Re: Opening SL weekend sees attendances tumbling by 12.66% : Thu Aug 08, 2013 10:41 am  

Superted wrote:

Another angle to look at the cheap Groupon/Wowcher/BOGOF offers is that they further de-value a season ticket.

One of the main selling points of a Season ticket is that it saves you money (usually marketed as getting a number of games free - usually 3 or 4). All it takes now is to miss a couple of games because of holidays or work commitments, and then throw in some of the cheap deals and suddenly the 'extra value' of your season ticket is gone. And that's without mentioning that some of the guff on show throughout the regular season isnt worth full admission prices anyway. Using these offers on a regular basis as a sport is a slippery slope.

I thought we would have learned our lesson about de-valuing our product with the ridiculous Stobart deal - One that I have no doubt has played its part in not getting a main sponsor this year.

I don't get a season ticket anymore mainly for that reason.

Ultimately If I had a season ticket I would still miss a few games a year either through holidays or work. Factor that with some games that I'm not to bothered about watching and being able to get cheap tickets through various offers throughout the season it just isn't worth forking out for one.

Re: Opening SL weekend sees attendances tumbling by 12.66% : Thu Aug 08, 2013 11:01 am  

Robbo wrote:

I don't get a season ticket anymore mainly for that reason.

Ultimately If I had a season ticket I would still miss a few games a year either through holidays or work. Factor that with some games that I'm not to bothered about watching and being able to get cheap tickets through various offers throughout the season it just isn't worth forking out for one.

These kind of comments are incredible. ST are so cheap for top level RL. You get more commitment from League 2 soccer fans. And that truly is dross.

Re: Opening SL weekend sees attendances tumbling by 12.66% : Thu Aug 08, 2013 11:29 am  

Robbo wrote:

I don't get a season ticket anymore mainly for that reason.

Ultimately If I had a season ticket I would still miss a few games a year either through holidays or work. Factor that with some games that I'm not to bothered about watching and being able to get cheap tickets through various offers throughout the season it just isn't worth forking out for one.

Yes.. I can see why a season ticket isn't for you.

Re: Opening SL weekend sees attendances tumbling by 12.66% : Thu Aug 08, 2013 12:36 pm  

Tre Cool wrote:

These kind of comments are incredible. ST are so cheap for top level RL. You get more commitment from League 2 soccer fans. And that truly is dross.

LeedsDave wrote:

:lol: Yes.. I can see why a season ticket isn't for you.

The thing is, you can't blame people for questioning the value of a ST. The fact League 2 soccer is more expensive has absolutley no bearing on rugby league.

It's the product that is to blame at the moment. If the RFL can fix the league structures so that the majority of games are meainingful and full bloodied, people wouldn't be getting switched off by certain games. Unfortunately at the moment, the balance is the wrong way - there are becoming too many meaningless, low intensity games. There will always be some lop sided games, that is the nature of a physical sport like rugby league, that 1 team can get on top - however, at the moment, there are too many games where teams are not approaching the game with full intensity.

Re: Opening SL weekend sees attendances tumbling by 12.66% : Thu Aug 08, 2013 12:40 pm  

So until the RFL guarantee all games are 12-12 there's no point buying a ST. Rubbish. Some of the most enjoyable games I've seen as a club fan are one sided. It's the nature of the sport I love. Get a grip and stop moaning for the sake of it.

Re: Opening SL weekend sees attendances tumbling by 12.66% : Thu Aug 08, 2013 1:21 pm  

Albion wrote:

Glad to.

Number of reasons:

- stadium issues - people were unhappy with it and that let to some ST holders not renewing. Also, you will always get people going to see what the fuss is at a new stadium. These issues probably didn't persuade them to keep with it

Agree with this, and I suspect Saints home attendances could have been even worse were it not for those who purchased the cheaper 5 year season ticket deals. They don't yet have the option of not renewing.

Albion wrote:

- performances - probably the biggest reason. We've been utterly gash this season, especially at home. Without the draw of a brand new stadium, it's left to mainly ST holders going.

I think another factor is the increasing realisation that a lot of these regular season SL fixtures have become meaningless to such a degree that it doesn't matter how gash Saints performances are throughout, as they'll still qualify for the play-offs. This realisation also rubs off on the teams performances in terms of lack of intensity and effort most of the time. This has certainly been the case at Leeds for several seasons now since the 14 team, Top 8 play-off SL structure was introduced.

Albion wrote:

- matches - we've been unfortunate since the Wigan game fell on a Monday night (so we lost around 2-3k), the Salford game got 5k for when it snowed badly (should be double) and we have yet to play Warrington (our biggest attendance along with Wigan)

Saints home attendances this season for every game have been down on last year. There's a consistency in spite of the odd anomaly. The Warrington home game won't make much difference to their overall home attendance figures compared to last year because the attendance for that fixture last year (almost 16k) has not yet been included in the stats.

