Wire v Huddersfield, same stage last year 8,050.

Nuff said, and there will be less Catalan fans at Wigan than there were Hudds fans at at Wire.

The top eight system as is in place doesn't work.

Shocking that. How tight are Huddersfield fans? They only pay around £80 for a season ticket dont they? Then barely turn up for the play offs. There was 10,428 for the game 2 weeks ago with i presume alot less travelling support.

But Wigan are the biggest RL club in the world aren't they?

So last nights game was 25% down on the SL game. Wigan V Catalans looks like being a bigger reduction. 13,134 for the league game. Looking like 8-10k for Sunday. Not good.

Its not that the top 8 doesn't work, its the ticket pricing that doesn't work which is the RFL's fault as it sets the ticket prices

The real flaw in terms of ticket sales is the fact that some teams may have to play three all-pay games on the bounce. We see in the Challenge Cup that the pay culture is not really there (and we also see it in certain FA Cup, Carling Cup and RU Cup games too, so it isn't just a RL thing). At least the Challenge Cup is quite spread out though.

To expect people to pay decent amounts three or four weeks running is too much. If Wire win next week, this will have been a very expensive 4 weeks for many fans.

True Dave, if you factor in Wembley, it's an expensive time of the year.

Should be thankful that the prices are nothing like in football.

And don't forget we are all having to renew season tickets in the next few weeks, I am a pensioner and at a guess it will cost me £700 over the last few weeks for the two of us and the next few weeks if we get through to the final a lot of money. Yes of cause I will go to all the games but I must admit I did think about going to the first play-off or not but I went because we were getting the LLS. Having supported Wire since 1975 could not miss that no thought at all is given to the fans, it is all take take take and sooner or later it will come back to bite them.

Sorry for going on a bit but hate clubs and the Rugby League just assuming fans are going to keep on paying look at the prices for the final I will be going if we get there but feel it is a rip off. The whole concept of having so many games close together needs looking at no point in having games that are meaningless when even the losers go through

You say that, but when it comes to games outside of regular Season Ticket games, even Football clubs provide offers. Man City v Villareal in the Champions League has a pricing structure of:
Adults: £25
16-21s / Over 65s: £15
Under 16s: £5

For a Wire playoff game, it costs £7 more for kids (to stand).

For FA/Carling Cup games, Man Utd charge kids a tenner for anywhere in the ground. It looks like the same structure is in place for Europe.

It is not very often we can complain about pricing for RL events, but these playoff games are wrong, no matter what people say.

Group stages of Champions League are alot cheaper then the later knock out rounds.

The play-offs is suppose to be the most important part of the season in rugby league so its no suprise tickets are not dropped in price

And while people like you have this opinion (and the clubs and RFL) the grounds are sply populated.

It's okay being stubborn over pricing, and if the RFL/SLE are happy with the money they are making (feasible) then fair enough, but based on the way the RFL like to stage big games in small grounds to look good to sponsors and viewers, I suspect they probably aren't overjoyed.

The Grand Final and Challenge Cup finals are classed as probably the most important games in the British RL calendar, but the RFL sell tickets cheaper than this for those games, can you explain why that may be?

People like me?

I haven't a clue why they sell final tickets cheap (actually thought they were the same unless you buy cheaper early tickets)

I not think theres much wrong with the prices around £20 to see my Rugby team play when its £40 most of the time for football seems ok but maybe its just "me"

Apologies, 'people like you' sounded worse than I meant. It was meant as 'people with your opinion'.

You can get tickets to the CC Final for a tenner on certain promotions, or as cheap as £21 as standard.

You can get GF tickets as cheap as £16.

You can get G4N Final tickets for £20/10.

I personally don't disagree that £18 is too expensive to watch my team, but clearly people can't justify the cost. People wouldn;t pass up the opportunity of seeing the team lift the LLS without a good reason, and whilst I don;t find the adult tickets too bad, I think the kids prices are crazy tbh.

'Round 1'

2009 -26.9%
2010 -17.2%
2011 -29.6%

'Round 2'

2009 -16.2%
2010 -18.4%
2011 -24.5% (1 game only)

The money from all play-off games and the Grand Final go to SLE (with a % taken out for hostng the game). People can complain about the format and the ticket prices but getting full grounds isn't actually the objective, strange as it sounds. This is quite literallly the business end of the season, the viewing figures are more important than the attendance, though that still makes a nice profit.

Warringtons last game probably netted circa £150k, but probably had around 220-240k people watching on Sky. It's the same reason why Magic Weekend is deemed such a sucess, some fans love it, some hate it, but enough turn up to watch it. More importantly, lots of people tune in to watch it, the broadcaster (and the game) can dominate the channel for two days at minimum cost.

The ideal would be massive attendances and huge viewing figures, but invariably you can't have both.

I agree with your stance re ticket prices but City have their own agenda for cheap tickets.

All kids tickets at United are a tenner. The problem with United though is if you are a season ticket holder you have to buy every cup ticket as well or they take your season ticket off you.

Leeds had nearly 4000 there last night and about 3500 the for the league game a couple of weeks back. For whatever reason the huddersfield fans stayed away in large numbers and there's no doubt handed us the initiative. When the leeds team ran out the players looked over and started applauding the away support, the huddersfield players probably felt like sh**e and responded accordingly for the first half hour. The huddersfield team deserve better support than what they get.

Well firstly the league has already been decided so many fans will have lost interest in the end of season playoff tournament, also this year it clashes with the World Cup so maybe people's attention is on that rather than going to watch the 'greatest game'.

Wait for it...

What do you mean? Surely their agenda is to get people in the ground, shouldn't our agenda should be the same?

Stick an extra £20 on season ticket prices which gets you in the PO games, if we don't get there, PO vouchers can be used as a £20 discount on renewal season tickets or the new seasons shirt.

Never had this problem when we were crap playing in a dump with no atmosphere.

Give me today's "problems" every year.

Similar problem for me. Last Friday cost me £18 for a ticket, £48 for petrol, add in the essentials (beer) and it's an expensive weekend. I can understand season ticket holders not going to all the play-off games because of the additional expense, but in our case next Friday is the most important game that we've had for years, so I would expect a sellout.

This.