Doing my comparison of this year's crowds to the equivalent games over the last 5 years.
Round 8 (154k) was 13k up on average (142k). We are now down 41k in total. Over 2009-14, Round 7 has averaged +10k. So it's a slight improvement but we are still a long way behind prior years.
There were 4 positive games this week:
- Roosters vs Dragons +7k
- Broncos vs Eels +5k
- Warriors vs Titans +3k (largest crowd for this fixture since 2007)
- Panthers vs Sharks +2k
These were partially offset by 2 negative games:
- Rabbitohs vs Raiders -4k (smallest crowd for this fixture since 2006)
- Bulldogs vs Wests Tigers -2k
And the remaining 2 games were marginally positive:
- Knights vs Cowboys
- Storm vs Sea Eagles
Next round's par crowd total is 118k.
- Broncos vs Panthers 27k
- Roosters vs Wests Tigers 18k
- Raiders vs Titans 10k
- Sharks vs Warriors 11k
- Cowboys vs Bulldogs 12k
- Sea Eagles vs Knights 12k
- Eels vs Storm 9k
- Rabbitohs vs Dragons 18k