Some people obviously aren't well versed in marketing strategy.

The tweet last night went viral. It had Wigan fans, general British RL fans along with players and media types talking. That's the holy grail for any marketeer.

To waste all that momentum and hype on something that frankly isn't that important is laughable. Not only that it waters down the potential impact for using twitter for future big announcements.

Don't build up an average announcement into something it isn't whilst at the same time wasting the goodwill of the fans.

Did anyone seriously set their alarm clock early to see the news?

People need to manage their own expectations rather than blame the club or their PR spin when they're disappointed because we haven't announced a signing, when there was no indication this was going to be the case.

The meltdown by some on Twitter this morning is embarrassing. This is my personal favourite@WiganWarriorsRL thank you wigan warriors for taking the loyal fans for gullible clowns i for 1 will not be doing 300mile anymore ta again '"

In fairness to the people who got excited, the club raised expectations with a clever bit of PR

My main concern with this is that if we cant sell a Wigan and Leeds game on its own merit then something is seriously wrong. Secondly, if the usual cheap big one tickets are put on sale then my ST this year was worthless. Yes I have a seat for every game (I doubt I would struggle to get the same seat anyway) and yes we get priority on away games (again no struggle for tickets) so where is the value?

Yeah some will of done. I get a lot of feedback on social media and that's what I judge my thoughts on. I think it back fired a little. Fans are naive. Only have to judge the rumour mongering to see that. And BTW I say this after the initial tweet they did, it was only obvious from the second tweet they did.

As an outsider looking in I have to completely agree with you here.

I can't help but think Wigan have shot themselves in the foot a bit. The "Big One" events have worked well in the past without having to get everyone's hopes up and leave people feeling a huge sense of anti-climax.

Instead of the announcement promoting the game v Leeds and getting people interested, it's probably had more of a detrimental effect as people will just think "is that it?"

Before anyone accuses me of being a troll can I just say that Wigan's PR team normally get it bang on and have done a great job in the past in promoting these games. However, this is a bit of a media clanger I'm afraid.

and this sums up a big consensus of our support to what I hear which is point I'm making really.

Totally agree. The clues were there on Twitter all along. It's a nice little gimmick that we have each year, which does seem to work as the attendances are always healthy. Granted, there's not much for ST holders to get excited about, but the comment by a previous poster to say that STs aren't worth the money is a bit silly. You get a guaranteed seat for every game (East and West stands obviously), a discount on the Magic tickets and a discount comapred to buying each game individually (yes, that does include factoring in reduced price games).

On that note though, anyone know what the prices are for this? The article on the website doesn't give them and the eticketing site just has the usual prices for any other SL game (£23 for the ES5&6)

I'm fairly sure you still save quite a bit of money buying a season ticket in comparison to paying each week, even if you do use every offer you can. We know we'll get a bumper crowd for Leeds regardless, I'd have made the Cas cup game (granted that would have backfired given our performance) or first home play off game the big one. Crowds are usually down anyway, season ticket holders would get the same benefit as everyone else, and if we win new fans will hopefully follow us through the rest of the rounds. Plus it's knockout rugby which adds excitement and ensures we won't be resting anyone or just going through the motions as I feel could be the danger in the actual big one

Cup and play offs are RFL events which perhaps is a factor in those attendances being so poor.

Spot on with what you have said here.

To blame the fans for putting two and two together and getting five is just wrong! It was clear with the initial tweet that this would raise expectations to a point were people expected something of significance.

Im sorry but the reality is that a few scarves wraped around a lamp post at 5.00am on a Tuesday morning to promote a league game is hardly breaking news.

Season ticket holders blowing up that they don't get the incentive, as far as I can see there aren't going to be any cheap tickets for it, which makes the whole thing even more pointless. They've just called a normal league game "The Big One" without offerring the discounted tickets that the previous 4 have had.

Do the club not have any control over prices though? I'm fairly sure the Cas tickets were cheapish

Am I living in a parralell universe? Look at the numbers on the previous "Big One" logos. Given the picture the club put on Twitter last night, how could anyone have expected it to be anything different?

rlhttps://www.wiganwarriors.com/Image.aspx?m - Big One 2
rlhttps://www.wiganwarriors.com/Image.aspx?m - Big One 3
rlhttps://www.superleaguefans.com/images/content/1209.jpgrl - Big One 4

rlhttps://wiganwarriors.com/Image.aspx?m - Big One 5

Exactly. As soon as I saw that, I knew it was a total non-event. I think people were trying to chase the rainbow of Sam or Tommy coming back and now that it's obviously proven not to be the case they feel foolish and are blaming the club for getting their hopes up. Yes, the club made a bit of a mountain out of a molehill, but that's what their marketing department is paid to do.