RLWC2017 Crowd Watch

[deal.with.it]

Usually you do a giveaway when the event is launched or in the week leading up to it to generate interest. Not the day before... Oh well. We should have 40k people there watching the best final since 2008.

 

[DC80]

You can’t solve apathy by cheap tickets! People believing that this is an important sports event that they must attend is what is needed. Not cheapening the event by giving away tickets. Most major sporting events range in the $150-350. Most run of the mill sporting events are around $30-70. This is pitched in the middle at $70-170 which seems about right.

Agree completely. The prime issue is apathy, and it seems to be an Aussie RL problem. Bet those Socceroos tickets for the 2018 World Cup qualifier weren't given away. It got 76k because of the significance of the event. When Aussies deem international RL significant, like an NRL grand final or State of Origin series, tickets will be snapped up regardless of price. Giving away tickets for peanuts won't solve apathy, it may not even greatly affect attendances...Salford gave away tickets for free for a Super League game and it had no impact at all. There is apathy in Salford, which is why Koukash departed, just like there is for international RL in Aus.

Barring Salford who are the exception, apathy is not the cause in England of an 8.5k average Super League attendance, it's the lack of RL fan base to call upon. RL fans in England are every bit as dedicated as football fans..I follow both sports, attend games involving St Helens and Liverpool, and the passions are very similar. Anfield having 54k every home game compared to just over 10k at St Helens http://the18thman.com/2016/09/28/su...down-on-last-season-attendance-review-2016/2/ is purely down to the sheer volume of fans that football can call upon and has nothing to do with desire to watch each team. The percentage of followers of each sport that attend games would be pretty similar I'd imagine. We then saw that passion among RL fans here at the 2013 RLWC when the attendances were excellent even for games not involving England.

I'm not blaming Aussies for their lack of interest in attending games like in England btw. With a RLWC we get to see quality NRL players that are a step up from what we are used to. An Australia vs NZ final is still a must see game for a huge swathe of RL fans here. Aussies see the top players in the NRL every week so an international game involving lesser players isn't exactly a huge draw, add in the constant beatings the Aussies dish out. The goal is to make international RL more competitive, especially to those who support the dominant team, and make it more of a must see event.

 

[adamkungl]

Agree completely. The prime issue is apathy, and it seems to be an Aussie RL problem. Bet those Socceroos tickets for the 2018 World Cup qualifier weren't given away. It got 76k because of the significance of the event. When Aussies deem international RL significant, like an NRL grand final or State of Origin series, tickets will be snapped up regardless of price. Giving away tickets for peanuts won't solve apathy, it may not even greatly affect attendances...Salford gave away tickets for free for a Super League game and it had no impact at all. There is apathy in Salford, which is why Koukash departed, just like there is for international RL in Aus.

Winner winner.
There are things they could have done - stronger marketing campaigns can cut through some apathy - but this is the heart of the issue.

Trying to get mates who are NRL fans to go to a WC game has been all but impossible.

 

[deal.with.it]

As Yak pointed out earlier, there are only 44,303 General Public seats at Suncorp, so this is the PAX we are chasing for a sellout.

Lord League

Why is there only 44k rather than 52k?

 

[Valheru]

Let’s be honest this is an Australian problem that’s caused this embarrassment for some 9f the people on here.

Png outstanding, sold out every game
Nz mostly outstanding, big crowds at pool games and sold out semi

Australia, every pool game barring a couple (1 Sydney &Perth) shthouse, 1 decent sold out qtr in Darwin and other than that shthouse, shthouse semi And a final struggling to sell out.
The common demoninator? They are hosted in Australia. It seems the nrl crowd apathy flows through the whole game here.

FMD you have a way of twisting the stats to support your own agenda.

PNG hosted games involving PNG. NZ hosted games involving NZ or PI teams.The rest were in Australia with games involving the kangaroos having a better average than the other 2 hosts by the way.

The commo denominator of the poor crowds isn't that they were in Australia, it is the combination of involving non home teams AND in most cases the game having no legitimate expectation of being competitive.

