Our crowd

Quote: El Diablo "I think the key for you lot is for the club to capitalise on success. For instance, when the play-offs come around, what you really need, more than the gate money, is bums on seats. I think the RFL (who I believe largely control play-off ticket prices) have some responsibility here, which I'm sure they'll fail to discharge...

At Leeds we like to pretend that our crowds have been huge for as long as we can remember. This is, of course, not true, nad I can certainly remember times when crowds of 6-8k were pretty commonplace at Headingley.

You have to get the product to sell itself. Your stadium does you know favours. Half empty stadiums kill an atmosphere pretty well, but that can't be helped.

But, if you get 15-16k in there for a play-off semi on a nice evening, and win a tense game you WILL get those people to Old Trafford, and a lot of them will come back. Success breeds success. Once crowds go up, the atmosphere improves and the matches feel more exciting, more of an event and people are more likely to part with their cash to be part of it. The trouble is, for the reciprocal of those reasons, low crowds are a tough cycle to break.

I actually think they're a symptom of the wider sport's image and PR too. You can look at the turn-out at Salford with their target population too. Leeds get good crowds, but look at the size of the pond we're fishing from. It might help therefore if other teams' fans (including, but not limited to) Leeds', stopped chelping at those of you who are turning up every week and started to think about the wider interests of the sport. If the product is hard to sell with a team playing as well as Huddersfield, there's a warning bell for other clubs that they shouldn't be too short-sighted to listen to.

Rant ends.'"

good post.... massive point on the half empty stadium bit which alot of people forget and its why our crowds look so bad on tv.