Re: Opening SL weekend sees attendances tumbling by 12.66% : Sun Mar 03, 2013 11:59 pm  

robt90 wrote:

just to add to the discussion on championship attendances, i was poking through a few old programmes and found the 2001 trans-penine cup final programme. this was leigh vs. keighley at cougar park and as such the programme was produced by kieghley. attendances are as follows
Hunslet A 1404
Dewsbury H 2511
York A 943
Gateshead A 1052
Hull KR H 2150
Sheffield A 1642
Fev H 3269
Rochdale Mayfield(CC) H 1764
Doncaster A 1691
Hull FC(CC) H 4401
Batley H 1728
Rochdale H 1533
Workington A 1099
Barrow H 2431
Widnes A 3469
Leigh H 3727
Whitehaven A 895
Swinton H 1719
Hull KR A 1910
Chorley H 1501
Oldham A 1815
Hunslet H 1465
Whitehaven 1208
Dewsbury A 1052
Sheffield H 1471

today the fixture that drew 3727(imagine that London fans ) in 2001 got an attendance in the 800's

'vibrant and worth winning in its own right'?

I'm gobsmacked by those attendance figures back in 2001. If they don't highlight the extent to which Super League has - and continues to strangle the life out of clubs not considered SL worthy, then I don't know what does.

I would often attend lower division games on a weekend... Hunslet being the nearest and most frequent venue for me... but not any longer. I don't pay full admission prices to watch Leeds Rhinos feeder club (or any other feeder club) or Rhinos reserve team. No thanks.

The game below SL is currently being tortured prior to the final kill.

Re: Opening SL weekend sees attendances tumbling by 12.66% : Mon Mar 04, 2013 12:13 am  

SmokeyTA wrote:

Its one individual club in one year. More clubs, more years, more information.

well that one individual (same word) club out performs pretty much every club in the championships this year. Obviously it'll take more than that though so tomorrow night i'll have a look through some more and post it on here. Of course i know before i even look how they'll compare to the post franchising era and i suspect even you do too

Re: Opening SL weekend sees attendances tumbling by 12.66% : Mon Mar 04, 2013 12:45 am  

William Eve wrote:

I'm gobsmacked by those attendance figures back in 2001. If they don't highlight the extent to which Super League has - and continues to strangle the life out of clubs not considered SL worthy, then I don't know what does.

I would often attend lower division games on a weekend... Hunslet being the nearest and most frequent venue for me... but not any longer. I don't pay full admission prices to watch Leeds Rhinos feeder club (or any other feeder club) or Rhinos reserve team. No thanks.

The game below SL is currently being tortured prior to the final kill.

It's genuinely heartbreaking. Whats worse is no one seems to care at the top

Re: Opening SL weekend sees attendances tumbling by 12.66% : Mon Mar 04, 2013 1:00 am  

A majority of Professional and semi professional clubs need to market their home games a lot better than thye do now.

Re: Opening SL weekend sees attendances tumbling by 12.66% : Mon Mar 04, 2013 5:56 am  

robt90 wrote:

William Eve wrote:

I'm gobsmacked by those attendance figures back in 2001. If they don't highlight the extent to which Super League has - and continues to strangle the life out of clubs not considered SL worthy, then I don't know what does.

I would often attend lower division games on a weekend... Hunslet being the nearest and most frequent venue for me... but not any longer. I don't pay full admission prices to watch Leeds Rhinos feeder club (or any other feeder club) or Rhinos reserve team. No thanks.

The game below SL is currently being tortured prior to the final kill.

It's genuinely heartbreaking. Whats worse is no one seems to care at the top

Those of us who genuinely care about RL do care about the destruction of the pro game outside SL, but there's not much evidence that it bothers those at the top. Not enough to do something about it anyway. But once again, those of us that actually give a poop are castigated as hating the game and talking it down. The game, and the RFL, etc. are completely seperate things.

Re: Opening SL weekend sees attendances tumbling by 12.66% : Mon Mar 04, 2013 5:59 am  

ThePrinter wrote:

RLBandit wrote:

Haha, frustrating when facts get in the way of your argument isn't it? Come on, you must have another explanation of why the numbers are wrong? Did he forget to include straw men in the count?

