As usual your simplicity fails to grasp that pretty much every season for the last decade usually 5-6 of the top drawing teams have been in the top 8 yet crowds have dropped away consistently. Lets take 2015, our lowest ebb to date in the last decade you had:
Broncos, Bulldogs, Rabbitohs, Cowboys, Dragons in top 8. All big fanbase teams.
It was really only missing Knights and Parra to be the perfect storm for a big crowd season, yet it rated the lowest for years.
2010, one of our biggest crowd years ever only had 2 big drawing teams in the Dragons and Wests in the top 8.
Like I have said numerous times the sub 16k avg has been consistent for 5 years regardless of who is in the 8, this would suggest it isn't just about the teams doing well.
So what's changed? Ticket prices, schedules, weather patterns, style of footy, negative media, population, NRL ownership, fan engagement, fan expectation of facility. Probably a combination, or maybe just one or two things. One things for sure the money flowing into the game and the excitement of independent ownership certainly didn't have the positive outcome we had hoped for. I wonder what target the NRL will set in next years strategic plan lol.
I have to keep it simple for you, yet you still fail to grasp the points.
Do you understand 2014 was the driest autumn for many years, and 2015 in Sydney the wettest Autumn for 12 years.It rained for 23 days in April for a start.
With due respect Cowboys bring few to Sydney games.
.Check venues where games were played also,you ignore the Eels and also the Tigers FFS(did you bother to see the 2005 G/F and tiger's crowds) not performing in 2015.The very year less than 4,000 turned up on a Monday night Sharks v Souths,which would have at least got 12,000 given decent weather.Check the crowds at Canberra in 2015.
You the very same guy who protested so loudly when only 6,000 turned up at Perth,oh but it was shocking weather you stated.
Well wet weather in Sydney is just as shocking or uncomfortable ,if there is either little cover and the game is on a Monday night or tucked away at ANZ the mausoleum of stadiums.
Seriously mate,the reasons for crowd drops are multiple and varied,I have spelt out my thoughts.These same thoughts have been echoed by others on threads ,and in some cases by the NRL admin where they openly admit they will not have schedule control til 2018.
It's not just one thing.You could speak to 100 fans ,and they would have probably 30 different reasons.
And BTW moving a Sydney team to another state ,is not the answer .
Who knows how the economy is affecting people in the last few years, full time jobs being lost, replaced by part time ?Bearing in mind Sydney house prices are much dearer than Melbourne and the other AWFUL states.
All I know is ATM more people have become NRL members,and committed more money, than prior years.All I know in 2017 is none of the big crowd pulling Sydney teams have been standouts,some plain ordinary.
Do I like the situation ? No it's damn embarrassing.But I'd panic if in 2018 and 2021 when we control scheduling and have Parra Stadium done, and ANZ reconfigured and still the crowds dropped.
How long ago were we told AFL was going big in Brisbane because of the Lions.They ATM are basket cases and their crowds falling like a t*rd from a great height.Suns are hardly setting crowds on fire.
Whether conferences are the answer ,and concentrate each conference in "geographical" matches playing each other twice, and the other conferences once.That's the way I'd go.
18 teams : 3 conferences of 6.Each playing each other twice=10 matches in each conference plus once against the others.That's 22 rounds,Ideal for SOO/Internationals with the spare weekends.
