You can use the membership scheme then and still save money.

What is the answer then Jukes? Any creative thinking re solutions? What could the club do differently to reverse the trend of crowds decreasing significantly over the last decade? The intend of the thread is not to criticise the club and complain that I'm not saving enough money - its to consider any adaptations or different strategies that can be taken to address the problem.

Your opinion is ST prices are fine. Fine - fair enough. I led with the ST prices in the OP as an article on the topic triggered my thoughts. I still think they could be a little cheaper but I can come round to the idea that the benefits of rewarding loyal existing fans outweigh the costs of more affordability for non ST holders. However, you still have the barriers to entry for new and returning/lapsed fans and it is those categories of fans that the club will need to appeal to in order to improve attendances (with all the benefits that will bring such as more income, sustainability, improved match day experience, optics on TV etc).

I've repeated some of my suggestions below (copied from the first post with a couple of additions). Do you have any ideas to add? Unless you feel that the club's approach is perfect in every way and instead we should blame the customer base for not buying the product? (A fatal attitude for businesses IMO).

Tweak the prices for lapsed fans. Scale match ticket prices on the sidelines so wider blocks are cheaper than central blocks. Categorise games so that lower category games against Wakefield/Salford etc are cheaper than higher category games against Saints/Warrington etc. Honest assessment of the marketing since the new marketing lead came in - has there been any noticeable improvement? Some more innovation/creativity with Wigan TV - potentially with some fan involvement/discussions. Increased benefits for ST holders who bring new/lapsed fans to a game. A fan survey to existing/lapsed/potential fans to gather views on what would attract fans to games. An email newsletter to the fan database. Invite fans to sign up for the club's social media channels in the newsletter (particularly YouTube which has a very low subscriber count of 2,300). Hand out flyers at the St Helens Good Friday game with some form of ticket bundle offer for the next few games.

Is there an offer where a ST holder can bring a friend for free (or a fiver) to certain games (ie Wakefield, Huddersfield, Catalan)? Ok, they may not be getting £30 for the seat, but they'll almost certainly buy a pie or a pint, and if they spend it in the fan zone, the club get the money.

There used to be, but i'm not sure if they offer this any more

the problem with it (albeit i agree with the logic of getting someone to the game cheaply) is that many fans would want to watch Wigan v Saints, and it was quite rightly excluded from that. How many new / lapsed fans would choose to go to Wigan v Wakey, Hudds or Catalan, when the likelihood is its a poor quality game, crowd, atmosphere and no away fans. I know it wouldnt be my 1st choice, and things i've just mentioned are some of the reasons my desire to retain my ST diminished, alongside missing several games for the last couple of years i had a ST

This is not just a Wigan issue. the wider RL community / SL needs to look at what is served up on the pitch week in week out. I used to hate watching Wakey, Hudds, London games, as they were generally low quality, intensity etc etc, with no atmosphere, so was just sat there wondering why i was sat in a ground on Friday night when i could have been doing something else. Now if those games were played at anything like the intensity of Wigan v Saints / Wire / Leeds, then i would probably feel very differently. i think we all know that the current format isnt the best, and leads to several mediocre games throughout the season, as sides just coast to get into the playoffs. Until that is resolved i feel there will always be an apathy towards ST and regular season games, when in reality all that matters now is winning the GF. It no coincidence that Saints have been beaten by the side relegated for the last x number of seasons, as they quite rightly have chosen to field a weakened / understrength side against them, and lo and behold they lose the game, but come out with a fresh team for the business end of the season (i know there is more to it than that, but its an example of what is wrong with the current format)

There is a bring a friend for free to a selected game with a season ticket, don't know if the selected game is decided by the club or by choice but it is still there, the only problem I have with that is, I sit in the middle of the East stand and there are no seats around me, so if I was to bring a friend they would either have to sit in a stand on their own or I would have to change to an open stand, which is not a big issue as such but I like the seat I have for the view, so I would generally never use the offer.

That was the problem with the old scrum tickets. I can bring 6 friends but I can't drink with them pre-match in the South Stand Bar as I normally would and I can't sit with them unless I move seats.

Wigan do A LOT of good things in trying to get bums on seats. We have two of the most exciting (if not THE most exciting) players in the competition turning out week after week, were unbeaten at home last season (until it mattered sadly) and came away with the CC (which has extra meaning for us after the 8 in a row) for the first time in nearly 10 years.

The fact is despite that, people will still find reasons not to go. Some are of course valid when games move from a scheduled date (doesn't actually happen THAT often) but some are the usual "yeah but but but but" reasoning. The club have to look after themselves and £30 per game is pretty cheap against other sports/events and considering that dropping it by £5 say won't bring in enough fans to cover the difference there isn't much more they can do.

The issue of falling crowds for me is not an issue at Wigan and the costs/marketing, but an issue across the sport. IMG have a massive task on their hands.

