Most/All clubs have been increasing their average over the years except Canberra. Just look at other regional teams like Newcastle. I do think there’s a big concern, need a concerted effort to get this to a 20k average and that includes building a new stadium. PVL should be campaigning hard for this, but the raiders aren’t don’t their cause much by rarely getting close to filling Bruce.
But im less concerned about their crowd moreso worried that if its a sign of lagging interest in the nrl in Canberra.
What window are we basing this on? Are we just looking at individual years in isolation or looking at trends over multiple years? If you break down the Raiders averages post Super League, you can see gradual increases from where they were.
- From 2000 - 2009, the Raiders had an average of 11,414 (1,381,120 aggregate from 121 games) for games played in Canberra.
- From 2010 - 2019, the Raiders had an average of 11,759 (1,399,325 aggregate from 119 games) for games played in Canberra.
- Excluding the COVID affected 2020 season where GIO Stadium was capped to 4K or less, the Raiders have an average of 14,081 (605,493 aggregate from 43 games) for games played in Canberra from 2021 - 2025. This year alone they are sitting at 15,161 from 3 of 11 home games.
Even if you include the 90's, which was a golden period for the Raiders, the club is exceeding that average of 13,155 (1,420,791 aggregate from 108 games).
To say they're not growing is unfair. Yes they didn't do as much as they could of over the period, but like a lot of clubs, post Super League they took a hit and the next decade was focusing on consolidation.
Pretty much from 2016 they finally invested in game day experience and went from being a 9K-10K club the years before to getting 12.2K / 14.1K / 11.8K / 15.3K / COVID / 13.6K / 13.0K / 15.3K / 14.0K / 15.2K. Whilst it's lumpy, it is trending in the right direction.
