No its not, its mainly based on the benefit/advantage of routine. Similar to the Broncos fans knowing they play their home games on Friday night. They fan can plan for it. It could have an upwards effect on crowds if you advertise the game well. The biggest clash is it is late night shopping night so the ladies will be pissed off.
True but you can compensate for that in other ways such as giving extra funding for marketing the night as an event.
The regular Friday games have nothing to do with the broncos good crowds and there is a line of thought that in some ways it's actually harmful.
Even if you compensate the knights with extra marketing or whatever that doesn't help the knights fans who are then forced to have Thursday night games every week. For the fans who travel down from the upper hunter that basically locks them out of attending.
It also doesn't make sense because the knights are one of the best performing teams crowd wise. Despite being total shit for years and having possibly the worst season of any team in NRL history last season they just keep showing up. That's with all the constant off field controversy.
The knights don't need help drawing a crowd. If they sort out their off field issues and can make their team competitive (I don't mean top 4 I just mean not being the worst in the league) then they will have great crowds. They don't need a gimmick like what you suggest.
Not playing at ANZ period would be a start. It's just the worst stadium and it makes me want to vomit if a game is there.
Whilst it's numbers are bolstered by big matches as far as I know ANZ averages higher than any other Sydney venue (that could be wrong I'm not 100% there). The issue is hardly isolated to ANZ.
Hopefully the new stadiums at ANZ and parramatta help alleviate this problem but the issues run far deeper than that.
We need to realise that Sydney is tough market.. that needs the goldy locks timeslots if we are ever going to draw a crowd...
Give thurs, fri to nz / melbourne and brisbane, give sydney saturday nights.. and share the rest..
But when you let Ch9 pick schedule you will get the well supported tv teams on thurs / fri
The swans don't need that sort of special treatment to draw a crowd. Sydney is a competitive market but the solution isn't to give Sydney all the best timeslots.
You need to advertise much more. You need to incentivise people to come, cheaper tickets, cheaper food/drink, better gameday entertainment and work with public transport to make getting to and from the game easier.
Mainly though you have to make games feel like an event people want to attend. I live in Scone in the upper hunter and I know plenty of people who have travelled to Sydney to see a swans game. That's over a 4 hour drive. These same people would never make the effort to even go as far as Newcastle to watch NRL. This is despite the area being RL mad and the AFL being a nothing sport here. Yet they do it because swans games are seen as an event. The only RL games people travel for here are SOO for the same reason.
RL is terrible at creating event type games. Cricket can do it. AFL can do it. Shit even rugby and the god damn A league can do it. There is no reason why by far the biggest sport in town shouldn't be able to do it. Something like rooster v rabbits should be more of an event than a typical swans game or some shitty A league derby.
Also Since when is Saturday a better timeslot than Friday anyway? I agree that Thursday games aren't the best idea in Sydney but Friday night games are fine.