 

[adamkungl]

FMD you have a way of twisting the stats to support your own agenda.

PNG hosted games involving PNG. NZ hosted games involving NZ or PI teams.The rest were in Australia with games involving the kangaroos having a better average than the other 2 hosts by the way.

The commo denominator of the poor crowds isn't that they were in Australia, it is the combination of involving non home teams AND in most cases the game having no legitimate expectation of being competitive.

If Australian fans will only show up to a game that both features Australia and is evenly matched then there's no point hosting internationals here in the near future then. Apparently no one considers England competitive, and NZ has dropped.

 

[Jim from Oz]

Journalist Andrew Webster just mentioned on the BSB radio show that NRL clubs have been emailed tickets to give away for the cup final! Well done high priced ticket advocates! Your logic has once again embarassed this great code!

So RLWC tickets are set at "X" amount and sales are sluggish, so 2 weeks before the event prices are put UP, and sales stay sluggish, so 2 days before the event they give tickets away!

in the name of Allah/Buddha/Jesus and all the other non-existent gods, could someone explain to me what the #$%@ is going on ???!!!!

 

[Burns]

3 more Bays on sale now, update from my post a few hours ago.

CAT A 319 on lower Eastern, a few available there now.
BAT B 526 on 2nd tier Eastern had a couple.
CAT B 314 behind the southern goal posts, on the extreme right is essentially an empty bay.

 

[hutch]

Agree completely. The prime issue is apathy, and it seems to be an Aussie RL problem. Bet those Socceroos tickets for the 2018 World Cup qualifier weren't given away. It got 76k because of the significance of the event. When Aussies deem international RL significant, like an NRL grand final or State of Origin series, tickets will be snapped up regardless of price. Giving away tickets for peanuts won't solve apathy, it may not even greatly affect attendances...Salford gave away tickets for free for a Super League game and it had no impact at all. There is apathy in Salford, which is why Koukash departed, just like there is for international RL in Aus.

Barring Salford who are the exception, apathy is not the cause in England of an 8.5k average Super League attendance, it's the lack of RL fan base to call upon. RL fans in England are every bit as dedicated as football fans..I follow both sports, attend games involving St Helens and Liverpool, and the passions are very similar. Anfield having 54k every home game compared to just over 10k at St Helens http://the18thman.com/2016/09/28/su...down-on-last-season-attendance-review-2016/2/ is purely down to the sheer volume of fans that football can call upon and has nothing to do with desire to watch each team. The percentage of followers of each sport that attend games would be pretty similar I'd imagine. We then saw that passion among RL fans here at the 2013 RLWC when the attendances were excellent even for games not involving England.

I'm not blaming Aussies for their lack of interest in attending games like in England btw. With a RLWC we get to see quality NRL players that are a step up from what we are used to. An Australia vs NZ final is still a must see game for a huge swathe of RL fans here. Aussies see the top players in the NRL every week so an international game involving lesser players isn't exactly a huge draw, add in the constant beatings the Aussies dish out. The goal is to make international RL more competitive, especially to those who support the dominant team, and make it more of a must see event.

Good post. As adamkungl said it was hard enough trying to drag nrl loving friends to any rlwc game. In fact, I had category A free tickets to Aus v lebanese and couldn’t find any takers. This is from life long rugby league fans which are my friends and family. People prefer to watch the games at home in the nrl, the World Cup is an ever harder sell. It’s just not a ‘must go to’ event, as much as I want it to be. The hype hasn’t been there for most games.

 

[adamkungl]

There's no shortcut way out of this for the sport, as this WC has shown. Interest in international league doesn't develop overnight.

The current path of intermittent, once a year test matches for most nations and Kangaroos taking years off will lead to the exact same result in future.

The international game must progress to the point of 5+ matches for all nations every year.

This is not difficult to do at all.
1-2 mid-year Tests for all nations.
1-2 October Tests for all nations.
1 November RLIF or Regional event which has 3-4 games in non-WC years.

