2018 Crowd Watch

[El Diablo]

https://www.smh.com.au/sport/afl/af...t-but-can-it-stay-on-top-20180723-p4zt2r.html
Article from today’s paper (very long but stick with it) explains why AFL crowds in Melbourne have always been double RL crowds in Sydney. In summary, AFL had a 50 year head start, and was already getting 20k - 30k crowds before RL was invented.

Victorian alert

 

[hutch]

There has been no hype or talk of a big crowd at SFS tomorrow. I predict 17-18k

Possibly because all the media in Sydney decides to concentrate on is bagging referees, writing articles about how the ball is only in play for 35 minutes, writing crisis stories about how the game is apparently dying and fans are leaving in droves (despite actual stats proving otherwise). There’s no hype because the media think they run the sport and have decided to stop actually reporting.

 

[Perth Red]

Please tell me how getting rid of any of the teams in Sydney will increase crowds in Sydney?

It won’t in short term, but arguably it won’t reduce them either. When you take a look at crowds per population it seems that in most cases if you are going to draw 25kish plus crowds you need at least a 1club to 1 million people ratio. Having 9 clubs to 5million in a relatively sporting apathetic city like Sydney means it’s going to be hard to see consistent. 20k plus crowds for all nine teams without some pretty dramatic strategy from the nrl.

It’d be a good start if we could get 4-5 clubs with 20k avg’s And the rest around 15k. That shouldn’t be a unrealistic target, sadly it seems beyond our sports governing body to achieve it. The fact they haven’t been hammered for failing their own start plan target so miserably in this area probably tells us all we need to know.

 

[AlwaysGreen]

You will if you’re committed. I followed my club through years of relegation to the third division and administration. Makes the good times all the sweeter! To bail on them half way through the year because they are a bit sht doesn’t say much about level of the fans., especially if you’ve already paid to go through a season membership!

Bully for you.

I won't, for the millionth time in this thread over the years, make any comments about how ANZ is a terrible stadium to watch league and is in an isolated location geographically.

 

[DC_fan]

Please tell me how getting rid of any of the teams in Sydney will increase crowds in Sydney?

In the short term it probably wont. But we need to be looking long term to find the benefits.

 

[roofromoz]

I think I was at that game. Was it on an evening? They gave me a ticket at the gate to get in for free lol

Weirdly they play baseball games on a weekday during the week and still get a crowd in Chicago!

It was a Friday night match.

 

[DC_fan]

I see this argument a lot, the problem with removing teams is you lose the connections fan have to the game. In an ideal world we would probably have less than 4 teams in Sydney, the problem is there is no way to get there without losing half the supporter base in Sydney. People will not transfer their support to a new team.

I understand where you are coming from, and therer will be many who agree with you. If the number of Sydney teams were cut there would be a lot of pain in the short term, but its the long term viability of the game we should be concerned about.

The game could continue as it is with 9 Sydney teams, and it will coast along for the next ten years or so. In that time while we find the usual peaks and troughs with crowds, more then likely number will continue to decline when looked over much longer period.

If we want the NRL, not just to be around in 20 and 30 years time then hard decisions will have to be made.

 

[DC_fan]

Bullshit.

I have attended 20+ NBA games at various venues and they have not all been full houses by any means. In fact, a game in Charlotte I went to last year it was less than 2/3 full (vs Golden State). A lot of teams will announce sell outs but local companies buy bucket loads of tickets at discounted rates off the team to offload to their employees as a reward or to then onsell to ticket re-sellers. It’s a farce.


The Carolina Panthers are just as bad for doing this........

I too have heard of this. But it can be difficult to judge just how wide spread it is and how much of an impact it does have on crowds.

Over the years it has been suggested that some State of Origin game crowds have been influenced by give away tickets. Either this doesnt happen in the NRL, or the people who get the freebies are just not interested in using the ticket. Hoipefully its the former, because if its the later then that may tell us a whole lot about the state of the game here.

 

[unforgiven]

I understand where you are coming from, and therer will be many who agree with you. If the number of Sydney teams were cut there would be a lot of pain in the short term, but its the long term viability of the game we should be concerned about.

The game could continue as it is with 9 Sydney teams, and it will coast along for the next ten years or so. In that time while we find the usual peaks and troughs with crowds, more then likely number will continue to decline when looked over much longer period.

If we want the NRL, not just to be around in 20 and 30 years time then hard decisions will have to be made.

The game will not recover in Sydney if you have a mass culling of teams, not even in the 20 or 30 years. Norths fans didn't adopt a new team when they folded and I guess a lot of kids were lost as well as the were no longer exposed to the game as their parents lost their team.

 

[unforgiven]

In the short term it probably wont. But we need to be looking long term to find the benefits.

I'm interested, how would you go about reducing the teams in Sydney?

 

[Saint Doc]

Amazing what a bit of promotion does!! Crowd for today’s ISP Newtown Jets match!

 

[Saint Doc]

 

[thorson1987]

Under reporting today.

 

[Raiderdave]

6134 @ blottoland
wow
just wow

 

[Marlins]

Passable and better then I thought. Manly’s Crowd though.....ooof

 

[Timmah]

15k at ANZ for Souths-Eels

 

[Saint Doc]

6134 @ blottoland
wow
just wow

The Newtown crowd was quite possibly bigger than brookvale. Crazy!

 

[azza29]

15,298 in Melbourne this evening.

 

[Timmah]

 

[Frank Discussion]

The Newtown crowd was quite possibly bigger than brookvale. Crazy!

And ANZ.

Newtown showing how to do it in Sydney. A cool venue, an event, great food and drink; kids and dogs welcome.

The NRL has been shaded badly by reserve grade- let that sink in.

They are so far away from providing a product Sydney people want it is not even funny.