Financial fragility of the game

[big hit!]

most clubs only have 2-3 games in those time slots a season. That’s 75% plus of games in non crap time slots,

There are too many time slots, and not a chance to build consistency in attending matches at the same time to support your club.

NFL have about 7-8 of their 14-16 matches each week starting at 1pm Sun eastern time. They also have about 4-5 starting at 4pm Sun eastern time (mainly used for Pacific and Mtn zone teams). Using the example of Cleveland Browns someone brought up above, fans in Cleveland know that 7 of their 8 home matches will be at 1pm Sunday. Fairly easy to plan your life and season when you have this consistency.

EPL is similar. 5 of 10 matches are at 3pm Saturday.

In both examples above, about 70% matches are played during the day.

Contrast this with the NRL: Only 2 matches (25%) start and finish with daylight. There's your f**king problem with getting folks to games in winter. Furthermore, unless you're a supporter of the Broncos or Cowboys, you're likely to go through 5-6 different starting times for home games during the season. I looked at Souths first 6 home games pre-COVID and there were 5 different KO times. It's bullshit for clubs trying to market matches, and for fans attending them. May as well rely on the NRL hand out and sit at home which is what the NRL have allowed happen by ceding control to broadcasters.

 

[Perth Red]

There are too many time slots, and not a chance to build consistency in attending matches at the same time to support your club.

NFL have about 7-8 of their 14-16 matches each week starting at 1pm Sun eastern time. They also have about 4-5 starting at 4pm Sun eastern time (mainly used for Pacific and Mtn zone teams). Using the example of Cleveland Browns someone brought up above, fans in Cleveland know that 7 of their 8 home matches will be at 1pm Sunday. Fairly easy to plan your life and season when you have this consistency.

EPL is similar. 5 of 10 matches are at 3pm Saturday.

In both examples above, about 70% matches are played during the day.

Contrast this with the NRL: Only 2 matches (25%) start and finish with daylight. There's your f**king problem with getting folks to games in winter. Furthermore, unless you're a supporter of the Broncos or Cowboys, you're likely to go through 5-6 different starting times for home games during the season. I looked at Souths first 6 home games pre-COVID and there were 5 different KO times. It's bullshit for clubs trying to market matches, and for fans attending them. May as well rely on the NRL hand out and sit at home which is what the NRL have allowed happen by ceding control to broadcasters.

don’t disagree but we don’t have the population or popularity to not have most games live. If anywhere, you could do it with fox who rely on subscribers not advertisers so in theory do pnt need to show every game separately. I guess if we could live with less tv revenue (which seems to be the way we are going anyway) we could make a Saturday afternoon the more regular nrl day slot? Not sure when jnr and amateur sport is in Sydney and Brisbane though?

What it could look like with a bit of a mindset change and expansion:
Friday 6pm or Sunday 6pm Fox (alternating WA and nz games each week, nz regular Friday night game, perth regular 6pm aest Sunday game)
Friday 8pm live fta - Sydney blockbuster night
Saturday 2pm three games all shown live on different fox channels - viewers choice
Saturday 4pm two games as above
Saturday 7pm Fox exclusive blockbuster game
Sunday 3pm live fta Queensland featured game

that would give you 6 (7 alternating weeks) day games out of 9.

 

[big hit!]

Rugby League is played Sundays. If you have 3 or so games at the same time, it has to be Sunday arvo.

 

[Diesel]

don’t disagree but we don’t have the population or popularity to not have most games live. If anywhere, you could do it with fox who rely on subscribers not advertisers so in theory do pnt need to show every game separately. I guess if we could live with less tv revenue (which seems to be the way we are going anyway) we could make a Saturday afternoon the more regular nrl day slot? Not sure when jnr and amateur sport is in Sydney and Brisbane though?

What it could look like with a bit of a mindset change and expansion:
Friday 6pm or Sunday 6pm Fox (alternating WA and nz games each week, nz regular Friday night game, perth regular 6pm aest Sunday game)
Friday 8pm live fta - Sydney blockbuster night
Saturday 2pm three games all shown live on different fox channels - viewers choice
Saturday 4pm two games as above
Saturday 7pm Fox exclusive blockbuster game
Sunday 3pm live fta Queensland featured game

that would give you 6 (7 alternating weeks) day games out of 9.

f**king stupid idea. No way should home NZ games be played every week at 8pm. What you don’t realise about Warriors fans is many travel from Hamilton, Tauranga, Rotorua and north of Auckland. They all don’t live 5 minutes walk away from Penrose.

 

[Diesel]

Rugby League is played Sundays. If you have 3 or so games at the same time, it has to be Sunday arvo.

