Quote: Scouse Pie2 "In order to allow the original thread to get back to what it was supposed to be discussing, I think a new thread is needed on this topic.
I do think that aboveusonlypie has a point, although he is being rather hardline about it. Of course you can be a fan without going to the game, there are a multitude of other ways to support your team.
In terms of Thursday night, let's make no bones about it, the attendance was shocking. 8.5k for a playoff game is abysmal. The club made it as easy as possible for fans to get to the game in terms of ticket prices and letting STHs claim their own seat all the way up until the day of the game.
That though, is slightly irrelevant when looking at what seems to be the two main gripes from people on here.
1. "Playoff games aren't included in my season ticket" - Why on earth should they be? If you support a successful team, you should expect them to be getting to playoffs and finals etc. Lord knows years of supporting Liverpool has taught me that. The club doesn't owe you a bean in this respect. Even if they did, the play-offs are an RFL event anyway so the clubs have little control over ticketing them. Despite this, they did us a huge favour by heavily subsidising Thursday night's ticket.
2. "I work on a Thursday night" - That's bad luck, but I don't think that applies to all 4-5 thousand that dropped off the attendance from the Salford game at the end of July or the Warrington game a few weeks ago. Either way, I think we need to look at how we get people to the game whether they work shifts or 9 to 5.
I think the situation will be a lot better next year. The playoffs will be meaningful from the word go, which should up the attendance. I know we all want the sport to grow, and playing in stadiums that are not even half full is going to go nowhere towards furthering that.'"
I agree with point 2, the fact the Hudds game was on a Thursday may have knocked a few hundred off the crowd, but our home POs have been consistently low over the previous 5 seasons when they were on Friday night or Sunday afternoon.
With point 1 you're comparing football to rugby league there, and the two just don't compare. Premier league football teams know they can charge upwards of £50 a ticket and still get a full house. They also have loyalty systems in place for cup competitions where if you miss an unattractive early cup fixture you wouldn't be eligible for later rounds. Neither of those apply to RL.
The main flaw is the PO structure. Every Wigan fan knew last week that we were guaranteed another home game over the next two weeks should we win or lose against Huddersfield. With that in mind, a lot of fans clearly chose to miss last week's game and save the cash for the later rounds and potential GF. Even our semi in a fortnight will be lucky to get up to this season's average weekly round attendance (about 14k).
I agree about next season though. Only one game won't count on a ST, and that will be a semi-final knockout game.