Re: Opening SL weekend sees attendances tumbling by 12.66% : Mon Jul 29, 2013 8:09 pm  

JonB95 wrote:

Oh come on, you were comparing to other sports and RU as a team sport in the same vein is the closest comparison. If the only important stats are those of rugby league then stop bloody comparing us to the other code yourself.

I repeat...... I didn't say all sports and I didn't bring union to the thread. You can imply I brought union up, but the evidence is there for all to see in black and white!

Re: Opening SL weekend sees attendances tumbling by 12.66% : Mon Jul 29, 2013 10:02 pm  

I said.....

gutterfax wrote:

You say Potayto, I'll say Potatto ....either way, it's not good news for the sport that attendances are down when other sports are riding the Olympic wave and increasing theirs.

WA Red said....

JB Down Under wrote:

Of course it's not good crowds are down, but we are not alone in that. Which sports crowds are up? RU certainly aren't.

Arriva premiership avg crowd
12/13 12,478
11/12 12,925

Followed by the irrelevant comments regarding Europe in the context of the London games...

JB Down Under wrote:

French top 14
09/10 13,795
12/13 11,387

Heineken cup
11/12 15,323
12/13 13,566

...but ignoring the Amlin and Rabo Pro 12 comps because they didn't suit his irrelevant point.

I responded to this irrelevance with a tongue in cheek....

gutterfax wrote:

And people say I'm obsessed with union?

to which WA Red retorted....

JB Down Under wrote:

Sorry did I show you up?

feel free to point out how me saying that other sports are kicking on and doing well on the back of the Olympics has somehow been shown up by irrelevant English and European Union crowds?

The you jumped in with

JonB95 wrote:

Erm, you said RL was failing because 'all other sports were riding the Olympic wave and increasing their crowds'.. fundamentally wrong.

when in fact the only thing that was fundamentally flawed was your ability to read what I posted....

Not content with that...you compounded the error by insinuating what I was saying.....

JonB95 wrote:

Oh come on, you were comparing to other sports and RU as a team sport in the same vein is the closest comparison. If the only important stats are those of rugby league then stop bloody comparing us to the other code yourself.

I didn't mention Union and I didn't compare RL to Union this time.

I am amused as to why this thread has gone down this route, given the 2 main FACTS at present that are valid are that SL is 11.5% down on attendances against last year and the Challenge Cup 15.5% down.

These FACTS should be of major concern to the RFL as if the clubs see a drop in revenues then there will be less cash available for players....we will lose some more to Union, the NRL or some will simply not see RL as a viable career path. Less fans will be of even less interest to sponsors, or as the RFL now calls them, Partners.

All of these things are far more concerning than the attendances at Club Union matches......that can be swallowed with ease by the massive attendances achieved at International level.

Re: Opening SL weekend sees attendances tumbling by 12.66% : Mon Jul 29, 2013 10:15 pm  

So which sports exactly do you think are riding the Olympic wave ? I'd love to hear this.

Re: Opening SL weekend sees attendances tumbling by 12.66% : Tue Jul 30, 2013 12:35 am  

JonB95 wrote:

So which sports exactly do you think are riding the Olympic wave ? I'd love to hear this.

JonB95 wrote:

So which sports exactly do you think are riding the Olympic wave ? I'd love to hear this.

seriously?
you're not very good at this, are you?

Not content with me underlining the flaws in your failed attempts to make me look foolish, you'd now like me to slap on an extra coat of varnish to your shame?

Fair enough.

find me an athletics meeting in the UK prior to the Olympics and not counting a commonwealth games...but a diamond league meeting that saw crowds like this?


...bear in mind that there are a number of different sports on show here. Because they don't include Union doesn't make them any less pertinent to the point under discussion....that sports are riding the wave of interest created by the Olympics.

The 2011 Diamond league meeting was held at Crystal Palace....capacity 16,000. Tell me.....does the picture above show more than 16,000 in the Olympic stadium????

