2025 Crowd Watch

[drcmuch]

Maybe Bulldogs should play one game at Accor and sell it out, and then play every other game at various country venues in front of 5000. Then you can claim they have an 80,000 average for the year?

Well, no, the place where you play 1 out of 12 of your games wouldn't qualify as your home ground.

The logic of excluding the various special events and neutral venues is to preserve a "truer" picture of the home crowds. Extreme example would be the first double header at the new Olympic Stadium back in 1999. If you included that 104k for the "home" teams that year their average would appear to be 7 or 8k higher than reality.

 

[Pjf04b]

Penrith play a game at Bathurst every year so it should be counted as a home game. It actually reduces their average.
By your logic event games such as Easter Monday and Anzac Day should not be home games either!

 

[drcmuch]

By your logic event games such as Easter Monday and Anzac Day should not be home games either!

It bares considering, at least when the nominal home team isn't at home. When one-offs get played at the SCG for pure nostalgia, personally don't count it as a home-ground game for either team.

 

[Saint Doc]

I think there is something different between a neutral event like Vegas/Magic Round, and a team electing to take a home game to another ground such as Allianz/Gosford/wellington/Darwin/Bathurst.

But the simplest way would just be to include average crowd for all games you’re listed as the home team.
Every club decides where to play each home game. Ultimately if you don’t want to go to Vegas, or host a game at Magic Round, then you don’t have to.
but if you chose to give up home advantage you should get the benefit of the crowd added to your average.

 

[Saint Doc]

It bares considering, at least when the nominal home team isn't at home. When one-offs get played at the SCG for pure nostalgia, personally don't count it as a home-ground game for either team.

But it’s not a “nominal” team.
the team who takes a game to SCG is choosing to do so.

 

[drcmuch]

I think there is something different between a neutral event like Vegas/Magic Round, and a team electing to take a home game to another ground such as Allianz/Gosford/wellington/Darwin/Bathurst.

But the simplest way would just be to include average crowd for all games you’re listed as the home team.
Every club decides where to play each home game. Ultimately if you don’t want to go to Vegas, or host a game at Magic Round, then you don’t have to.
but if you chose to give up home advantage you should get the benefit of the crowd added to your average.

Totally agree that the multi-game events are a different beast. Really don't like the idea of double or triple counting those crowds in the club averages. Including the relocated games would be a reasonable choice, though usually to the detriment of the overall average. If you take a game to Bundaberg or Wagga Wagga, don't see the need reduce your home ground average as a result.

 

[Saint Doc]

Totally agree that the multi-game events are a different beast. Really don't like the idea of double or triple counting those crowds in the club averages. Including the relocated games would be a reasonable choice, though usually to the detriment of the overall average. If you take a game to Bundaberg or Wagga Wagga, don't see the need reduce your home ground average as a result.

Firstly for Magic and Vegas they give individual crowds now (the number of people in the ground during each game) so you’re not counting people not there.

Also re: “don’t see the need to reduce your home ground average if you take a game to Wagga” - I mean we’re talking about LU calculations here, not official NRL calculations. There is no punishment for a club if LU says your average is 16233 instead of 16908. Mostly clubs are choosing to take lower drawing games to country grounds where they think the crowd will be similar (or better) than what they would get at home. It allows them to offer cheaper memberships that hopefully boost crowds for the remaining fixtures.

Essentially I am arguing for nothing though as historically the people who make these decisions have been inflexible and it doesn’t really matter as outside of 50 or so internet footy nerds in this thread it doesn’t really matter. The way LU calculates averages I personally think is wrong but not something that keeps me up at night. Just not the cleanest way to do stats which in my experience should be as clear cut as possible, without interpretations such as “Allianz doesn’t count for Bulldogs because it’s not in their regular rotation of games but does count for dragons because it’s a regular second yearly thing” - that kinda stuff could be cut out and all home fixtures counted in average

 

[League Unlimited News]

 

[Timmah]

Maybe Bulldogs should play one game at Accor and sell it out, and then play every other game at various country venues in front of 5000. Then you can claim they have an 80,000 average for the year?

This might be the stupidest attempt at a hypothetical ever made in any discussion on this forum. It makes a mockery of anything else you've said.

 

[DIOGENES]

The game at Cronulla may set the lower limit for the year
currently 6211

 

[Speedy Gonzales]

Dogs v Tigers easily gets 20k+ on a clear sunny day but still a huge effort imo

 

[yakstorm]

Great crowd considering the weather. Fortunate it was at a venue like CommBank as well, that's getting less than 10K at LO or CSS

 

[yakstorm]

Crowds this round:
Eels v Storm - 9,402
Warriors v Phins - 23,012
Broncos v Rabbitohs - 38,430
Titans v Panthers - 18,174
Dragons v Raiders - 8,567
Sea Eagles v Roosters - 12,478
Wests Tigers v Bulldogs - 17,423

127,486 total with 1 game in hand.

Only need 514 at Shark Park for 16K average. Need 8,514 for 17K average.

 

[user_nat]

Crowds this round:
Eels v Storm - 9,402
Warriors v Phins - 23,012
Broncos v Rabbitohs - 38,430
Titans v Panthers - 18,174
Dragons v Raiders - 8,567
Sea Eagles v Roosters - 12,478
Wests Tigers v Bulldogs - 17,423

127,486 total with 1 game in hand.

Only need 514 at Shark Park for 16K average. Need 8,514 for 17K average.

It's going to be close to that 514. If they include the players we should be sweet.

 

[kurt faulk]

.

My son was sitting pretty high up in the main stand at Wollongong. He said the rain was hitting him sideways.

.

 

[yakstorm]

Crowd for NRLW Magic Round Day 2:

Looked bigger on TV today, though possibly just more people sitting outside of the top of the Andrew Johns grandstand.

 

[DIOGENES]

Crowds this round:
Eels v Storm - 9,402
Warriors v Phins - 23,012
Broncos v Rabbitohs - 38,430
Titans v Panthers - 18,174
Dragons v Raiders - 8,567
Sea Eagles v Roosters - 12,478
Wests Tigers v Bulldogs - 17,423

127,486 total with 1 game in hand.

Only need 514 at Shark Park for 16K average. Need 8,514 for 17K average.

Round 22 last year 145,585 ave 18,198
So a little wobble on the path to the record

On the other hand - it is not that long ago that 120K was an above average round

 

[League Unlimited News]

 

[chrisD]

Looked to be more Penrith supporters on the Gold coast than at their own home games lately.

There 100% were. Western Sydney has been retiring and moving to the sunshine and goldcoast because they can't afford the Sydney beach suburbs.

 

[drcmuch]

Essentially I am arguing for nothing though...

Oh, for sure, it's just us nerding. Sorry to drag it out one more time.

But this begged for a follow up...

Firstly for Magic and Vegas they give individual crowds now (the number of people in the ground during each game) so you’re not counting people not there.

Not really, they count the number of new entries, but it doesn't go down with exits. So the crowd for game 3 on Magic Sat/Sun is always given as > (sometimes =) to the crowd for game 2. Even when that's clearly not true, like this year. (Inevitable that the crowd would be bigger for Panthers v Broncos at Sun 4pm, than for Storm v Raiders at 6.30)