The problem with that argument that you can use statistics in various different ways that will sound positive. Maybe we should stick to enjoying the magnificent sight of the Wigan Walk and hope that we see it a bit more often in the coming months. It is a great tradition and long may it continue. I was told that the 18th man left after 65 minutes.

Because of their long period of dominance, Wigan have got a 'brand' in rugby league which everyone has heard of, like Liverpool. In football everybody talks about Liverpool even when they aren't doing well, everyone knows how long it is since their last title. Nobody talks about how long is it since Blackburn's last title even though its more recent than Liverpool, because Blackburn weren't at the top long enough to establish a brand. Wiganers know that Wigan RL is what their town is famous for so it guarantees a bigger long term fan base.

We don't have that brand established, we're just a team currently on the up. But this is an advantage in terms of being able to market ourselves to a new audience. A lot of people in the areas around Warrington will have vaguely been aware that Warrington has an RL team and they are usually rubbish. I bet there were Warringtonians who were say into football, who had never been to a Wire match in their life, but would have had some basic knowledge about Warrington because they had seen the Warrington Guardian or listened to the radio so they probably knew Van de Velde was our coach and then Cullen, and would have heard of a few players like Langer and Briers. But then when they start picking up the idea that we are Challenge Cup winners and trophy contenders they might think hang on I might give this a go.

At the moment we're not established enough yet to be safe, if say Smith left and we made a bad appointment as coach, Briers, Morley and co retired, and we started going back to the days of 8th/9th in the league, our gates would tumble and it would be the same lot who were watching in 2002. We have to have a bit of long term success to start securing long term supporters. But the signs are good.

Two very good,in depth and interesting posts there sally. I would say away support is quite difficult to gage tbh,our away support unless locally i would say is pretty poor,there looked to be only approx 150 at bradford and even less at the kc stadium.Although we had a decent turnout at the stoop even though it was a friday,strange really

I certainly think we are the new brand to be, with many fans and clubs aspiring to emulate our recent success. I feel in terms of Wigan, not only the fact that they had such success as a club, but also the fact that even globally, players such as your avatar made an impact/headlines that would automatically lead to the club itself.

I'm not a fan of sport as a business, but accept that in the modern environment, we need to be ruthless to survive. In light of this, do you feel more needs to be done in order to get our name mentioned in the South Hemisphere (granted Andrew Johns probably waxes lyrical) rather than just taking the odd player at the end of thier careers?

Some good points, but too simplistic. Fanbases can't and don't stay they same as people die and every club has young kids who weren't around 5 or 10 years ago. Certainly there are plenty of fans who were'nt about 20 years ago.

C+ Needs more research.

Never heard so much rubbish on all my life.

Talk about getting carried away...enjoy your day in the sun..things are going well at wire at the minute there's no doubt about that. However we all know there's a long way to go and keeping the level of intensity required throughout the season is no small challenge. Some of you on here are jumping around like you re about to lift the Grand Final trophy.

Steady on guys!!

Those fans that die though usually convert people, a few of the late teenage, young 20 somethings will have vague child memories of the dominant Wigan side. The late 20's to middle aged people will talk up the mighty Wigan team of the 80's to their kids and sell them the dream.

B- at least SEB

Ah apologies if we're getting carried away over the fact that we have beaten Saints and Wigan away and Leeds at home (the big 3), we have put 82 points on Quins, we sit top of the table, unbeaten in 6 aiming to pass a club record, having scored the most points, Lee Briers has signed a contract extension, our new world class winger is settling in just nicley scoring tries, whilst our other signing has scored the most points. Have I missed anything?

Again apologies if some of us are getting carried away, but I couldn't quite frankly care.

Yours,

LTS

Yeah After all we are Wank@y @y Warrington..

Big turnovers happen more in the long run. 2006 to 2010 is more of a short run time scale.

Think about it like this you have your core support. They are the ones who follow 'through thick and thin'. Everybody claims to be part of the core! And you have the floaters, ones who will watch but are not chained to the club.

The size of the floater group fluctuates, every year you have rejoiners (former fans who previously lost interest and now returned, or maybe moved away with work etc and now living back local) and you have deserters (fans who lose interest or move away). Then you have new fans, kids or partners of existing fans who get introduced, and yes you have fans who die or become too old/infirm to come.

