What i said about going to the game holds true.
Its economics, both financial and social.
This needs to be a complete assault on attendance. You need to increase the rewards for going to the game by making the experience better and you need to decrease the effort required to go to a game as well. In the 90's it was big hair and cheer girls and pre match action, music over the loud speakers after a try, annoying ground announcers with a good voice.... That was successful to a point. But why did we stop improving on it? The gap for improvement is huge. We gotta move again.
RL needs to re-invent the attendance spirit to take it to the future. Let me think of some stuff off the top of my head, that may not work, but its certainly better!! You decide if it will work for you.
You need atmosphere. Atmosphere is like a drug, its the sporting equivalent of cocaine. Why don't we have drums and trumpets and singing? Where is this culture? Where is the cheering....if you are cheering you are supporting!! You have passion and pride and WANT your team to win, it makes a supporter out of you, and a paying customer. If there is noise and trumpetry and music and cheers and lots of clapping, and rejoicing in the stands and whatever you can think of thats not sitting on your hands, its better than what we have now! OZ RL crowds are BORING!!!! Where's the flags in sydney? I saw thousands of flags on the Gold coast. Team colors, everyone was in blue. Where is that in sydney?
YOU need sight. Sound. Smells. Tastes. Invade peoples sensory organs. Invade it with league. We want seas of team colors and flags pits of singing and bands playing. Then let people "belong" to that. Segregate fans in sydney as much as possible. Let their cheers oppose each other instead of mix.
If you are no where near that point, work out a way to GET THERE. Bit by bit, effort by effort. First work out what you want, then set about to get it. This stuff does not change, its basic stuff and league should be doing it.
Yet all we ever got in the past 10 years is stadiums clamping down on this stuff for league. Its horrible.
You do the re balancing all the way down to the "break even" point or the point of best efficiency - which is the resources required to do the thing against the pay-off received from doing it...payoff can be monetary or social in nature, at the end of the day it all adds up. For example, you examine the cost to you for lowering ticket prices to an acceptable level, if lowering of ticket prices is indeed needed. You need to balance it out, otherwise you'd be giving it away for free.
I know for one that the price to attend matches and the effort required in this day and age, with sydney's antiquated transport network, is just too much for most people.
Don't forget everyone can take the easy option here by watching on tv.
How do you make the experience of going to the game so good that it outweighs the easiness of watching on tv; to get enough people who would otherwise watch on tv to goto the game? Because lack of motivation to go out to a game is a huge factor in all of this. How many families go anymore?
ONE OF THE greatest travesties to emerge in recent years is the decline of the family pass. Now a family pass is just 1 adult and one child in some places. I am sorry, but this is a disgrace. How many families exist of 1 adult and child? What happened to value for money? A family pass should get 2 adults and 2 children in at least! Maybe 3! We have so many empty seats its NOT FUNNY! How are we going to get the kids to have an attendance-culture or even a supporters-culture if THEY ARE NOT GOING TO THE GAMES? If you think you already have a lot of kids going to games, good for you, but I BET you could have more. Get rid of the stingy family pass and re-instate value into it. EMBRACE PEOPLE, don't rip them off. Its a church for crying out loud - if they want in, let them. Our League god is not picky. He can't afford to be.
And what about the PRICE at wests!? 99 bucks for a FAMILY? They are a family! Its hard enough for most families out there to stick together, and here we are in league slugging them a hefty fee. We should be a source of happiness and entertainment and cohesiveness for them....we are TRYING TO BRING THEM TOGETHER, NOT break them up. Dads under enough strain as it is, so's mum. Whats more: they are a desire-spawning mini-community for rugby league. Its a family who will grow up with league, and grow to love league and attend league. 50 bucks maximum. I want to say to people....if you are an adult, and you attend league with another adult and a few children, then you are a "league Priest" and you instill league-thoughts into children, and YOU SHALL GET IN CHEAPLY for you service to league because you brought in 3 extra people for us. Thank you. MAX price 50 bucks.
What do we want eventually? Well we would surely want a situation where demand outstripped supply by a long way. Imagine a waiting list to go see a rugby league game! Imagine the anticipation from children and adults alike!? Get there, and THEN increase the costs to a new "balance point".
Don't tell me we are doing everything....
BECAUSE RUGBY LEAGUE IS DOING NOTHING!!
Simple things. Why are we as rugby league trying to rip off the people who finance the sport!!?
Then you need to look at balancing those to sides.
Some things that we will run across on the list, like ticket prices and food costs, might be easy to change. Some will be hard like transport, accessibility, facilities, fan motivation/laziness, attendance-culture.
Either way, it needs to be done. Or we will have an eternity of low crowds.
The one positive seems to be that average crowds are generally increasing. But its at a rate thats slower than the increase in league's popularity is suggesting. That popularity needs to be translated. Some serious discovery work needs to happen, and some back and forth between clubs, governing bodies and fans.
