attendances falling! : Tue Sep 16, 2014 6:34 pm  

The attendance figures for each club in the 2014 regular season (2013 in brackets):
Bradford Bulls: 6,891 (8,575)
Castleford Tigers: 7,068 (6,292)
Catalan Dragons: 7,667 (8,179)
Huddersfield Giants: 6,335 (6,374)
Hull FC: 11,159 (11,680)
Hull Kingston Rovers: 7,848 (7,495)
Leeds Rhinos: 15,068 (15,200)
London Broncos: 1,295 (2,200)
Salford Red Devils: 4,738 (3,178)
St Helens: 12,120 (11,235)
Wakefield Trinity Wildcats: 4,351 (7,973)
Warrington Wolves: 9,870 (10,633)
Widnes Vikings: 5,635 (6,015)
Wigan Warriors: 14,102 (14,545)

I have been a season ticket holder for many years but next year I will be pay as I go, reasons are, 1, late fixture changes i.e Sunday to Friday,Thursday etc, 2, no compensation for late fixture change from the club, I have missed many matches this season that I have prepaid and I am not alone, many people I have spoken to have the same problem. I know that Sky put a lot of money into the game but why do we have matches that are not televised on a Friday and Thursday, it does nothing to attract away supporters and vise versa , I don,t go to away games which are to far to travel and get up for work next morning. This is not a moan, I am just stating a few facts.

Re: attendances falling! : Tue Sep 16, 2014 7:13 pm  

I think there are some encouraging signs there, with quite a few increases.

London's problems this year have been well documented, as have Bradford's so their hefty drop is unsurprising. Wakefield didn't sell season tickets until relatively late and had an unfortunate run of back to back home games which is a pain when you are heavily relying on walk ups. The French are just the French!

I know many people are unhappy about Thursdays, but I've just been flicking through TV channels and I see Anfield is full on a Tuesday night.

Wigan showed the other week that well marketed, one off events such as 'the big one'. People complain the RFL don't sell the game but for me it's the clubs who are falling well short on that front. Monday Night Football is a huge concept, here and in America. It would be very easy for us to do the same here with Thursday games. The golden square, pubs, restaurants, Gemini and UCI are all full on a Thursday night, why should the HJ be an exception?

Re: attendances falling! : Tue Sep 16, 2014 7:16 pm  

The golden square, pubs, restaurants, Gemini and UCI are all full on a Thursday night, ........................ your having a laugh !!!!!!!!!! Odeon is seldom full even at a weekend. Even "Orange Wednesday" are not as popular as they used to be.

Re: attendances falling! : Tue Sep 16, 2014 7:18 pm  

We will be back at Wilderspool levels dropping 1000 supporters per year....

Re: attendances falling! : Tue Sep 16, 2014 7:32 pm  

Encouraging signs? 10 out of 14 teams have lower attendances and that's encouraging?

There are a lot of people unhappy about evening rugby, as they had to get the season tickets before the fixtures were known and then find out they cannot take young children to half the games.I know quite a few who aren't getting season tickets next year because of it.

Wigan had two matches above 20,000 and still had lower average crowds. That to me shows that you have to lower the prices to get people in. They come once and dissappear.

[Fantastic Mr Catpiss]

Re: attendances falling! : Tue Sep 16, 2014 7:50 pm  

Wire2000 wrote:

The attendance figures for each club in the 2014 regular season (2013 in brackets):
Bradford Bulls: 6,891 (8,575)
Castleford Tigers: 7,068 (6,292)
Catalan Dragons: 7,667 (8,179)
Huddersfield Giants: 6,335 (6,374)
Hull FC: 11,159 (11,680)
Hull Kingston Rovers: 7,848 (7,495)
Leeds Rhinos: 15,068 (15,200)
London Broncos: 1,295 (2,200)
Salford Red Devils: 4,738 (3,178)
St Helens: 12,120 (11,235)
Wakefield Trinity Wildcats: 4,351 (7,973)
Warrington Wolves: 9,870 (10,633)
Widnes Vikings: 5,635 (6,015)
Wigan Warriors: 14,102 (14,545)

I have been a season ticket holder for many years but next year I will be pay as I go, reasons are, 1, late fixture changes i.e Sunday to Friday,Thursday etc, 2, no compensation for late fixture change from the club, I have missed many matches this season that I have prepaid and I am not alone, many people I have spoken to have the same problem. I know that Sky put a lot of money into the game but why do we have matches that are not televised on a Friday and Thursday, it does nothing to attract away supporters and vise versa , I don,t go to away games which are to far to travel and get up for work next morning. This is not a moan, I am just stating a few facts.

