2017 Crowd Watch

[carcharias]

I love how you think that people can't get their head around the fact it's rained a lot in Sydney. What's your excuse going to be when it rains a lot in May? And then in June? And then again in July?

Eventually you have to accept that it's normal for your shit city.

The fact you think I can't grasp your point is hilarious though.

Ha a canberarian calling anywhere else shit is quite funny
Canberra like Victoria with all the good bits taken away.

But anyway
The topic is the crowds so far for this season
...and it is a fact that they are down due to the unusually bad weather we've had.

But please give me some more unrelated historical rainfall averages from different months.
They're awesome

 

[papabear]

Paullyboy, you are a canberra fan that is good.

However, the rain in march was not what sydney has as weather every year.

My oztag comp normally plays 10-12 games a season, it got to 7 this year and is condensing the finals and semis on one night. Tonite, if it gets played as it rained all last night.

Generally speaking, a lot of people like me are very hesitant to go to a footy game in shit weather, thus the more shit weather the worse the crowds.

It is not making excuses it is the reason.

It is like when it is f**k off cold in canberra sometimes it affects crowd numbers.

It is not people not grasping your point of, " it always rains in sydney, therefore, you just have shit crowds", it is you not grasping the point of, it has rained a f**kload more then it normally does at the start of the season.

As for my city being shit. As a canberra fan, I wouldnt mind living in canberra just to go to the games. But with respect, sydney might be a shit city globally speaking but it quite frankly is the best australia has and compared to canberra its like a 10 year old nissan ragging on a new BMW, there is a reason it costs about 20 times as much to buy land anywhere within cooey of this shit city then it does in canberra.

 

[papabear]

Geez the Government love throwing good money after bad when it comes to stadiums. It was good for the Olympics and will never be great for anything as long as it's multi-purpose.

They can redevelop and upgrade all they like, but at the end of the day it's still going to be significantly too large for 99% of matches, and as such, is not the right option.

Homebush has four issues.
- Location
- Rake
- Circular / distance from action
- Size

Location - cant be fixed, but location is improving, previously I would say it was about twice as good as the surrounds of Bruce stadium, now I would say three times as good...
Rake - Being dramatically fixed.
circular / distance from action - again being dramatically fixed.
size - I think its better for it, as it will be hosting the GF big semis and SOO. Once its all closer to the actions having emptier top tiers wont matter as much.

 

[papabear]

What about the games where it wasn't raining, like brookie last week?

Manly get shit crowds regardless of weather.

The NRL would be a better comp if the bears were still around and manly weren't but it is what it is.

 

[Billythekid]

Sydney locals understand the challenges of getting around this city.

It's hard enough trying to get to and from shark park on game day and I live in the shire.
So stuff wasting my weekend sitting in traffic or on excruciatingly slow public transport , just to go to a place I hate anyway.
...and be ripped off for my trouble.

Then add rain on top.

You need to be from Sydney to know it's a shit hole to get around. I only ever catch the train there for exactly that reason, driving is a nightmare.

As said previously that doesn't explain how the teams like the swans and Sydney Sixers can consistently get 30K+ crowds. Or why the A league can pull crowds of 40K+ despite being a minor sport no one gives a f**k about. Or why finals and SOO can sell out. Or why international games for many sports can draw big crowds. Or why any range of events can draw big crowds in Sydney.

League itself is capable of drawing big crowds, like the 60K to Souths v roosters.

Point is when a match is appealing enough and there are enough incentives to attend people in Sydney get out to events. Problem is right now the NRL isn't providing enough incentive.

Stadium quality, availability and pricing of public transport, ticket prices (especially for children), food prices, kick off times and poor time slots, game day entertainment, poor scheduling for big matches, lack of promotion for big games ect. These are all things the NRL should be working on.

Posters like myself are made out to be constantly bagging Sydney and the NRL but the opposite is true. I think Sydney is capable of much bigger crowds than it currently is and I want to see us reach that potential. Sydney could be and should be the heart of rugby league and I want to see it really become that.

 

[carcharias]

You need to be from Sydney to know it's a shit hole to get around. I only ever catch the train there for exactly that reason, driving is a nightmare.

As said previously that doesn't explain how the teams like the swans and Sydney Sixers can consistently get 30K+ crowds. Or why the A league can pull crowds of 40K+ despite being a minor sport no one gives a f**k about. Or why finals and SOO can sell out. Or why international games for many sports can draw big crowds. Or why any range of events can draw big crowds in Sydney.

League itself is capable of drawing big crowds, like the 60K to Souths v roosters.