I think it does.

RONSEAL!

Re: Opening SL weekend sees attendances tumbling by 12.66% : Tue Jul 30, 2013 9:42 am  

There is only one sport there. Many different events, but one sport.

Re: Opening SL weekend sees attendances tumbling by 12.66% : Tue Jul 30, 2013 10:29 am  

No sports away from athletics are riding the olympic wave. Even the athletics 'wave' is debatable, despite the attendance at a one off event marketed as the London anniversary games. Bet the majority of the crowd were oblivious that it was actually a diamond league meeting.

Re: Opening SL weekend sees attendances tumbling by 12.66% : Tue Jul 30, 2013 10:33 am  

Talent Spotter wrote:

No sports away from athletics are riding the olympic wave. Even the athletics 'wave' is debatable, despite the attendance at a one off event marketed as the London anniversary games. Bet the majority of the crowd were oblivious that it was actually a diamond league meeting.

This is true.

Even the hype over 'handball' subsided faster than St Helen's challenge in a grand final.

Re: Opening SL weekend sees attendances tumbling by 12.66% : Tue Jul 30, 2013 11:16 am  

One of the paradoxes of a big event like the Olympics is that it doesn't particularly drive people to go and watch the sport domestically. Having just watched the elite, in some ways, watching the day-in-day-out competition can feel like it would be a let-down. County Cricket both suffers and benefits from the commercial success of England. Cash trickles down by design, but interest doesn't. The relationship between the highest international levels of a sport and domestic competition are very complex, and very different across sports - there's no easy "do this and it'll all be reet" answer. For example, we bemoan the lack of high-level international RL - but realistically, is trying to ape (say) the 6 nations the way forward? If it's not realistic, we need to look at other sports for different parallels. For example, football would carry on almost as normal if the world cup and other internationals were all stopped tomorrow. The highest national domestic leagues and the Champions League would see to that. For me, that's why I've always thought that every effort should be made to develop our equivalent of the Champions League - not some one-off end-of-season jamboree, but something embedded in the sport - that the best of the northern and southern hemispheres should have regular clashes, sufficiently spread through the season to encourage higher interest, and strive for the almost constant media coverage other sports achieve as games are covered in build up and aftermath, not just on the day.

This in itself feel miles away, and very difficult to achieve, but it seems like a better use of time and resource than trying to manufacture international teams and competitions.

Which is not to say we shouldn't have a world cup, lions tours, develop smaller nations (those where the interest in the sport is real that is ). All these are Good Things, but are not the shortest route to boosting the profile of the game. Higher profile feeds on itself, and helps build every aspect of the game, so lets seek the easiest (relatively that is, none are 'easy') path to convincing journalists and broadcasters that Something Important is happening and worth shouting about.

[PopTart]

Re: Opening SL weekend sees attendances tumbling by 12.66% : Tue Jul 30, 2013 11:54 am  

Just looked at the Wakefield attendances like for like. We are showing quite similar averages on games so far. Some higher some lower
2012 - 8,164
2013 - 8,116

Average at end of 2012 was 8,172
We have Bradford, Sts and Cas to play at home. I imagine Bradford will be bigger than last time and Sts will be much the same.
Depends whether Cas have a run and make it an important game at the end of the season to see whether we are higher or lower.
But if we average more than 8k again I think we've done a good job.

Re: Opening SL weekend sees attendances tumbling by 12.66% : Tue Jul 30, 2013 12:18 pm  

Gutters I frankly don't appreciate your tone of argument nor your claim that you 'shamed' me. I assumed you meant sports like RU for riding the Olympic wave because I don't see why RL should be expecting to be riding it when RU and soccer certainly haven't. There's been a lot of questioning in our media about what impact the Olympics actually has. The anniversary of the Olympics has always been marketed as the sort of last gasp of Olympic sport before we return to normality, it's not a 'normal Diamond league meeting'. No sport has been directly boosted at all by the Olympics being in Britain.