2010 Crowd Watch

[Perth Red]

This seems like one potential benefit of having a team in WA that hasn't been mentioned much. I'm no expert but as far as im aware Perth tends to have far less rainy weather than we do. So it's one less team that would suffer the mid season slump.

It is lovely weather here this weekend!

Not sure that will be a strong selling point for our bid though!

 

[user_nat]

Queensland is actually quite dry through the winter. I actually thought Sydney was also, guess not.

 

[Electric_Eels]

As if we needed confirmation but this is yet just another example of the ineptness and unprofessionalism of the NRL. How the f**k can we have 3 teams in Queensland in the comp yet not have at least 1 of them playing there on any given weekend? You could understand to a point if it were a bye round and only half the teams were playing but it's not. There's no rational logic or excuse why you wouldn't schedule at least one of them to play up there.

and next round no games in sydney (well this is as most sydney teams have a bye) but still

 

[smithie]

That sort of scheduling is going to play right into the AFL's hands - next year there will be a game hosted in South East Queensland every single weekend with the Lions and Gold Coast alternating home/away games. Common sense.

Yet another reason to have a second Brisbane team playing out of Suncorp.

At the rate the NRL are going there will be two AFL teams in Brisbane before two NRL.

 

[myanonymoususername]

We had a Wallabies test match in Canberra last night. Robbed us of 4-6,000.

I think you're overestimating the Wallabies impact on the Raiders crowd today. I'd be surprised if it was more than 1,000. Not sure how much commonality there is between Raiders and union crowds.

I see they only got 15k to the test last night.

 

[WaznTheGreat]

Watched the Leeds/Wakefield game on channel 9 and it was raining and way worse conditions then any NRL game this weekend and yet they still got 13,869 there.


Australian rugby league fans are soft and a disgrace,scared of a bit of water and cold weather.

 

[bobmar28]

Queensland is actually quite dry through the winter. I actually thought Sydney was also, guess not.

Great weather from mid winter to late spring.

 

[bobmar28]

It all depends on the club, and their stadium agreement as to whether they make any money or it costs them. Naturally Wests Tigers, Bulldogs and Rabbitohs have the best agreements, with each club getting $100K - $150K just to turn up.

Now as for the games this weekend, would they be costing the clubs any money. Well we know the Bulldogs are right with their ANZ Stadium deal. The Eels would have been fine with their strong membership numbers, and the strong pre-sales they got for the game. Both Friday night games had more tickets sold than people turn up and on a good night, there would have been 40K between the two matches.

Anyway as for the Sydney bashing, I really don't get it for this year. Sydney, Canberra and Melbourne are the only markets where crowds are up. New Zealand is down, Newcastle is down, and all three Queensland teams are down.

Clearly if the clubs are able to keep getting growth in crowds and memberships in Sydney, why even contemplate cutting them?

Crowds are up? After 102 years of rugby league in Sydney we are seeing crowds of 7k.

A city as big as Sydney should be able to fill a mid sized stadium every weekend.

Reduce the number of teams and you would see that.

No hills. Small boutique stadiums seating 30k.

 

[Dr Crane]

Watched the Leeds/Wakefield game on channel 9 and it was raining and way worse conditions then any NRL game this weekend and yet they still got 13,869 there.


Australian rugby league fans are soft and a disgrace,scared of a bit of water and cold weather.

how many games did you go to this weekend?

 

[Hass]

Watched the Leeds/Wakefield game on channel 9 and it was raining and way worse conditions then any NRL game this weekend and yet they still got 13,869 there.


Australian rugby league fans are soft and a disgrace,scared of a bit of water and cold weather.

The thing is, people in northern England are used to attending football matches in bad weather. The weather there is crap. You either adapt or you don't do things.

Sydneysiders have the option of waiting for a nice sunny day - and they generally do.

Also, look at Headingley Stadium. The two main stands are built specifically to keep out the rain and sleet. The roofs are very low, angle down and extend close to the touchline. Australian grounds on the other hand are very open.

 

[Evenflow]

Queensland is actually quite dry through the winter. I actually thought Sydney was also, guess not.

Just had a look at the averages in rainfall for each city during the 3 winter months and Sydney has 310mm, Brisbane 155mm and Melbourne 147mm.