Point is when a match is appealing enough and there are enough incentives to attend people in Sydney get out to events. Problem is right now the NRL isn't providing enough incentive.

Stadium quality, availability and pricing of public transport, ticket prices (especially for children), food prices, kick off times and poor time slots, game day entertainment, poor scheduling for big matches, lack of promotion for big games ect. These are all things the NRL should be working on.

Posters like myself are made out to be constantly bagging Sydney and the NRL but the opposite is true. I think Sydney is capable of much bigger crowds than it currently is and I want to see us reach that potential. Sydney could be and should be the heart of rugby league and I want to see it really become that.

Ey????
Why does SOO and finals get better crowds than a regular season game???
I dunno..
Why does Springsteen get more people at ANZ than JPY gets at Hurlstone park RSL club?

It's a f**king mystery ey?

 

[Perth Red]

Not surprisingly you missed his point. People will go to events in large numbers and at great cost if those events are seen as must attend.

A combination of too many teams, too many games, poor stadium experience and just a general lack of hype, interest and passion for nrl in Sydney are the problems.

Oh and the rain lol

If the strengths of Sydney for the game are to be leveraged it needs a radical rethink, schedule every Friday night at sfs adult themed blockbuster, every Sunday double header at anz family themed day. Do what ever it takes to get 30-40k min to these events, make them must do occasiOns in the Sydney events calendar.

Not much point in nine teams and tribalism if 11k people turn up to an all Sydney game.

We can see in the very rare 40k games in Sydney that its possible

 

[Timmah]

Geez the Government love throwing good money after bad when it comes to stadiums. It was good for the Olympics and will never be great for anything as long as it's multi-purpose.

They can redevelop and upgrade all they like, but at the end of the day it's still going to be significantly too large for 99% of matches, and as such, is not the right option.

Did you actually look at the plans?

 

[Billythekid]

Ey????
Why does SOO and finals get better crowds than a regular season game???
I dunno..
Why does Springsteen get more people at ANZ than JPY gets at Hurlstone park RSL club?

It's a f**king mystery ey?

As always missing the point and cherry picking parts of a post to reply to. I mentioned more than just finals and SOO in my post. As Perth red noted the point was that people in Sydney are willing to get out in big numbers to see live events including rugby league, the correct incentives just need to be in place. Right now they're not and that's something the clubs and the NRL need to address.

Redeveloping stadiums is a good start and will go some way to helping. Ticket prices are a big issue, we shouldn't be charging exorbitant prices to attend games where stadiums are practically empty. We also should be charging practically nothing for kids if not allowing them in free. Good and drink prices are another issue.

The NRL need to work hard to get better deals with public transport. Getting increased public transport for big games and even getting the price included with tickets would help a lot IMO. It happens for big events and we need to organise it more often. Also cheaper ticket prices can't just be a one week thing that no one knows about. It should be announced at the start of the season and made very public so everyone knows about it.

Big matches need to be put in timeslot conducive to a big crowd and not in shitty slots like Thursday night. They also should be marketed heavily in particular building up rivalries which is something we're struggling to do at the moment. When you have matches like dogs v eels, Souths v roosters, sharks v dragons etc we should be getting massive crowds every time. In general I think we could do better playing up local rivalries in Sydney.

There are plenty of other things that can be done as well. Just throwing our hands up and saying 'yeah but Sydney is shit to get around so we should just accept poor crowds' gets us nowhere. We could be doing so much better. Sydney is the heart of rugby league and having so many local. Matches should be a strength of rugby league.

I also think these same things should be applied outside of Sydney as well. I just see Sydney as having a ton of potential for growth and having the most obstacles in the way of getting there and that's why there is such a strong focus on Sydney. The fact that it practically makes up half the comp also makes it an obvious area to focus on crowd wise.

 

[Panther_Daz]

The weather looks very nice for the whole long weekend in Sydney.

 

[Timmah]

It's simplistic and frustrating - but as long as TV is the primary revenue generator for the NRL, they're gonna pander to it.

 

[Perth Red]

It's simplistic and frustrating - but as long as TV is the primary revenue generator for the NRL, they're gonna pander to it.

Then the game will always be destined to struggle, hefully someone at the nrl hq understands that you can't kill the golden goose, that is the game itself and the fans who buy into it.

There is more money for clubs in memberships, merch and ticket sales than in tv and LC grants combined if they can grow their customer base sufficently

Of course there will compromise to ensure tv feels it is getting value for money and a return on its investment but you dont compromise on the very fabric of live sport, which is fan attendance.

 

[Billythekid]

The weather looks very nice for the whole long weekend in Sydney.

Let's hope for some monster crowds. Has anyone heard anything re crowd expectations or ticket sales?

