2024 Crowd Watch

[Dark Corner]

This might be the worst crowd I've ever seen given the size of fanbases and venue...

Rugby Leagues dying now is it.

 

[League Unlimited News]

 

[yakstorm]

Not a horrible result. I know plenty of people wanted more, but when you have the home team fans threatening to boycott, combined with Thursday Night and average weather, it could have been a lot worse.

At the old Parramatta Stadium, tonight's game would have been a questionable 7K.

 

[Billythekid]

Not a horrible result. I know plenty of people wanted more, but when you have the home team fans threatening to boycott, combined with Thursday Night and average weather, it could have been a lot worse.

At the old Parramatta Stadium, tonight's game would have been a questionable 7K.

The recent surge in crowds has given people a short memory. Getting almost 14K on a Thursday night in pouring rain isn’t an amazing crowd but it’s exactly the sort of game that would have seen sub 10K in the past.

I haven’t got the data but I’d love to see someone compile how many sub 10K crowds we currently get vs previous years to demonstrate this.

 

[SouthsCountry]

This might be the worst crowd I've ever seen given the size of fanbases and venue...

I retract my statement, Commbank is deceptive at hiding crowds. Nearly 14k is a pass for that weather. Was a pretty good game too!

 

[Valheru]

Encouraging signs for Sunday at Allianz with additional bays on Level 2 now open, including behind the goal posts on the southern side.

Last Roosters game they were open for was maybe Storm, so tracking more for 17K+. Club has put out a call to arms to celebrate JWH & is also hosting old boys activities, which generally help move tickets.

Bulldogs have brought back the Dance Spectacular for Saturday's game, which is always a guaranteed crowd booster.

Between 6PM and midnight last night the roosters were offering GA tickets at $30.70 and $3.07 for adults and children respectively in honour of JWH 307th for the club.

That's not much of a discount for the adults but essentially free for the kids so not sure how many tickets that moved.

Weather is looking a lot better for the weekend in general so I'm quietly hopeful of 25k+

 

[bazza]

The recent surge in crowds has given people a short memory. Getting almost 14K on a Thursday night in pouring rain isn’t an amazing crowd but it’s exactly the sort of game that would have seen sub 10K in the past.

I haven’t got the data but I’d love to see someone compile how many sub 10K crowds we currently get vs previous years to demonstrate this.

This site has the worst 20 crowds of the season
for 2023 there were 18 under 10k - https://afltables.com/rl/crowds/2023.html
for 2019 there were at least 20 under 10k - the 20th worst being 9,136 - https://afltables.com/rl/crowds/2019.html

 

[RedVee]

This site has the worst 20 crowds of the season
for 2023 there were 18 under 10k - https://afltables.com/rl/crowds/2023.html
for 2019 there were at least 20 under 10k - the 20th worst being 9,136 - https://afltables.com/rl/crowds/2019.html

Is it odd that “AFL tables” keeps a record of bad NRL crowds???

 

[Wb1234]

 

[taste2taste]

Imo that's a great crowd.

Last Vs 4th last, heavy rain, school night, the game being shown on FTA.

I'm amazed more than 7k turned up.

 

[Vlad59]

Is it odd that “AFL tables” keeps a record of bad NRL crowds???

It keeps identical stats for both codes. They are exhaustive. A thankless task.

 

[bazza]

Is it odd that “AFL tables” keeps a record of bad NRL crowds???

used to be rltables.com - too (had both AFL and NRL) - think it is same person keeping the stats

 

[Vlad59]

used to be rltables.com - too (had both AFL and NRL) - think it is same person keeping the stats

Still does and is

 

[Timmah]

Is it odd that “AFL tables” keeps a record of bad NRL crowds???

afltables.com doesn't "keep a record of bad NRL crowds". The user you're quoting pointed to the year pages for 2019 and 2023. All pages for all years in both codes have a "Highest Crowds" and "Lowest Crowds" list.

For some history, the Rugby League element of AFLTables was pointed to the URL stats.rleague.com when that website was still in existence, but is now just the one URL at afltables (presumably to minimise domain name outlay? dunno).

No controversy to be seen here and they don't "keep a record of bad NRL crowds" specifically, no.