 

[Serc]

Yeah you might wanna rethink that argument a bit mate after watching the link. While Melbourne doesn't get anywhere near the rain of Sydney and Brisbane anually, evey capital city gets their torrential downpours every once in a while.

http://www.theage.com.au/victoria/storm-brings-chaos-to-melbourne-20100306-ppm4.html

Serc, Sydney has had f**k all rain over the last few years, same as Melbourne so dont go using that as an excuse. Its hard to swallow, but simple fact is Sydney League fans just dont turn up to watch their teams. This weekend was particularly bad but as someone else pointed out Melbourne was rained out today (yesterday) and 50 000 turned up for the AFL.

I was waiting for a pair of weather noobs to pipe up

Melbourne had one of its biggest storm seasons in a long time last summer - two huge storms in particular went right through the guts of Melbourne, which is actually pretty rare as they usually are lucky to get more than a couple of half decent storms each year.

The March 6 storm delivered 27mm to Melbourne CBD (admittedly in quick time - 30 mins) and there was some pretty scary flash flooding. Sydney and Brisbane get these sorts of falls countless times each year. And you generally need closer to 100mm in an hour to get the same result in terms of flash flooding.

Melbourne recorded a whopping 8mm during the day last Saturday, with a couple of mm of follow up on Sunday...this is typical for down there, and if I was a footy fan living there I'd probably go to every game regardless as it doesn't really get much worse than that. There are millions of people living there that must enjoy the cold weather, so throwing in a few extra millimetres of rain on the side isn't exactly much of a problem. It happens every other day in winter (slight exaggeration), which is a far cry from the clear and sunny skies practically day in day out up here in Brisbane in the winter months (particularly July-Sept).

I don't want to lose sight here of what I'm trying to put across - its moreso explaining the weather reasons behind why people in Melbourne have their reputation for turning up to the footy in what us 'northerners' see as terrible weather. Not so much making excuses for the poor crowds in Sydney - however I will say that what is considered 'terrible weather' in Sydney is often par for the course in Melbourne.

 

[Serc]

Great weather from mid winter to late spring.

This is pretty much spot on (for Sydney)

Sydneysiders have the option of waiting for a nice sunny day - and they generally do.

Perhaps I should've read the rest of this thread before I began my semi-rambling in my post just above - well put!

Just had a look at the averages in rainfall for each city during the 3 winter months and Sydney has 310mm, Brisbane 155mm and Melbourne 147mm.

I get 83 for Brisbane, 225 for Sydney, and 137 for Melbourne as the middle score (median) rainfalls for the winter months - I prefer to use the median, as Sydney and Brisbane get their averages skewed by big rain events. Also worth mentioning that June is Sydney's wettest month in the year as well!

Also some stats of use - Brisbane gets 21 rain days on average during the same 3 month period, 32 in Sydney and 45 in Melbourne. Shows you how much high intensity rain there is in Sydney compared to Melbourne!

 

[hutch]

Crowds are up? After 102 years of rugby league in Sydney we are seeing crowds of 7k.

A city as big as Sydney should be able to fill a mid sized stadium every weekend.

Reduce the number of teams and you would see that.

No hills. Small boutique stadiums seating 30k.

reduce the number of teams and you lose hundreds of thousands of supporters, its as simple as that!

yes the crowds were terrible, but it was also one of the worst days and weeks for weather that i have ever seen for sydney, and the stupid, drawn out origin schedule always impacts on crowds. sydney crowds this year have been great, they have never, ever been bigger.

 

[VictoryFC]

The reason why Haynetrain is completely off the mark is because:

a) The stands in pretty much all English stadia...are COVERED! So, while it may be raining, the people sitting in the stands aren't getting pissed on. This became a requirement in the early 90s.

b) While I agree that people may be used to bad weather in England, the main reason why people attend when its raining is stated in the above point.

 

[Moffo]

45000 at souths vs cowpats

 

[yakstorm]

The crowds this week just go to show why memberships and pre-sales are so important.

When someone has made a financial commitment, they are far more likely to turn up regardless of the weather. The 68,000 who turned up to Origin 1 on a Wednesday that had poor weather all day goes to show that, yes the crowd that day was less than the number of tickets sold, same with the two Friday games, but still at least a solid 70-80% of those who had pre-committed either via a membership or ticket, turned up.

We have to be realistic, we have such a great TV sport, and considering just about all the games are live each week, when the conditions aren't great, and fans haven't pre-committed in some way, they are likely to skip attending the game.

 

[Chook Norris]

45000 at souths vs cowpats

awesome crowd, should push the average up a fair bit.



okay, real crowd.. someone??

 

[Marshall_magic]

9688

 

[user_nat]

Surely this has to have been the worst weekend in quite a long time?