You can read this all over lunch or something. Some very valid and interesting notions.
T-BA said:
____ "A 15k HOME average was managed once in those two decade, with the Bulldogs scraping in at 15k in 1975.
Those figures are inflated by match of the round. Match of the round wasn't sustainable as Sydney's Urban Sprawl occured and transport links failed to grow with it. There are structural forces at work that didn't exist in a place like Melbourne, which could keep a centralised club base and had decent transport out to the suburbs, or Brisbane, which has grown at a time that has allowed it to learn from the mistakes of Sydney. As Homebush shows, it's simply not practical anymore. Which is a shame, because if Sydney had been built better, Ground consolidation probably would have occurred by now.
Pokie Money also helped. Why play a game at the SCG when you can get a big portion of the 5000 punters turning up to your home games having a whirl on the machines after a home match? Frankly, Pokies are just about the worst thing that happened to Rugby League.
HOME crowds are the best they've ever been, and have improved drastically over the last 25 years. There's no reasons to suggest this will not continue." ___________
I talk about a culture and the points raised in what T-BA said are exactly what I am on about. Those points and others. You see, human beings are human beings! Well der Mark123, I hear you say, but listen closer ---> if you can do it with one bunch of humans, you can very well do it with another. You just need to push the same internal buttons.
Rugby League needs to change its methods and BUILD these things up over the years. I think the growth in RL crowds are largely due to inflationary effects (i.e just as population grows without external help). We really havnt seen a giant increase in crowds like an explosion which happened to the broncos. Ofcourse they averaged 40K+ early on, but by the end of ANZ they were down to 20K. Went from 20K to 35K this year over 5 years.
This is a cultural explosion. Not an inflationary one. You will see in this example when the attending population exploded averages went from 20K, to 25, to 27, to 30 to 35ish. The population loved rugby league, but were being kept away because of stadium issues. But they didnt immediately all return. It took time to build up.
And the fact that a slow increase occurred showed that you can't just plonk a stadium down and expect everyone to want to come and join in the party. A habit needed to be formed, and the habit's influence rubbed off on other people.
Humans are creatures of habit. And are influenced by what everyone is doing around them. As more people get interested in rugby league and attend and support, this brings even more people toward the game who will eventually attend and support. Right up to saturation point.
And this is what people must understand. If you have a goal of increasing crowds, and you can work toward it actively and make decisions and take actions that support that end, your crowds will grow. Remember what I said at the start of this post? If you can do it with one bunch of people, you can do it with another: you just need to flick on the internal switches. Humans are creatures of habit and they are influenced.
People are used to a certain level of comfort: give it to them.
People are used to a certain level of ease: give it to them
People are used to a reasonable price that meets the value they have in their eyes: give it to them
Keep flicking those switches.
Right now, all the watch me on tv switches are being flicked by tv stations, etc, who promote the game.
Lets flick some attending switches.
You see, league will always have lower than what would be proportionately normal in sydney because the city doesn't flick the right switches in people in regards to attending.
No doubt few people's needs are being met in rugby league still. The admin is to blame. They got it wrong. Thats ok. But lets move toward getting it right.
Two things are certain. the no contest view people have of this test is keeping them away. And the stadium chosen.
Could league shoot itself more in the foot?
RL needs a massive restructure in sydney and in general. In the next 10 years methods must change. We must begin to see it happen or consign league to the mediocre sports pile. Other sports and competitions will offer so much more.
Items like reduction of rounds, increase of international games,
rl stadia upgrades, main stadiums used repositioning, transport upgrades, transport incorporated tickets.
less teams in sydney (by 2 perhaps)
better tv deal, nationwide,
perth team, 2nd nz team. the two most ideal and greatest contributing new teams possible.
membership increase and a general attendance-culture being created by the media, clubs, and fans alike. Then give it time for the influence to spread to all crevices of the league world.
Imagine if Rl was able to harness the forces surrounding the game and use them re-work the canvas of sydney, the competition, and its fans' culture, and create an environment whereby crowds grew in "explosion-like" proportions for the game as a whole. Imagine is RL could permeate society on a level such as the AFL has in melbourne, grid iron in the USA, or soccer across the globe (except Australia and a select few other countries). Is it not time to move toward a system in league that WORKED better?
If we can define what needs to be done, then why can't it be done? We have the means, we just need to will. This is sport, and its just sport, but its a big part of our lives, and its our money that runs the city, and in due time, we want the city to support our game and us in attending it, keeping our clubs alive (does a govt that ruins poker money sound like it "loves" league to you; a separate issue being that we needed to reduce reliance on poker money)?
If we keep doing the same stuff, we will still have hopeless test crowds, and clubs crowds, so if we want different we must do different, and we know what needs to be done.