Your total fan base will be made up of core + floaters. In the short run the core will stay pretty much constant and what will affect your gates is the size of the floaters, if rejoiners + new fans > deserters + deaths then gates rise, if its the opposite, gates fall. This will be determined largely by how the team is doing on the field, if they sign big name players / win trophies etc. In practice deaths will be quite a small number and new fans will probably always be bigger than deaths so in the long run you expect gates to rise over time.

In the long run gates will be determined by the size of the core as over time floaters can become core. But things like getting a new stadium makes a difference here. There's probably a natural level of gates for a club in any era, and the gates will fluctuate around that in good and bad years. In the 1980s our natural level was probably about 4500. In the 1990s it was probably about 5500. In the early 2000s at Wilderspool probably 6500 and in the HJ probably around 10000. From that you can see how significant first the Langer signing and then the move to the HJ was in boosting our natural level, which meant that the core has risen.

When you look at Wigan though, the figures are pretty constant from the late 1980s onwards. This suggests to me that virtually their whole fan base is core. Their gates aren't affected much by whether the team is good or not very good, so that implies that the number of new fans/rejoiners or deserters/deaths is not very high.

On the other hand look at Bradford. Before SL era they got similar gates to us. In the late 90s, first half of 2000s, they were getting about 15000. Almost immediately after Noble and all their best players left their gates started to tumble, 11000,10000,9000. I reckon Bradford's glory days put say 4000 onto their core support, who they still have, but they carried about 6000 floaters who were on the Bradford bandwagon, and they've disappeared. What happened to those teenage girls they used to have with Robbiez Angel on their backs and so on. They probably have 5 kids and other things on their mind than RL now.

Big difference between Wigan and Bradford there. They both had gates of around 15000 in their glory era - but why did Bradford's tumble away when they stopped winning things, while Wigan maintained their gates? Because Wigan had a high proportion of core fans, Bradford just carried lots of floaters. This is what will determine our long term future....are we building a new generation of core fans like Wigan did, or are they temporary supporters like Bradford...?

That is a really good summary.

Hopefully with some success over the next 10 years, our current floaters will become regulars and we will get new floaters to try and drag in!

Your story of Warrington's support is very similar to that of Saints. We also dropped to around 4500 core supporters in the 80s, rising slightly in the 90s and we hit the dizzy heights of between 7000 and 8000 core supporters (rather than average gate) during the noughties. As people adjust to our season in Widnes, and make plans accordingly, there will probably be a regular turnout of between 7000 and 8000 supporters at the Stobart Stadium because those are the people who will follow Saints no matter what they are like or where they are playing. It has taken 15 years of significant success to achieve that growth. And I can confidently say that Saints fans are hoping the new stadium will have the same kind of impact upon our core support that the HJ had upon yours.

Saints are now just about a well known club. We have a rep on the BBC, we are recognised down under as a 'big club'. It's taken us 15 years to get there. I think it will take a similar time for Warrington to establish itself. Whether either of us or indeed anyone else will ever have the impact Wigan had is another matter though because, as you suggest, a lot is about timing. There was still sufficient national interest in rugby league when Wigan were dominant for their name and players to become embedded in the memories of those interested in sport generally. These days we have virtually no national exposure and therefore the heros of today remain virtual unknowns. As such, it will be much harder for a newly successful club to establish a brand in the way Wigan did.

Away following is impossible to determine really.
You brought a very good following last Friday but I'm not sure if the North Stand was full. Whatever you bring Wigan can fit them into the DW. That's whether its 5, 6 or 7k.
Wigan's two closest big games are yourselves and Saints. Wigan's ticket allocation for Wire is 3100 plus the few seats at the West Stand end of the main stand. Saints sent less for KR.
Wigan have 10.5k season ticket holders so not all season ticket holders can get a ticket and they never go on general sale.

As far as long term new fans go it'll be a while before you know how things are. Your team was very good on Fri and won well. How long they can keep it going I don't know. Most of your forwards are 30+ and will need replacing in the next two years. Although your U20s are now good they can't fill all those positions for some years. The odd player might but not 6-8 that you'll need.

You will need to market the club better too. I do think to maximise crowds eventually you'll need to move to Friday night. There is far more atmosphere at night games and by Saturday morning you have the weekend in front of you.
A brand slogan maybe needed. Leeds started it years ago with "Friday night is Rhinos night"

You have a good chance of turning Sally's floating fans to core fans as long as you win things. With Moran running things then the top players will come as he's spending top money. So success should never be too far away. The plan for your ground IMO should have been to close in all four corners and go for 18-20k capacity.
Friday night games with a successful team and the place would be buzzing. Sunday afternoons lack the same atmosphere.