Re: Opening SL weekend sees attendances tumbling by 12.66% : Thu Aug 08, 2013 1:32 pm  

Look at what is in front of Leeds fans right now and it goes a long way to explaining why the current 1-4 & 5-8 in the playoffs is putting people off forking out for many SL games.

They are 4th; they wont come any higher unless the top 3 all implode, and they wont come 5th. So, they have 3 fixtures which wont mean anything to where they finish. Then they have an away game which simply decides whether their next game will be home or away ..... and then they get to their first proper knockout game. Why should any player put himself in a position over the next 4 games whereby he could miss the knockout games? Why should BM ask them to try 100%? And, why should any Leeds fan fork out £20 a game for 4 fixtures which don't actually mean diddly to the season?

Other than Sky who stupidly think saturation playoff games are a good thing, does anyone think the top 8 should make the playoffs? - it's ruining the league. There was more incentive when only top 6 went through, and when finishing in the top 2 gave you a direct route to the GF. It made teams try properly all season.

Surely Sky have enough brains to realise 5 games in front of full grounds at the end of a well attended regular season is better than 9 games and a regular season played out in front of mainly empty stands!

Re: Opening SL weekend sees attendances tumbling by 12.66% : Thu Aug 08, 2013 1:47 pm  

Tre Cool wrote:

So until the RFL guarantee all games are 12-12 there's no point buying a ST. Rubbish. Some of the most enjoyable games I've seen as a club fan are one sided. It's the nature of the sport I love. Get a grip and stop moaning for the sake of it.

I'm not moaning, just commenting on a thread about declining crowds to add my thoughts as to why this is the case.

The 'stop moaning' attitude is hardly constructive.

For info, as I said, the odd blow out score isn't an issue, it's the balance that is currently wrong - there are too many low intensity, low quality games with the current structure. The top teams are that far ahead of the bottom, and having an 8 team play-off means that the top teams can afford to take it easy for large parts of the season - that is an issue.

Leeds have shown for the past few seasons, and Saints are doing it this year - they can afford to be barely average all year and still comfortably make the play offs - that is wrong!

Re: Opening SL weekend sees attendances tumbling by 12.66% : Thu Aug 08, 2013 1:57 pm  

Superted wrote:

Another angle to look at the cheap Groupon/Wowcher/BOGOF offers is that they further de-value a season ticket.

One of the main selling points of a Season ticket is that it saves you money (usually marketed as getting a number of games free - usually 3 or 4). All it takes now is to miss a couple of games because of holidays or work commitments, and then throw in some of the cheap deals and suddenly the 'extra value' of your season ticket is gone. And that's without mentioning that some of the guff on show throughout the regular season isnt worth full admission prices anyway. Using these offers on a regular basis as a sport is a slippery slope.

I thought we would have learned our lesson about de-valuing our product with the ridiculous Stobart deal - One that I have no doubt has played its part in not getting a main sponsor this year.

The devaluing of the SL product is definitely a major issue IMO, though the basis for that devaluation has been structural... eg, licensing... 14 teams... Top 8 play off system, etc. This has resulted in a competition which has increasingly lacked quality, meaning and intensity, and which rewards mediocrity instead.

The proliferation of cheap season tickets offers... bogof, groupon, wowcher... is the desperate response to those structural problems highlighted above which only serve to further devalue the SL product, but this time in monetary terms. And yes, I'd also agree that these issues have most definitely played a huge role in the competition and it's inability to attract a major sponsor.

If the SL product really was as brilliant as some claim it to be, SL attendances wouldn't be nosediving, season tickets wouldn't have to be so cheap and clubs wouldn't have to hand out cheap ticket offers via groupon, wowcher, or on a bogof or buddy fiver basis.

I don't believe it's primarily the economy to blame for all these cheap offers either. It's because the RFL and the clubs themselves know deep down the SL product and it's current licensed 14 team, top 8 play-off structure doesn't provide an interesting regular season of the requisite quality and intensity to attract enough fans for 13 home games unless they are given the lot for a very cheap price.

On top of the cheap season tickets, we are now witnessing an increasing number of ticket offers for individual regular season fixtures because fans have got that used to the product being devalued in so many ways... structurally, on the pitch and pricewise... they now balk at paying full price. We know this is true because you only have to check out the dreadful attendances in the SL play-offs or in the Challenge Cup rounds and semi finals (ie, the only remaining meaningful fixtures) to gauge the true popularity of the sport these days.

Re: Opening SL weekend sees attendances tumbling by 12.66% : Thu Aug 08, 2013 2:00 pm  

If ever anybody is looking for a great example of a circular argument. See above.