Could you go 2, 3 and 4pm KO’s for Sunday’s only?

 

[big hit!]

Could you go 2, 3 and 4pm KO’s for Sunday’s only?

we're getting into hypothetical territory now as the broadcasters won't let go of their grip without pushing down value. under the current scenario with thu, 2x fri, 3x sat - all contracted and demanded by Nine and Fox, we can only get 2 matches on the traditional sunday. this is pathetic and just consolidates consumption of the game at home/pub while we're doing other things.

ideally, it would be great to have 3 or 4 matches on sunday arvo. It would make a larger chunk of the weekend schedule consistent for most fans.

 

[Diesel]

It’ll be interesting to know where Thursday night and 6pm Friday end up for 2022.

 

[The Great Dane]

said it before make every Friday night 6pm and 8pm a double header at the new allianz. Bands, beer and food village outside get the 20-40 year olds out and at the games. I think Smith could see this in his push to get clubs to move to a semi central stadium policy. Then every Sunday I’d have a double header at bankwest (then if it got really popular) anz, much more family focussed with loads of stuff for the kids, meet the players, cheap family deals, food village outside with kids playground area etc.
Nrl to manage these events, clubs get paid whatever they would normally make on game day plus 20% for giving up home advantage. If out of Sydney teams wanted to take a home game or two and play them at these events days then they could. Give it a try for three years and see if it works to build a fan attendance culture in Sydney. Crowds haven’t changed for two decades, we haven’t got much to lose!

Probably All too hard I guess, easier for clubs to plead poor and nrl to keep dishing out the games money.

By making every second match a doubleheader all you are doing is pooling the current attendance for two separate games into one big attendance for the double header.

In other words you're not actually attracting anybody that wouldn't already be inclined to attend, you're just double counting people and you're splitting the gate taking 4 ways instead of 2.

 

[taipan]

most clubs only have 2-3 games in those time slots a season. That’s 75% plus of games in non crap time slots,

Depends on what you call non crap.3pm Saturday used to be good, kids sport tends to overlap with lunch ,and for visitors from afar.Likewise 4.15pm Sunday nights for visiting fans.Take also into account games played in regionals or interstate.It only takes one or two of those crap timeslots with crap weather and crowds are affected dramatically .ASk yourself why 9 and Foxtel want those slots,9 for the TV ratings and Foxtel to get in early on 9

 

[The Great Dane]

There are too many time slots, and not a chance to build consistency in attending matches at the same time to support your club.

NFL have about 7-8 of their 14-16 matches each week starting at 1pm Sun eastern time. They also have about 4-5 starting at 4pm Sun eastern time (mainly used for Pacific and Mtn zone teams). Using the example of Cleveland Browns someone brought up above, fans in Cleveland know that 7 of their 8 home matches will be at 1pm Sunday. Fairly easy to plan your life and season when you have this consistency.

EPL is similar. 5 of 10 matches are at 3pm Saturday.

In both examples above, about 70% matches are played during the day.

Contrast this with the NRL: Only 2 matches (25%) start and finish with daylight. There's your f**king problem with getting folks to games in winter. Furthermore, unless you're a supporter of the Broncos or Cowboys, you're likely to go through 5-6 different starting times for home games during the season. I looked at Souths first 6 home games pre-COVID and there were 5 different KO times. It's bullshit for clubs trying to market matches, and for fans attending them. May as well rely on the NRL hand out and sit at home which is what the NRL have allowed happen by ceding control to broadcasters.

I'm sorry but this is just making excuses for crappy marketing and game day experience.

I agree that the NRL should have more control over the draw, but it's not going to happen any time soon, and neither is multiple matches kicking off at the same time, so it's not even worth discussing.

If you create an event that is worth the price of admission and the hassle to attend then people with the power to do so will go out of their way to attend.

Currently all the NRL has going for it as an event is the game on the pitch, everything else is amateur hour garbage, with zero production value, and some of the worst atmospheres of any major sporting event that I've experienced anywhere.

Fix those things, market it well, and crowds will follow.

 

[Perth Red]

By making every second match a doubleheader all you are doing is pooling the current attendance for two separate games into one big attendance for the double header.

