The lowest attendances for a premiership round since the Super League war has strengthened the argument for changes to the scheduling around State of Origin matches.
In fact, if crowds were combined for each round of the rival ARL and Super League competitions in 1997, the turnout for this weekend's matches was the worst since clubs aligned to News Ltd forfeited the opening round of the 1996 season.
On that occasion, just 30,198 fans attended the four matches that went ahead after the ARL won a court injunction preventing the Super League clubs playing in their own "Ultra League" competition under names such as the Cronulla Dolphins, Canberra Vikings, Penrith Cats and Brisbane Brumbies.
Missing the action: Friday night's Parramatta-South Sydney game was played against a backdrop of blue seats at ANZ Stadium.
Missing the action: Friday night's Parramatta-South Sydney game was played against a backdrop of blue seats at ANZ Stadium. Photo: Getty Images
The smallest aggregate crowds for the split competitions in 1997 were 40,064 for the ARL and 39,845 for Super League, although as this column has previously reported some past attendance figures were questionable.
In the same way that many supporters found it difficult to maintain interest during the Super League war because the best players weren't playing in the same competition, support for NRL teams wanes during the Origin period when the stars are away on NSW or Queensland duty.
Despite complaints about ticket prices for Origin, the series opener at ANZ Stadium on Wednesday night is close to a sell-out and television ratings records are again expected to be broken for an event that provided the two most watched programs in Australia last year.
Stand-alone Origin matches were played on Sunday nights in 2001 but abandoned after criticism about the lack of league over the rest of the weekend, while television ratings were down on previous seasons.
However, there is a groundswell of support for something to be done. Promoting a Wests Tigers-North Queensland match missing Robbie Farah, Johnathan Thurston, Aaron Woods, James Tamou, Matt Scott and Michael Morgan is like trying to sell tickets to a Rolling Stones concert without Mick Jagger.
Even the coaches know it will not be as good, with Cowboys mentor Paul Green revealing after Saturday night's 8-0 win that he had instructed his team to play one-out football in the absence of Thurston and Morgan.
The previous night Parramatta coach Brad Arthur bemoaned his team's completion rate of 79 per cent in wet conditions against South Sydney at ANZ Stadium in a further sign of how expansive football is being discouraged.
The Rabbitohs announced before kick-off on Friday night that they were the first club to have surpassed 35,000 members but just 11,658 fans turned up to watch them snatch a 14-12 win over the Eels, another of the NRL's most popular teams.
Fairfax Media has since been told that less than 50 per cent of members attend matches during the Origin period and if the people prepared to pay for seats in advance don't turn up what hope is there of attracting casual fans or corporate supporters.
As this columnist arrived at Campbelltown Stadium on Saturday, Wests Tigers chief executive Grant Mayer was outside watching as the 8,267 fans arrived for the 10th anniversary of the club's 2005 grand final win over the Cowboys.
No doubt Mayer was thinking how much the game would hurt the Tigers' bottom line as playing at council-owned suburban venues like Campbelltown or Kogarah cost clubs money whereas the bigger stadiums pay them to play there.
For example, Fairfax Media has been told that it costs St George Illawarra $124,000 to open the gates at Kogarah and $96,000 to open the gates at WIN Stadium, whereas they earn $150,000 just for walking through the door at ANZ Stadium.
But history shows that fans turn off during Origin regardless of where clubs play, with the lowest attendances each season usually recorded in the period between the naming of the teams for the series opener and the round after game three.
With 12,221 fans attending Canberra Stadium for the Raiders 41-34 loss to Canterbury on Sunday, the total crowds for the three matches heading into Monday night's Newcastle-Brisbane match at Hunter Stadium was 32,146.
The previous lowest turnout for a round of NRL matches was 50,539 in round 14 of the 2012 competition, which featured five games.
Crowds usually stay down even when the stars return during Origin, with a full round of eight matches in round 13 of the 2010 competition attracting just 78,053 fans and round 11 in 2013 drawing 90,058.