Just for clarity, which of the many late fixtures changes have you not been able to attend this year ?

Re: attendances falling! : Tue Sep 16, 2014 7:57 pm  

Wire Weaver wrote:

Encouraging signs? 10 out of 14 teams have lower attendances and that's encouraging?

There are a lot of people unhappy about evening rugby, as they had to get the season tickets before the fixtures were known and then find out they cannot take young children to half the games.I know quite a few who aren't getting season tickets next year because of it.

Wigan had two matches above 20,000 and still had lower average crowds. That to me shows that you have to lower the prices to get people in. They come once and dissappear.

Aside from ourselves and those mentioned, most are only by a few hundred. I was in the Connie Club on Saturday and the Catalan v Cas game just seemed like a hinderence to the large number of football fans in there. It made me realise how good Thursday night games are for us. I had a look a few weeks back and Thursday night games have often even getting double what we had in the days of Saturday evening games. Don't forget until this year the Saturday evening football was on ESPN etc so there would be even more competition.

We can't give tickets away, refuse to play in the best tv slots then expect to compete with union and the NRL. Rugby league is exceptional value. Rugby Union World Cup Final tickets start at £150!

[Winslade's Offload]

Re: attendances falling! : Tue Sep 16, 2014 8:09 pm  

Sorry GO but you are burying your head in the sand on this one IMO. After discussing it, reading endless numbers of posts, chatting with people at matches etc etc it looks as though there are a number of reasons why attendances are falling;

Thursday night matches.
No real wage increases.
Quality of the product on offer.
League games seen as irrelevant after Leeds win it from 5th twice.

You can add to that the question of why have they fallen this year after a very successful world cup. Surely that should have at least arrested the decline ?

Next year at least the issue of the SL format will be addressed. Hopefully it will breathe a bit of life into what has become a pretty stale competition. And from being against the marquee player proposal, I am now coming around to the idea in order to bring a bit of quality into the game . But I don't see the 'Thursday night' / late changes of date problem going away, Sky pay the money and call the tune, so I don't see that changing.

[Fantastic Mr Catpiss]

Re: attendances falling! : Tue Sep 16, 2014 8:14 pm  

You know, I'm not sure you canuse the late changes excuse this year, hence Me asking the op.


If I remember correctly, we've only had two fixture changes this year, cas at home, which we got about a months notice, and giants at home, which I can't find but I think was about 3 weeks notice.


Now granted for people in certain industries i understand that's not much time to change leave etc. But the op is making it sound like he's missed a love ton, and deserves a t-shirt or some to make up for it, when really 98% me fixtures this year have been set in stone since November last year.

[Winslade's Offload]

Re: attendances falling! : Tue Sep 16, 2014 8:25 pm  

Fantastic Mr Catpiss wrote:

You know, I'm not sure you canuse the late changes excuse this year, hence Me asking the op.


If I remember correctly, we've only had two fixture changes this year, cas at home, which we got about a months notice, and giants at home, which I can't find but I think was about 3 weeks notice.


Now granted for people in certain industries i understand that's not much time to change leave etc. But the op is making it sound like he's missed a love ton, and deserves a t-shirt or some to make up for it, when really 98% me fixtures this year have been set in stone since November last year.

Ok, you may have a point about late changes. Perhaps it's not as important, but if you are a regular ST holder who works shifts, it might still colour your judgement when deciding to buy another one this year. Thursday night games are not very popular though, and the all important kids (tomorrows fans) probably don't go much for obvious reasons. And you can probably add to that the feeling that the ST holder is no longer as important to the club as he/she used to be, otherwise "they wouldn't muck about so much with the dates and time".