It’s hard to say exactly why crowds have grown so suddenly. The quality of the games and the new stadiums have certainly helped. As crowds grow you also have more people wanting to come and experience that.
Personally I think possibly the biggest factor is the introduction of the dolphins. It feels like the game is growing again and there hasn’t been this much positivity And enthusiasm for the game since maybe just before the super league era.
The crazy thing is the comp hasn’t actually been all that even. You have to go back to 2016 for a team not named roosters, storm or panthers to have won a comp and it’s not like roosters or storm had been struggling prior to that either. We’ve also had a lot of teams who are just perennial losers.
On top of that generally we’ve seen a lot of our bigger teams struggling for success. Teams like panthers, manly, sharks, storm aren’t historically the biggest drawers for example. Meanwhile so many of our big teams have been languishing down the bottom, especially Sydney sides.
I might sound like a hater but any team in the comp would draw 20K+ per game after winning 3 straight comps. I’m not doubting that the panthers have done other good things but that’s the big reason for the growth.
