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Crowd Watch Mk III

U

undertaker

Coach
Messages
11,075
As you know, the capacity of ANZ Stadium is 83500 (since the redevelopment was completed in 2003). The highest crowd since redevelopment was 82538 in 2009 (Melbourne vs Parramatta) and the lowest was 79609 in 2006 (Melbourne vs Brisbane). So, since the GF sells out every year (that is, all the tickets available to the general public are sold) , the difference in figures is attributed to the number of ANZ stadium members that turn up. So, since 2002, crowds for GF fall in the 79609-82538 range.

A crowd of 81404 or more on Sunday will beat last year's final series aggregate of 340851 (across 9 finals games), although it will fall short of the 351448 that was achieved in 2009 - a record since the league expanded to a top 8 finals format in 1995. 2009 was greatly assisted by the 74549 that turned out for the Bulldogs/Parramatta PF. The matchups for this years 2 PFs cost us the chance of breaking 2009's record.
 
Marshall_magic

Marshall_magic

Coach
Messages
15,378
undertaker said:
A crowd of 81404 or more on Sunday will beat last year's final series aggregate of 340851 (across 9 finals games), although it will fall short of the 351448 that was achieved in 2009 - a record since the league expanded to a top 8 finals format in 1995. 2009 was greatly assisted by the 74549 that turned out for the Bulldogs/Parramatta PF. The matchups for this years 2 PFs cost us the chance of breaking 2009's record.
Click to expand...

Yeah, our week 1 crowds were a record (due to the Tigers/Dragons and Broncos/Warriors) but almost 20k over the next best finals week 1 from 99 on (which was in 2006), if our week 3 crowds were larger we'd have a record, our combined total of week 3 this year was lower than the Tigers/Dragons last year and the Bulldogs/Eels in 09. Only in 2008 have we had a worse week 3 of the finals for crowds. As of right now (all finals series minus the grand final) we are ahead of 2010, by less than 1000, but behind 2009 by nearly 10k. We're almost 30k clear of every other finals series at the same point as we're at now. This series will finish either 2nd or 3rd for finals crowds, barring a complete disaster (crowd 55k).
 
NRL-TGG

NRL-TGG

Guest Moderator
Messages
1,354
NRL decreased in crowds by just over 1%.

NRL crowds are about par, every other sporting competition is having a significant down turn.
 
P

pcpp

Juniors
Messages
2,266
Compare to the A-League where crowds have dropped almost 43% since 2006.

If the NRL had the same drop since the record year of 2005 we would be averaging 9,461.

And you would believe from the media that rugby league is dying.
 
D

DIOGENES

Juniors
Messages
1,715
3,464,689/ave 17,237
Down 26,089 or 0.7% or an average of 130 per match not bad.
One of the big differences was the preliminary final - the last two years there was a game between popular Sydney teams and a 70K+ crowd compared t0 Manly vs Brisbane's 31K
the other difference was the dreadful weather
I predict 17,500 next year.
 
U

undertaker

Coach
Messages
11,075
pcpp said:
Compare to the A-League where crowds have dropped almost 43% since 2006.

If the NRL had the same drop since the record year of 2005 we would be averaging 9,461.

And you would believe from the media that rugby league is dying.
Click to expand...

Long rant coming up here...

To put it more accurately, since the 2007/08 season. The 2007/08 season was when the crowds peaked, with the average crowd attendance during the regular season being 14608 (which was very good, given that the average crowds for the NRL in 2007 was 15750. However, A-League has less games during the season, as well as there being no more than one team in a town (until Melbourne Heart was admitted last season), hence no competition from other soccer clubs in each respective area). However, the average crowd last season (2010/11) was 8393.

Sydney FC, the richest club in the A-League, or the glamour club if you like to call it that (aka the Manchester Utd of the A-League), has had a whopping 53% decline in crowd attendances over this 3 year period. Melbourne Victory had the highest average attendance last season of 15234. However, this is still a massive 45% below their peak average of 27728 in 2006/07. In fact, they even got over 50000 for a game against Sydney FC during that season. Oh, how the mighty have fallen...

Shall we keeping going...

The CC Mariners could only muster a pathetic, paltry 7539 for their Preliminary Final/Grand Final Qualifier last season. 7539! And three seasons ago, they were regularly getting over 18000 a match during their golden run at the end of that season. When I was at that sell-out semi-final between the Mariners and Jets, it made me feel a case of "what could have been?" for rugby league on the Central Coast. Although league has lost a bit of ground since the failed Northern Eagles venture and the Mariners have the monopoly of being the only professional sporting team on the Central Coast, I'm 100% confident that if the CC Bears were to get an NRL side there, they'd completely obliterate the Mariners and put them into oblivion. The Mariners wouldn't be able to compete with the Bears, in terms of support and sponsorship.

And as pccp said, here are ppl crapping on about how rugby league is "dying":lol::lol: If anything, the A-League is in real dire straits. Although the Socceroos will always be the most supported team in Australia out of the three national football teams we have (Socceroos, Wallabies and Kangaroos. I could be a bit facetious and include AFL in this, since there was apparently an AFL World Cup here a couple of months ago or so:lol: I don't know what our national AFL/International Rules team is called), no amount of puff pieces by the likes of Craig Foster will ever be enough to convince me that soccer is strong at the domestic level in this country. I'm confident that by 2014/15, which is when the NRL is considering expansion, we will have more than enough talent to field an extra 2 teams. This isn't the case with the A-League, as has been seen over the last three seasons. The A-League's biggest downfall is that the it expanded too early when the talent within the domestic ranks clearly wasn't there, and as result, this diluted the quality of football/soccer within the competition, diluted the talent in the teams and it subsequently turned a lot of fans off.

Even with the star recruits of Kewell and Emerton (which, will benefit the Victory and Sydney FC in the short-term, but in the long-run will remain to be seen), clubs all around the comp have accumulated massive debts from large decreases in crowd attendances over the last three seasons, with the Knights and Fury folding and the Western Sydney side not even getting off the ground after all the talk that was going on for years. Besides Dwight Yorke in Season 1 of the A-League, pretty much all the other so-called "marquee" signings have been abject failures.

To put things in perspective, although some NRL teams at times do face crowd slumps due to performance related factors, could you imagine if teams like the Broncos or Knights (who rely very heavily on gate revenue from crowd attendances, especially the Knights since they have no leagues club) basically had their average attendances halved like some A-League teams have?
 
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Cumberland Throw

Cumberland Throw

First Grade
Messages
6,561
You would have to think a league crowds would be fairly volatile over the first few years.

Just the kewell and Emerton factor will see them post a double digit growth % on last year guartenteed.

Reasonable year for NRL crowds , but any decline is a worry

18k ave should be a major kpi for the new CEO under the ic from 2012
 
yakstorm

yakstorm

First Grade
Messages
6,161
Considering the natural disasters we had in some of our core markets to start the year, the bad weather week to week (this was one of the wettest winters in years) and the fact that a lot of teams were out of the running for the eight a lot earlier this year, considering the NRL finished less than 1% down on last year is quite impressive.

The really positive thing is for next year we've been set up well for some strong crowds. Cowboys are bound to bounce back after their impressive season and hopefully a lot of people up north are starting to get their lives back in order by March, the Knights will have both the Tinkler + Bennett factor which will see a rise in their memberships and should mean stronger crowds. Warriors, even after losing yesterday will still enjoy strong crowds at the start of the year, after doing so well, and Bluey as a coach is very popular with the Kiwi league public.
 
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