There are many more that attend NRL games in Sydney each year than AFL games … get your head past averages and look at the totals each year ..
However, There is more to sports than attendance… a lot more …
The biggest revenue providers for sports are for broadcasting rights ..
You can’t just dismiss the poor ratings numbers for your sport in Sydney because they don’t suit you …
You obviously aren’t from Sydney right ?
I’m a Sydney boy and a very passionate RL fan (before that is questioned).
You are not wrong in what you say above. More people in Sydney attend RL matches in than AFL. And more people in Sydney watch RL than AFL on tv too. Neither of those statements are contrary to my comment though.
My comment was each Sydney NRL club would kill for the support the Swans have.
Television revenue delivered to each individual NRL and AFL club is still less than 50% of almost each AFL/NRL club’s annual income (apart from a minority of poorly performing NRL clubs).
The fact of the matter is, there are no Sydney NRL clubs which have bigger crowd attendances, bigger memberships, bigger corporate sponsorship revenue, or bigger merchandise sales than the Sydney Swans. For all of those reasons, I come to the conclusion that the Swans are the biggest pro sports club in Sydney, with RL still being the overwhelming most favoured sport of the Sydney population.
I find it appalling that a RL club with as big a catchment area as Parramatta, in an overwhelming RL city, which play out of a marvellous brand spanking new stadium, with all the comforts that brings, still average less than 18k attendees year to date.
The NRL really needs to work with Sydney clubs to dramatically improve their game day experience for spectators.