It's simplistic and frustrating - but as long as TV is the primary revenue generator for the NRL, they're gonna pander to it.

I understand that but we can strike a much better balance than we currently do. Personally I think better scheduling would go a long way to helping TV ratings as well. I also think bigger crowds would have a positive influence in TV ratings. Even on TV matches feel much more exciting with a big crowd.

 

[adamkungl]

Have the ratings nerds on here ever done a comparison of different teams ratings? I've always been interested in how much more valuable the FTA timeslot favoured teams are. I'm more likely to watch if different teams are on each week, nothing has me changing the channel like yet another Broncos or Bulldogs game.

 

[Paullyboy]

Ha a canberarian calling anywhere else shit is quite funny
Canberra like Victoria with all the good bits taken away.

But anyway
The topic is the crowds so far for this season
...and it is a fact that they are down due to the unusually bad weather we've had.

But please give me some more unrelated historical rainfall averages from different months.
They're awesome

I'm not a Canberran, but I do go for the Raiders. I'm from Queensland and live in Brisbane.

My comment is about the crowds too, it's just mine is pointing out how foolish it is to use the weather as an excuse. You're going to be using that excuse for the rest of your life, so it might be time to just accept that it's the norm.

 

[carcharias]

As always missing the point and cherry picking parts of a post to reply to. I mentioned more than just finals and SOO in my post. As Perth red noted the point was that people in Sydney are willing to get out in big numbers to see live events including rugby league, the correct incentives just need to be in place. Right now they're not and that's something the clubs and the NRL need to address.

Redeveloping stadiums is a good start and will go some way to helping. Ticket prices are a big issue, we shouldn't be charging exorbitant prices to attend games where stadiums are practically empty. We also should be charging practically nothing for kids if not allowing them in free. Good and drink prices are another issue.

The NRL need to work hard to get better deals with public transport. Getting increased public transport for big games and even getting the price included with tickets would help a lot IMO. It happens for big events and we need to organise it more often. Also cheaper ticket prices can't just be a one week thing that no one knows about. It should be announced at the start of the season and made very public so everyone knows about it.

Big matches need to be put in timeslot conducive to a big crowd and not in shitty slots like Thursday night. They also should be marketed heavily in particular building up rivalries which is something we're struggling to do at the moment. When you have matches like dogs v eels, Souths v roosters, sharks v dragons etc we should be getting massive crowds every time. In general I think we could do better playing up local rivalries in Sydney.

There are plenty of other things that can be done as well. Just throwing our hands up and saying 'yeah but Sydney is shit to get around so we should just accept poor crowds' gets us nowhere. We could be doing so much better. Sydney is the heart of rugby league and having so many local. Matches should be a strength of rugby league.

I also think these same things should be applied outside of Sydney as well. I just see Sydney as having a ton of potential for growth and having the most obstacles in the way of getting there and that's why there is such a strong focus on Sydney. The fact that it practically makes up half the comp also makes it an obvious area to focus on crowd wise.

I like to gauge how much I upset dopey merkins in here by how huge a reply I get ...and going by this rant I have done very well indeed.
High five to me!

You compared the biggest drawing nrl games in the country basically to a club game.

Then when I questioned that geniused comparison you got all upset.

Go away
Come back in couple of days with a clear head
Read what ever the f**k you are waffling on about to yourself...out loud.

Then try again.

 

[carcharias]

I'm not a Canberran, but I do go for the Raiders. I'm from Queensland and live in Brisbane.

My comment is about the crowds too, it's just mine is pointing out how foolish it is to use the weather as an excuse. You're going to be using that excuse for the rest of your life, so it might be time to just accept that it's the norm.

Brisbane...the Adelaide of the north.

 

[Perth Red]

Brisbane...the Adelaide of the north.

Considering all I hear on here is how sht Sydney is for
Traffic
Public transport
Weather
Sports stadiums
Media
Housing cost
NRL fans attitude

I wouldn't think you'd have much room to be commenting on other cities?

Nice opera house and bridge though

 

[Paullyboy]

Brisbane...the Adelaide of the north.

Sydney, the Iraq of the Southern Hemisphere...

 

[Paullyboy]

I like to gauge how much I upset dopey merkins in here by how huge a reply I get ...and going by this rant I have done very well indeed.
High five to me!

You compared the biggest drawing nrl games in the country basically to a club game.

Then when I questioned that geniused comparison you got all upset.

Go away
Come back in couple of days with a clear head
Read what ever the f**k you are waffling on about to yourself...out loud.

Then try again.

So basically you're just confirming that you're a lonely f**kwit. Good to know.