In other words you're not actually attracting anybody that wouldn't already be inclined to attend, you're just double counting people and you're splitting the gate taking 4 ways instead of 2.

true but what it does allow you to do is invest to make them events and therefore more appealing to attend for fans that your run of the mill weekly games. You also fill stadium spare capacity more which creates better atmosphere which is a driver for more attending. New allianz is going to have 45,000 tickets the nrl could be aiming to seek every week. Double headers are bets way of benefitting from the nsw stadium investment,

 

[taipan]

true but what it does allow you to do is invest to make them events and therefore more appealing to attend for fans that your run of the mill weekly games. You also fill stadium spare capacity more which creates better atmosphere which is a driver for more attending. New allianz is going to have 45,000 tickets the nrl could be aiming to seek every week. Double headers are bets way of benefitting from the nsw stadium investment,

You can make them events when they are local derbies Dragons V Sharks, or blockbusters.It's a lot easier to sell an event when the stadium can handle the bigger crowd all seated and possibly under cover.
I must admit a game between the Rorters and the Sharks at the new Allianz, is very tempting to attend.
If the Roosters don't average 18k plus I'd be disappointed.

 

[Perth Red]

f**king stupid idea. No way should home NZ games be played every week at 8pm. What you don’t realise about Warriors fans is many travel from Hamilton, Tauranga, Rotorua and north of Auckland. They all don’t live 5 minutes walk away from Penrose.

aucklands got 1.6million people, surely there is 20k who would go along for a great Friday night out to watch a well run warriors side?

 

[Perth Red]

You can make them events when they are local derbies Dragons V Sharks, or blockbusters.It's a lot easier to sell an event when the stadium can handle the bigger crowd all seated and possibly under cover.
I must admit a game between the Rorters and the Sharks at the new Allianz, is very tempting to attend.
If the Roosters don't average 18k plus I'd be disappointed.

That’s the point, you’d schedule the draw so there was always a great game to host on the Friday night. The first game could be the “warm up” game, so a Sydney v out of town team then the 8pm game the all Sydney blockbuster game. We know how fickle Sydney people are so give them a good reason to go along to an nrl event every round, market the hell out of it, have plenty of young adult focussed activities going on to make a night of it and get the pricing right: full members of all 4 clubs can get in on membership, group tickets of 4 adults are cheaper, other clubs members can get in for 50% and students get in for $15 etc. if the nrl is going to invest in something let’s have a go at building g clubs memberships, merch sales and attendances.

 

[The Great Dane]

true but what it does allow you to do is invest to make them events and therefore more appealing to attend for fans that your run of the mill weekly games. You also fill stadium spare capacity more which creates better atmosphere which is a driver for more attending. New allianz is going to have 45,000 tickets the nrl could be aiming to seek every week. Double headers are bets way of benefitting from the nsw stadium investment,

You don’t need double headers to make a match an event, and in the long run the reliance on double headers will only hurt the NRL.

 

[big hit!]

I'm sorry but this is just making excuses for crappy marketing and game day experience.

I agree that the NRL should have more control over the draw, but it's not going to happen any time soon, and neither is multiple matches kicking off at the same time, so it's not even worth discussing.

If you create an event that is worth the price of admission and the hassle to attend then people with the power to do so will go out of their way to attend.

Currently all the NRL has going for it as an event is the game on the pitch, everything else is amateur hour garbage, with zero production value, and some of the worst atmospheres of any major sporting event that I've experienced anywhere.

Fix those things, market it well, and crowds will follow.

It’s a very valid excuse. Successful Leagues with billions of $$$ in rights value schedule the bulk of their games during the day. You’re likely to watch your team play at the same time every week.

Make access to the game fan-friendly and you’ve done half the job

 

[taipan]

That’s the point, you’d schedule the draw so there was always a great game to host on the Friday night. The first game could be the “warm up” game, so a Sydney v out of town team then the 8pm game the all Sydney blockbuster game. We know how fickle Sydney people are so give them a good reason to go along to an nrl event every round, market the hell out of it, have plenty of young adult focussed activities going on to make a night of it and get the pricing right: full members of all 4 clubs can get in on membership, group tickets of 4 adults are cheaper, other clubs members can get in for 50% and students get in for $15 etc. if the nrl is going to invest in something let’s have a go at building g clubs memberships, merch sales and attendances.

And the real point is relocating a team ,does away with the local derby events.Such as a ,manly v North Sydney THus it serves little purpose except to undermine your base.

 

[Diesel]

Besides American sport and the AFL, has relocation worked elsewhere

 

[T-Boon]

And the real point is relocating a team ,does away with the local derby events.Such as a ,manly v North Sydney THus it serves little purpose except to undermine your base.

Not necessarily. For example/hypothetical, if we relocated the Tigers to Perth and made them the Western Tigers the deal could be that they have a couple of games at Leichhart each year and their Sydney membership base gets a couple of games at Bank West each year as well.

 

[T-Boon]

Besides American sport and the AFL, has relocation worked elsewhere

If they stuck with the Northern Eagles it would be at least as good as Manly now.