Not really, I've not denied that 2012 has higher numbers, I've not even said the 2011 were lower (simply he messed up 2 attendances, which he even admitting by changing them). What i've done (quite shockingly I know) is provide reasons when applicable. Some have clear reasons - Saints/Leeds & Hull/Bradford - that you both try and downplay this joking about some M62 agenda actually speaks massive volumes about how badly you want the numbers to be down (oh I forgot, you're RL fans in general and want the sport you 'love' to florish ) whilst some are just quite poor (Bradford, London etc.). Some I believe have valid reasons for being lower, whilst some I agree don't. But I forgot 'suggesting' reasons isn't allowed. we can't challenge your man-crush now can we.

What's just tragic is when he puts up lower numbers for 2013 each week you're like some high school cheerleader with your little pom-poms cheering him on. Even using the 'straw man' phrase just because he has like you're some young girl copying everything her high school crush does to get him to like you.

So keep standing on the sidelines shouting ''GO BILLY, GO BILLY, GO!''..........the rest of us will just cringe at you.

He just has a way with words, I'm a sucker for good prose.

Re: Opening SL weekend sees attendances tumbling by 12.66% : Mon Mar 04, 2013 6:09 am  

SmokeyTA wrote:

William Eve wrote:

How do you know I haven't been meddling with the westerly traffic flow on the M62 on Friday night?

Poor old SmokeyTA faces a bit of a conundrum.

Does he accept my attendance figures which he claims are not like-for-like, untrue, false, wrong and fudged? These being the comparative stats between the same teams in the same fixtures which, to date, show an overall fall in SL attendances of 12.8% compared to last year?

Or does he accept the attendance figures arrived at by a round by round comparison which are apparently like-for-like and much favoured by himself and the RFL? Which. to date, show an overall fall in SL attendances of 13.28% compared to last year?

12.82% or 13.28%... eh Smokey?

Time to decide

I havent argued attendances are higher this year than last. Simply said we should take these 5 rounds of lower attendances in the context of over a decade of good growth.

But it shouldn't be about giving the game marks out of ten. It doesn't matter whether we grew by millions over the last decade - if only. The point is that a ten percent drop in one season ( and yes, I don't know for sure that will happen, but I'm more and more confident in that guess as rounds go by) is really alarming, no matter what position you start from. If you believe the start position was really good, then you should at least be concerned about undoing the good work. People are raising a genuine issue. Some people indeed will already have their pet preconceived idea why its an issue ( 8 teams, P&R, Nigel Wood, the price of fish ) and you can call that an agenda if you like, but what's the point of just trying to pretend there's no fall in attendance?

Re: Opening SL weekend sees attendances tumbling by 12.66% : Mon Mar 04, 2013 7:21 am  

William Eve wrote: Looking forward to a press release from the RFL on SL attendances and TV viewing figures in 2013 fairly soon... JUST LIKE LAST YEAR You want the RFL to release a press statement announcing a fall in attendances? Even you surely can't think that is good for the game, anyone would think you don't like rugby league...

William Eve wrote: Looking forward to a press release from the RFL on SL attendances and TV viewing figures in 2013 fairly soon... JUST LIKE LAST YEAR You want the RFL to release a press statement announcing a fall in attendances? Even you surely can't think that is good for the game, anyone would think you don't like rugby league...

Re: Opening SL weekend sees attendances tumbling by 12.66% : Mon Mar 04, 2013 7:29 am  

The RFL aren't to blame for the drop in attendances.....that sits with the clubs and the fair weather fans IMHO.

Re: Opening SL weekend sees attendances tumbling by 12.66% : Mon Mar 04, 2013 8:15 am  

What may be sensible, would be to identify any factors that are causing the drop and then address the problem areas.
The poster does have a personal agenda, which is well known and it's important that people read , first of all true figures and then take correct remeial action.
Certainly, Salford's position hasnt helped attendances this time around and the current state of the ecconomy will have a detrimentat effect on peoples ability to afford attending RL (and other sports)
Do we know what is happening to Football and RU attendances this year ?
It's important to look for balance and perspective, but this hasnt been done.