Had yesterday's game been played at Kogarah, I reckon it still would have been around 1000 below capacity. Same thing happens at Parra Stadium for alleged "sell-out" games.
All the available tickets to the Eels match were sold, hence why it was called a sell out. What some people here need to understand is whilst Memberships are great in terms of reducing the number of 'small' crowds the NRL gets, and reducing the effect weather can have on a crowd, it also means more and more we are going to get 'sell outs' at our venues which have a capacity of 18 - 22K but end up with an announced crowd 1-2K less than that.
People who buy a membership at the start of the year may not necessarily be able to make all the big games, or even have a desire to, rather buying it as a financial commitment to their club (some clubs only around 50-60% of their members turn up to home games) or just to secure things like Grand Final tickets.
On the plus at least it still means the club gets the money in the bank, which helps our games profitability, plus it also continues to put a premium on seats, which leads to more sell outs, and encourages growth in membership numbers.
The Eels have had 2 sell outs this season, and another 3 games so far where their premium seats have been sold out. With this scenario there is a chance that by next year, the only way to secure a seat in the Mick Cronin or Ken Thornett Stand is to be a member, which is a great position for the club, and will be better for us crowd wise than it will hurt in the short term.
This is far from a unique problem to the Eels though, Dragons suffer from it for their big games at Kogarah and Wollongong, and the Broncos regularly suffer from it, just think back to the number of 'empty' seats you see in the lower tier at Suncorp Stadium in the TV arc. All those seats are sold... but members and sponsors aren't always turning up.