I wonder what our averege attendaces were in the last Ian Millward or Paul Terzis era? I would guess about 2200? Put 2200 people in Hilton Park it will seem much fuller than 2200 at The LSV.

A couple of points.
The club is currently incapable / unable of marketing itself for one reason or another, harsh but true.
Now in the past we had our diehards to fall back on if the club underperformed (on & off the field), however the RFL have just about cheesed off the vast majority of Championship club diehards with its its recent policys and 'brain stormers', thus RL outside of SL is posting some woeful attendances (in fact quite a few in SL are feeling the pinch as well).

Throw in a recession, people want value for money (and demand more for there leisure pounds) and you have what we have got now.

about 20 years ago Oxford Utd got in top league with a load of crappy small stands dotted around the sides....supposed to be a stadium. That kind of fairy tail story would not happen now with the money involved now. I think with number of clubs going under in football because of greed and total loss of reality when chasing success suggests that football is far from a great model to compare something
to aim for. You would need 100's of millions to move from a poor relegation threatened side in PL to a champions league contender - not actually getting in champions league but a contender.
The very fact (you are one of the worst on here too) that fans go on and on about SL, and going on and on about its not fair, the drawbridge etc etc Contributes to the negativity towards the competition we are in now. A competition where we are damn lucky to even be in the championship, never mind being a force again at this level.
But I will get back to the bread and butter games tho, and attendances. Crowds have been on the decline with or without having the SL is everything as the prize.

There have been another 20+ Oxfords who have gone on to play in the Premier League, I repeat you cant do that in RL because we have the most non sensical rules ever imagined. If the RFL ran the FA; Bolton, Wigan, Blackburn, Burnley, and many others would be instantly kicked out of the premier league to be replaced with a must needed team from Wales, Scotland, Ireland, Plymouth, Norwich oh and dont forget the much needed teams from Leeds and Sheffield.

Oh I forgot ANY team can make the premier league ground permitting and not judged off some luidcrous location policy, oh and guess what teams like Leicester, Man City and Leeds for example when falling on hard time managed to keep a huge core following for the day they would return to the top flight I ask again can any team outside of SL promise that to their existing fans?

The core principles of the wonderful franchise system 18 months into it are still sadly missing. Where are all the youngsters being promoted at these bottom clubs who dont need to worry about relegation? How many overseas players now play in SL in 2010 compared to 2008? When the answers to those questions are of a positive nature then just maybe the franchise system might work.

Until then the americanised system should be well and truly left on the other side of the atlantic!

Ste, you are not in the real world. If in your hypothetical world RFL where running the FA, why would they not have P&R like it is now? The sport is global already. The biggest sport on the planet by a mile. There are gates for a number of individual clubs in the lower leagues in football that dwarf the whole of a weekends fixtures at our level and that includes before franchises. If promotion to SL was such a big draw week in week out similar to football then the system would still be here.
Crowds is a major problem at this level - but if the club are feeling sorry for themselves because things aren't fair and blaming the governing body yet again then we are doomed - I'm hoping they are not. Crowds where a problem chasing the holy grail in 2004, when we did a complete sweep of trophies - apart from GF day of course. But the comp should not be based on one day only when rest of season the comp isn't drawing them in.
People should stop putting the Championship down. Its a great competition and competitive. To think how we was last season - relegated given a reprieve, and we seem to be a force this time around and if we did somehow win it this year it will be a great achievement in itself. But of course people will talk to others and bring the whole thing down because of course SL is everything.

Unfortunatley since Ian was last with us things have changed , the ' holy grail ' is no longer available , he does have a very important job , that is to provide an exciting enjoyable product , that will entice people to attend and hopefully make them interested enough to return

However the fans and more importantly the BOD have to have a change of focus , we might never again grace the top tier , and the club must prepare for all and any eventuallities

This will require money , and on a similar thread on the Fax board this was my contribution

It's up to the individual clubs to sit down together , work out where their collective strength lies , decide to put that strength to it's most productive use , have no boundaries to what they can achieve and no pre concieved idea's as to where income can be gathered

A blank page is the starting point

20 clubs

10,000 hard core committed customers

Another 20,000 potential customers from day one

2 million potential customers on their door steps

28 live tv matches to market with

Around 200 business proffessionals to draw idea's and expertise from

Surely that is as good a start to a business as you can ask for ?

I must say that I actually thought yesterday's attendance was half-decent considering the fact that there can't have been any more than 40-50 Whitehaven supporters - they brought more to the LSV for the Miners game!

Crowds will go up once word spreads about winning rugby in a hugely competitive division. A cup run wouldn't go amiss either.

Can't disagree, away support in the championships is now largely part of history.
I do feel the game outside of SL is in a bit of a mess and is obviously deemed unattractive to many supporters these days(the crowds are woeful all across the board this year), however if we keep winning a few at home then I think ours can creep up as fans return.

If the games on Sky continue to be belters then that won't do any harm either.

Fact is, only ourselves, 'Fax and Widnes only seem to take any sort of numbers away from home, and even then only 'Fax seem to have increased on previous years. Glad to see ours is certainly creeping back up though, should be bouncing at 'Fax on Sunday.

Cheers matey.

I know you see it every day in every form of meda but the recession is kicking us when we are down. When more people have some disposable income I think the crowds will return. That, IM and a winnng team and we could see 5K crowds at the LSV. I personally think that if we have two good seasons back to back we will prosper.

I think that any Championship club that gets average attendances 'close' to Harlequins are doing ok, apart from Widnes, who always get more than than 'that pathetic' London club (not the skolars)