The GF still hasn't been announced as sold out.
A sad indictment on Panthers fans primarily.
The Eels could win 10 in a row and it would easily sell out every year.
Are Panthers fans becoming complacent with their ongoing success?
So a story over the weekend which probably shows the growth of Penrith and RL fans that will be felt in the next 2 decades that Penrith have created
One of our Ukraine sub-contractors who works for us has lived in Australia since 2000.
Has 4 kids 2 x boys & 2 x girls who were all born here & live in the Penrith area.
His kids age all range from 12-17 so all teenagers now.
All his kids play basketball and were into that sport and still play it since a young age.
And he never got into rugby league until his kids started following it due to hanging out with other kids at primary & high school who all follow it. Ever since Penrith started winning the kids have all become massive fans of not only Penrith but Rugby League.
I got the whole family tickets to the GF last week as it hadn't sold out so i was able to purchase them on ticketek for them once the General public had access.
He came into the office today grinning showing me videos and photos of the whole family there on GF day all decked out in Penrith Jerseys. The Girls had there pink jerseys on and the boys had the black one. And Ihor the contractor had his Penrith panthers polo shirt on.
We did get them tickets to 2022 GF as well when they beat us but i think we only got him 3 or 4 from memory due to demand so all the kids couldn't go that year.
Now there kids even older and won 4 straight they love Rugby League so much so they even used our season tickets at times this year 1-2 times this year when we didn't use them to go watch Parra play and it wasn't the Penrith game.
For me thats the impact Penrith have created with this dynasty its got people in the area who weren't originally rugby league fans due to foreign backgrounds into loving the sport off the back of Penrith success and wanting to be apart of it.
I imagine it would have been the same in the 1980s with Parramatta.