The best advertisement for any business is to be seen to be winning !

And how exactly are we going to be able to put a winning team together without drawing in the crowds first?

That's the issue we have to address. Not inserting an advert into a programme or leafleting people.

You need good quality junior development, effective management throughout the club (i.e. financial management, scouting, junior development etc..), better facilities, success in the transfer market and a large dose of luck, amongst other things.

If it was as easy as a simple promotion and marketing technique, then no club would have problems getting crowds.

Just out of interest, how many Turkey Readers started watching Salford on the back of free season tickets dished out to local high schools in the late 80's/early 90's? I was at Hope High 89-94 and I'm pretty sure for 4-5 seasons I was given a free season ticket each year until I left school. Ok, the club lost out on 4/5 years of junior admission but they've since had 12/13 years of cash out of me since then (i missed a couiple of seasons when games clashed with Lancy Sunday League matches ). I know a few mates who stopped going once the freebies stopped but if say 30% continued to folow the team after school that's got to help increase attendances. Considering I knew f*ck all about RL before High School it certainly did the trick for me!

If the club could do something similar with Our Lady's (or whatever it's called now!), Hope (or whatever it's called now!), Buile Hill etc there's got to be future fans out there just waiting to be brain-washed! I'm sure someone will no doubt tell me why this isn't financially viable but I'm sure there must be some logic to it.

i continued to come after leaving hope high ten years ago. Now me, my misses, sister and her mate go to every home and most away games. About 4 or 5 of my mates came to some home games last season when i could get them some freebies but they wont pay the £18 to get in! And i dont blame them. They all said if it was £10 on the gate they'd come to most home games.

The club will be doing some kind of promotion, not FREE tickets for all & sundry that seem to get into the hands of regular fans, but on the lines of "find a friend/fan" it will be aimed at folk who havnt been on the clubs database, the club will be giving details shortly.

I don't know where I stand on this I started watching Salford in 1968 when the girl who badysat for use took me along, no freebees no gimics, no mascot just Rugby league and I was hooked. I know kids are different these days for some reason many can not actually entertain themselves for more than 10 mins without having to have somebody tell them what to do next or a change of what they are watching. It is this that we have to get past if we want to bring more youngsters in, I know also that having the best supported sports team in the country on our doorstep doesn't help either, but there are still a lot of people who want to see United but can not afford it but would not consider the alternative which could be Rugby League. Again I don't know how we do this, I think the club have tried everything in the last ten years to get crowds in, winning may be one solution, attractive Rugby another, we all don't know, we were winning in the national league but we did not get large crowds, we even won a "treble" but still could only muster 6000 for a local derby.
The new stadium may bring in new supporters as at Warrington, they built up the crowds without winning anything, but they are in what could be described as an inner city location, we will not be.
Only hope this year people in Salford decide they want to come and watch Salford, as many say £18 may be too dear but we need money for the squad, we are one of five not at full salary cap so there is hope. A couple of wins and who knows we may break 5000, but did the crowd increase last season after our win at Leeds?

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doesn't it

I believe if we had the same help Celtic have had from the rugby league we would probably get a crowd the same as the other night when entertaining Leeds.
I don't believe the price to be an issue, I believe it is more that the perception of those lost from our club will not go anymore because they think we are crap, playing in a poor stadium
We must forget what is happening elsewhere, hopefully the anouncement that the stadium is about to start on building work will give us the biggest lift possible.

There are exceptions, but they’re few and far between. A poor Warrington in the early noughties springs to mind. rlAlbirex Niigatarl in the J-League is another. Few and very far between!



I’m not sure about the TV argument anymore, what with the advent of digital television (and its plethora of extra channels) and the trends of younger people consuming more content on their internet-enabled devices instead. The attendances and televised audiences for darts tournaments have increased rapidly in recent years, probably thanks to the introduction of the Premier League on Sky Sports. This upturn in interest has no doubt facilitated more coverage of darts on terrestrial TV, not vice versa.



That’s the ubiquitous understanding of football kicking in again. [iIf it doesn’t act like football, then it’s mickey mouse[/i. It might not be an alien concept for much longer though. rlSerie A’s breakawayrl casts doubt on the future of Serie B and, therefore, those clubs that wish to be promoted via the ‘traditional’ route. Also, the murmurs of a European Super League are persistent and that will be a rl‘closed shop’rl (closed in as much as only the members can vote in new licencees).

I think National League Two could be split regional conferences (like the NFL, for example) which could aid expansion; but the idea is so alien us, it would be derided and doomed from the get go.

Junior Devils fella, of which there are a fair few on here.

I think you are under-playing the importance of TV. For example, a football game on SKY (last I looked) get's around 400,000 viewers. Meanwhile the CC semi-final between City and United pulled in over 8m viewers. SKY cannot match the coverage of the five channels. Widespread coverage on terrestial TV is the best publicity IMO. City received a rush of ticket sales after the game.


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Yeah, I know what you’re saying but the City/United clash is a unique example; it was the most anticipated domestic match I can remember for a very long time. And it was broadcast at prime time. I think it shows that top Premier League football matches on ITV or BBC1 could be a boon. In respect to rugby league, which would never get a prime time slot on terrestrial, the allure of a Challenge Cup game on a Saturday afternoon at 2.15pm is hardly comparable.



But you can argue promotion and relegation in league competition only exists because of football’s success and popularity. Rugby league and cricket had single division tournaments for many, many years before switching to multiple divisions.

I think our culture craves more for David vs. Goliath type battles — a recongnition of who are the big teams and who the minnows. The NRL ideal wouldn’t work over here for that reason. The seemingly nonsensical argument that the NRL is [itoo[/i good and robotic as a result does exist.



That’s a given. The ‘shit your pants’ (or ‘y-fronts’) factor has gone from watching Salford matches these-days because of the safety net.

Bringing it back to the original tone of the thread, I’m not sure these factors largely affect Salford’s turnouts. As you hinted at, there’s no secret formula... or there might be, it’s just bloody hard to find.