Union attendances dominate league. Take the last two world cups to be held in Austrialia the vast majority of games in both world cups were played in the so called league strongholds of queensland and new south wales. 2003 union world cup Total attendance 1,837,547 average 38,282 per match en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2003_Rugby_World_Cup 2008 league world cup Total attendance 293,965 average 16,331 per match en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2008_Rugby ... _World_Cup

Union attendances dominate league. Take the last two world cups to be held in Austrialia the vast majority of games in both world cups were played in the so called league strongholds of queensland and new south wales. 2003 union world cup Total attendance 1,837,547 average 38,282 per match en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2003_Rugby_World_Cup 2008 league world cup Total attendance 293,965 average 16,331 per match en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2008_Rugby ... _World_Cup

and todays massive union attendances include 4.500 at sarries 4.600 at landan welsh, and a massive 7.000 at the huge wasps v bath local derby.

I guess geography is not your strong point, but I agree with your point about their attendances being inflated by the "on the road games"

We can over inflate the gates as a means to getting better sponsorship deals and tv deals.

are they not both in london? shows how much union i watch.lol

It's more geography related than Union

Why are we going on about Rugby Union crowds for. What possible interest can that be to Rugby League supporters. If you are going to compare the size of the gate perhaps we should look at the price of their tickets as well.

League crowds were always loads bigger than union crowds but in the last few years Union has overtaken League and they've done it while charging higher gate prices at the same time. We need to find a way of doing what they are. I do agree with you that they are not compeing with us for spectators but we do need to be competing with them in order to get similar sponsorship deals that they get. Just look at the billboards around the grounds. They have luxury car companies and computer firms and we have local builders and Uncle Joe's Mint Balls.

wasps and bath are over 100 miles apart!

This is ridiculous though. Rugby League is a sport which cannot be compared to Rugby Union off the field, to do so is to take the sport completely out of its own context. RL has achieved in its own right excellent top flight attendance averages in the past decade, yet it is being beaten up on here because of things happening in another sport, a sport itself riddled with problems on and off the field.

RU's success has always been driven by its international games. RL has not had that luxury for some time; comparing dick sizes with Rugby Union will only lead to a conclusion of RL failure. That's an inevitable result - and a convenient result for anyone who is looking to belittle Rugby League no matter what the reason. Are people claiming to have just noticed Rugby League's defining characteristics and limitations? Don't claim to be disgusted or outraged that Rugby League is a battling minority and regional sport, it has been for the past 117 years, did you never notice before? It's not a case of accepting that as a fact forever, but all this self-loathing is getting a bit pathetic; as far as I can see so-called RL fans looking to beat RL up for RU's perceived successes are just looking for any excuse to attack the sport for their own reasons.

I haven't said anything of the sort. I was merely responding to the previous poster's question.

Don't let the Union calculator distort things....firstly these are season to date figures- which will fall away as the season goes on and their normal gates pull the figure down, as the wasps and saracens figures are vastly exageratted by their 80k game at Wembley with cheap / given away tickets!

In addition, by the look of those figures, not only have they exaggerated one average attendence by including the Wembley figure, the union boys have doublely counted the wembley game as a home game for both teams, and so counted all fans TWICE as a home fixture for both Sarries and Wasps (Couldn't make it up!....its akin to us putting 60k down as a home crowd for EVERY team in the magic weekend!)

Both Saracens and Wasps home 'averages' (sic) vastly exceed their home ground capacities (16k and 10k respectively) and so both are CLEARLY not pulling these figures- both average circa 6k and 8k respectively.

Take away the wembley game (as shown amended as actual figures in red above) and their attendances are roughly the same as ours....Both leagues average around 10k, and they only slightly outstrip us due to the fact they no longer have a team outside of their heartlands (Leeds /Newcastle) pulling 2k, to compare with our London Broncos, pulling the averages down!

How can you take away a "real" game?

Sorry but did those people turn up or not?

Talk about bitter!!

That has nothing to do with the relative numbers of people attending games. It is all about the type of person attending, which should be rather obvious.