The issue of falling crowds is generally across the board, there are far more things to do these days with your money and more demands on any spare cash you may have.
I have a 4 season tickets but often go on my own as the kids are either doing other things or 'can't be bothered', they are not hard fans and I keep the tickets going as they may get the bug one day, I could sit at home and watch the games on TV but I much prefer to watch the games live, even when freezing your goolies off.
Out of interest what kind of crowds do they get in the NRL, I watch quite a lot of their games and most of the crowds don't look that great, they obviously get a lot of their money from sponsorship etc. but why are low crowds in the NRL (if that is the case) not an issue for them, do they look at viewing figures to be the be all and end all.

Some of the NRL crowds are huge in comparison but there are some clubs that average less than Wigan, Saints, Leeds etc.

I think the general down turn in crowds is driven quite strongly by the fact Superleague is now seen as a second rate comp. Sadly we’ve fallen so far behind the NRL and people aren’t daft. It feels like we’re Scottish Football in comparison to the Premier league now (maybe not that big a gap but still something like the French league, compared to the Prem).

How we turn that around us anyones guess. IMG have a huge job on their hands. It’s tough to judge them too much in the off season but it’ll be interesting to see what ideas they gave in terms of promotion of the sport as the season gets closer. There’s not much evidence of things being in the pipeline so far.

I agree re IMG in that their task is pretty immense.

For me the 2 of the biggest long term issues that they need address are both at grassroot level and I am unsure if their brief extends to that level.

The playing pool at all levels is far too low. It's great that we are regarded as a great club for developing young players but ALL SL clubs must up their game and raise the bar higher than Wigan/Saints/Leeds currently achieve. The M62 corridor is not sufficient enough to significantly increase the quality and quantity of players playing professionally or semi professionally. We need a national base and we are light years away from this at the moment.

The age profile of fans at all clubs if pretty scary. We need more fans under the age of 30 at all clubs. I haven't got a clue how this will be achieved but we need completely new fans to the game even more so for me than lapsed fans.

As you say it will be interesting to see how they will market the game going forward.

The price of the season tick and match day tickets aren’t the number one issue. They are relatively cheap in comparison to other sports in the country.

The issue is there aren’t enough fans of Wigan Warriors. Plenty of football clubs in the Championship, League 1 and League 2 get bigger crowds and are in similar type of towns to Wigan.

American Football pro teams seem to be averaging around 70,000, which apparently represents 98% of seats sold.
My mate in Dallas has been on the waiting list for a Cowboys season ticket since 1989.
College football is massive too, I saw Tennessee v Ole Miss a few years ago as part of an 80,000 crowd.
When I lived in Tennessee the local high school football team drew 10,000 on a Friday night. The town population was 20,000. Lots of people were involved besides players, cheerleaders, a big band, catering, stewarding, security, admin and so on.
They are light years ahead in organisation, and Football there has a massive grass roots base.
But I was born in Wigan and I prefer to watch Rugby League

hugely difficult to grow the game in the current economic climate.

Rugby league is traditionally played in poor working class areas. These areas are suffering the most from the Tory cost of living crisis.
When people are seeing their utility bills go up 4 fold in a couple of years, obviously something has to give.
‘Luxuries’ such as leisure time activities get cut, non-essential subscriptions (ie. Sky tv also hit hard), doubly bad for the game.

We in the UK have the highest utility prices in the world, and while we initially ‘bounced back’ from Covid the quickest as we opened back up first, other countries have sailed part us in terms of growth, and we are going into recession where others aren’t.
The US is a way richer country than us, and the problem with the UK is, while we rank quite highly on and index of ‘rich’ countries, the wealth is in the hands of a very few. The Netherland, while similar in terms of wealth per head, has a way more even distribution of wealth.

I really fear for the sport, as the Sky deal is up again at the end of the year, and this current short term deal is well down on the last.
Its time for IMG to actually stop fact finding and progress the sport…

hugely difficult to grow the game in the current economic climate.

Rugby league is traditionally played in poor working class areas. These areas are suffering the most from the Tory cost of living crisis.
When people are seeing their utility bills go up 4 fold in a couple of years, obviously something has to give.
‘Luxuries’ such as leisure time activities get cut, non-essential subscriptions (ie. Sky tv also hit hard), doubly bad for the game.

We in the UK have the highest utility prices in the world, and while we initially ‘bounced back’ from Covid the quickest as we opened back up first, other countries have sailed part us in terms of growth, and we are going into recession where others aren’t.
The US is a way richer country than us, and the problem with the UK is, while we rank quite highly on and index of ‘rich’ countries, the wealth is in the hands of a very few. The Netherland, while similar in terms of wealth per head, has a way more even distribution of wealth.

I really fear for the sport, as the Sky deal is up again at the end of the year, and this current short term deal is well down on the last.
Its time for IMG to actually stop fact finding and progress the sport…

Just a mention of a huge positive on the marketing/community engagement front - all of the work Wigan are doing just now with schools and local businesses is absolutely fantastic.

Since Peet took over as coach Wigan have really tried to re-engage with the fans at all levels schools,community etc.So a big well done to Matt and his team.
So looking forward to this season.