2026 Crowd Watch

[glockers]

I think Kogarah has to be seriously evaluated. If you got this crowd in a regional area it would be dire. Let alone in the middle of Sydney. The Saints are moving below Cronulla, especially with the Sharks ground capacity heading towards 18k soon. Kogarah might be worth 1 game a year for heritage round, but I don't see value in it with these sorts of crowds, form fully understood. Base line for an NRL team home ground should be 10k, ignoring form and opponent. You can't just turn up once every decade when the club is threatening to take games away and expect it to remain a regular NRL ground.

That or change your marketing towards your current demographics and not the the demographics you had 60 years ago. Marketing and community outreach have been dire for years, including through the premiership period around 2010.

Why would you have a good social presence when you can run Dragons membership ads at 11pm on Gem in regional Queensland?

 

[Yosemite Sam]

Where do I start?

- Board instability and joint venture complications?
- Lack of long-term strategic continuity?
- Stadium issues?
- Lack of fan and community engagement?
- Marketing and social media?

It's very simple. If they start consistently winning games and regularly making the finals both Kogarah and Wollongong will be full again.

That's all there is to it really.

 

[DIOGENES]

I’ve seen St G membership ads late at night on Gem in Kalgoorlie (guess there might be some take up by FIFOs)

 

[undertaker]

Nice to see the NRL bring Sunday 2pm kickoffs back this year on the day that daylight savings finished.

 

[undertaker]

Sky TV in UK had the Dragons v Cowboys game on and not the Souths v Bulldogs game and its not a good look for the NRL for people over here getting into the game.

Why televise one and not the other?

I thought Sky UK broadcasted all NRL games in the round.

 

[Marshall_magic]

The Dragons have become complacent in all aspects of operations. You shouldn't be at 50% capacity for a first home game in Sydney.

Instead of bloody waving towels, knuckle down and do some proper marketing and promotions and rebuild your community. Their presence on socials is embarrassing. They are getting left behind and kids in the area will start to follow rival clubs.

I can agree with this, go back 10-15 years they would have been considered one of the bigger Sydney clubs. Could pull a crowd and were generally pretty good on the field (had poor years but would be competitive more often than not). They’ve been sleep walking for a decade though. Poor in almost every metric. Hold onto dud coaches/players for years too long, letting the situation blow right up. It’s really sad to see what’s happened there - coming from someone whose in-laws are mad Dragon fans.

Dolphins/Sea Eagles crowd has been reported as 10,023:

Dolphins v Sea Eagles

Dolphins versus Manly-Warringah Sea Eagles match centre includes live scores and updates. Includes official live player and team stats. Run metres, fantasy points scoring.

www.nrl.com

Wonder if there’s an OH/S reason that the capacity is 10,023 - they always go over but cannot announce overs for legal reasons. If that was the actual capacity you would still have no-show season ticket holders etc.

 

[newc18]

It's very simple. If they start consistently winning games and regularly making the finals both Kogarah and Wollongong will be full again.

That's all there is to it really.

If the fans are only showing up when winning seriously what kind of fan base is that?

Meanwhile Tigers fans were still packing out Leichardt whilst getting wooden spoons.

 

[Ian Douglas]

They need to just accept fans don't want to go to Kogarah anymore (look at the attendance over the past few years and tell me I'm wrong). They should either:

- Move to Wollongong full time.

- Play thier Sydney games at the SFS in a central location where fans from across Sydney can get to easier. This is my preferred option. They can give Sydney FC exclusive use of Kogarah which is what Soccer fans keep complaining about.

Is the WIN stadium upgrade locked in?

 

[Mother Nature's Son]

If the fans are only showing up when winning seriously what kind of fan base is that?

Meanwhile Tigers fans were still packing out Leichardt whilst getting wooden spoons.

No doubt that is a really interesting comparison.
Probably a big part of that is that Leichardt is probably a much better ground to watch League at, has developed an iconic status that makes people want to go and I wonder whether that area attracts an audience, dare I say upper middle-class, to whom attending a League game has a sort of working-class cred.
That`s certainly not to say the St George could not have developed their own region to pack it out on game day.

 

[newc18]

Is the WIN stadium upgrade locked in?

I don't believe so. It was just 17 million so I'm assuming a business plan.

 

[Suitman]

I don't believe so. It was just 17 million so I'm assuming a business plan.

Yes. Just funds allocated by Labor for a business plan at this stage.
Just build the f**king thing.

 

[Sky_Is_The_Limit]

 

[drcmuch]

Apparently choc eggs have a deleterious effect on crowd counters. Can't remember a round with so much info lag.

 

[TheEroticGamer]

Socials?

How about they start winning some games. That would be helpful.

.

Socials are very meaningful. It’s how more and more people connect with sporting organisations and get promotional material directly. There’s been many clubs that despite relative ineptitude on field have still managed to accrue a following online. The Dragons despite their far greater historical footprint are competing for the smallest online following with a club that only joined the competition a couple of years ago. That’s inexcusable.

 

[newc18]

They are going to need to take that roof off and replace it in the offseason because we need those seats lol.

 

[Billythekid]

I can agree with this, go back 10-15 years they would have been considered one of the bigger Sydney clubs. Could pull a crowd and were generally pretty good on the field (had poor years but would be competitive more often than not). They’ve been sleep walking for a decade though. Poor in almost every metric. Hold onto dud coaches/players for years too long, letting the situation blow right up. It’s really sad to see what’s happened there - coming from someone whose in-laws are mad Dragon

Honestly for a while there the were basically THE big Sydney club. Their home crowds might not have been massive but they basically had the best away crowds wherever they played (even out of state). It’s shocking how much the brand has been eroded the last 10-15 years or so.

Can’t just blame form either. Other teams like the tigers and Parra have been worse but haven’t suffered nearly the same dropoff.

 

[drcmuch]

Match centre here at LU has 23,002 at Newcastle

 

[T-Boon]

They are going to need to take that roof off and replace it in the offseason because we need those seats lol.

Is it going to take that long. They probably should host the A- league final there but that capacity sucks.

 

[undertaker]

Match centre here at LU has 23,002 at Newcastle

2nd highest crowd the Knights have got for a regular season home game vs Canberra (23,617 in Round 22, 1992 being the highest)

 

[Billythekid]

Match centre here at LU has 23,002 at Newcastle

Good crowd though would expect more for a sellout. Great to see the knights in form. Get Newcastle a stadium with a bigger capacity and we could absolutely challenge for 2nd best crowds in the league.