 

[grozzy]

The weather up here in Coffs has cleared up for now. Hopefully the morning rain hasn't put too many ticket holders off

 

[Vlad59]

The weather up here in Coffs has cleared up for now. Hopefully the morning rain hasn't put too many ticket holders off

Well we know it’s a sellout but some here can’t their heads around what that actually means.

 

[titoelcolombiano]

Question for those in Melbourne and Sydney respectively...

Forget the current capacity of AAMI, because for the purposes of this question we are going to assume there has been an upgrade at some stage in the coming decades. Do we ever see Melbourne Storm Averaging 40k+?

For those in Sydney, can we see someone like a Roosters at Allianz or Bulldogs at a new Liverpool or revamped rectangular Accor ever averaging 40k+?

For me, it is possible with the Storm given, like I said a bigger ground, given time and the fact that they are marketing themselves well as the team for all Melbournians. It's actually incredible to think they've already crept up to averaging 20k in Melbourne. As the Storm team becomes more of a staple down there and there are a handful of genuine world class Victorians in the team I can see it.

Sydney I'm less certain about... it's probably more hopeful than anything else. I love what the Roosters are trying to do, glamour club, in the big end of town club, marketed as Sydney, rather than Easts, playing in the city's best stadium. I love what's happened with Parra and Commbank, I think the Dogs and Souths have potential if they can get the right stadium. Will we ever see one or more Sydney clubs really break out into that 40k+ range?

 

[Timmah]

Question for those in Melbourne and Sydney respectively...

Forget the current capacity of AAMI, because for the purposes of this question we are going to assume there has been an upgrade at some stage in the coming decades. Do we ever see Melbourne Storm Averaging 40k+?

For those in Sydney, can we see someone like a Roosters at Allianz or Bulldogs at a new Liverpool or revamped rectangular Accor ever averaging 40k+?

For me, it is possible with the Storm given, like I said a bigger ground, given time and the fact that they are marketing themselves well as the team for all Melbournians. It's actually incredible to think they've already crept up to averaging 20k in Melbourne. As the Storm team becomes more of a staple down there and there are a handful of genuine world class Victorians in the team I can see it.

Sydney I'm less certain about... it's probably more hopeful than anything else. I love what the Roosters are trying to do, glamour club, in the big end of town club, marketed as Sydney, rather than Easts, playing in the city's best stadium. I love what's happened with Parra and Commbank, I think the Dogs and Souths have potential if they can get the right stadium. Will we ever see one or more Sydney clubs really break out into that 40k+ range?

As someone living in Melbourne and having lived in Sydney...

Storm averaging 40k seems unlikely. 25-30k maybe but not 40k. Any time they've had the chance to play a regular season game at Docklands the crowds have flopped.

In Sydney I think the ebb and flow of attendances comes down to the success of clubs like Canterbury and Parramatta, and even St George Illawarra. When those clubs are firing, big crowds are a given. Venues as they are probably fine apart from facilities upgrades/modernisation.

 

[yakstorm]

Between 6PM and midnight last night the roosters were offering GA tickets at $30.70 and $3.07 for adults and children respectively in honour of JWH 307th for the club.

That's not much of a discount for the adults but essentially free for the kids so not sure how many tickets that moved.

Weather is looking a lot better for the weekend in general so I'm quietly hopeful of 25k+

Category 2 GA on the sideline has now sold out, so fair to say it has helped at least move those sideline seats. Outside of the Away supporter bay, all Level 1 sideline bays are now either down to single seats or sold out, which is very encouraging.

Category 1 tickets on Level 2 are almost gone as well, so hopefully we'll see the club open up some more bays on the second level. Corporates for Sunday have also sold strongly, with only a few captains club seats left. Looking more like a 20K+ crowd which is great signs, hopefully the weather is good on Sunday and the match pushes closer to 25K.

 

[Vlad59]

As someone living in Melbourne and having lived in Sydney...

Storm averaging 40k seems unlikely. 25-30k maybe but not 40k. Any time they've had the chance to play a regular season game at Docklands the crowds have flopped.

In Sydney I think the ebb and flow of attendances comes down to the success of clubs like Canterbury and Parramatta, and even St George Illawarra. When those clubs are firing, big crowds are a given. Venues as they are probably fine apart from facilities upgrades/modernisation.

Melbourne will only ever get crowds averaging any thing like 40000 when there is a fit for purpose stadium with that capacity. There isn’t one. That’s pretty much that.