 

[Jim from Oz]

http://www.smh.com.au/rugby-league/..._smh_leaguehq&instance=2017-11-30--21-37--UTC

Steve Mascord's take in today's SMH:

Discord: Is international rugby league less commercially viable than it was two months ago?

For all the positives of this World Cup, could it be that international rugby league is actually a weaker product in Australia than it was before the tournament started?

Discord makes the attendances for Australian matches heading into the final between Australia and England at Suncorp Stadium this Saturday as 165,656.

In Australia, we've always relied on Brisbane to save us when it comes to international rugby league at this time of year. At the start of the week, only 30,000 of 52,500 tickets had been sold for the World Cup final.
Because World Cup organisers managed to extract decent whacks from state governments, a profit of around $7 million will be returned to the Rugby League International Federation.

But the former ARLC chief executive, David Smith, reportedly promised $12 million to get a $10 million bid for this tournament from South Africa off the table.
No one is now predicting Smith's target will be reached.

Here's a sobering thought – the World Club Challenge on February 16 will likely sell out a venue that had 8000 empty seats for international rugby league's blue-chip event: Australia versus England.

Sure, ticket prices and myriad other factors are at play but surely there must be some credence to the idea that Australians consider rugby league club sport and that the international version just doesn't stack up, that its second-rate to other international sports.

They can go watch those sports. Rugby league has to battle on and try to make the most of international competition.

So while the emergence of Tonga and Fiji has been almost phenomenal in a footballing sense, getting a commercial benefit from these developments is going to be tricky.

We can't host world cups in those places because there is very little money to be made there – and the same goes for PNG.

On top of all this, the 2017 World Cup has eroded the draw of New Zealand in places where we can make money as a sport – Britain, Australia, New Zealand itself and possible "neutral" venues for events, like the United States, Canada, the UAE and Hong Kong.

The Kiwis admit their brand has been weakened and we didn't have many marketable international brands as it was.

So when we pore over the tournament on Sunday upon its completion, we have to ask ourselves one stark question: where can we stage international rugby league events that make money to boost the expansion of the sport?

We can only say, with any certainty: the north of England and Tonga and Samoa playing in New Zealand. If we get a full-house this weekend, we can keep Brisbane on the list.

That's it, right? Where else? Not good.

What it does tell us is that the 2025 World Cup must go to the United States because Australia pretty much does not want it back … unless we split the whole thing between, say, Darwin and Brisbane plus places that didn't get a shot this time like Wollongong, Newcastle, the Gold Coast and … Belmore.

Otherwise, how many state governments and event corporations got enough value this time to jump at the chance to do it again?

Bottom line: whatever Jason Taumalolo and Jarryd Hayne did on the field over the past six weeks, our administrators have to match and exceed those feats off it during the next eight years.

 

[Billythekid]

There's no shortcut way out of this for the sport, as this WC has shown. Interest in international league doesn't develop overnight.

The current path of intermittent, once a year test matches for most nations and Kangaroos taking years off will lead to the exact same result in future.

The international game must progress to the point of 5+ matches for all nations every year.

This is not difficult to do at all.
1-2 mid-year Tests for all nations.
1-2 October Tests for all nations.
1 November RLIF or Regional event which has 3-4 games in non-WC years.

This is basically the most important issue. The World Cup is supposed to be the pinnacle of the international game and the culmination of games played throughout the previous years where rivalries are built and fan bases developed. The RLWC shouldn't essentially be the only international football we get. Until that changes we won't see a dramatic increase in interest in the international game.

There are positive signs for next year but we need to keep that going.

 

[adamkungl]

This is basically the most important issue. The World Cup is supposed to be the pinnacle of the international game and the culmination of games played throughout the previous years where rivalries are built and fan bases developed. The RLWC shouldn't essentially be the only international football we get. Until that changes we won't see a dramatic increase in interest in the international game.

There are positive signs for next year but we need to keep that going.

I don't think it's a big stretch to say that a large cause of fan apathy is the idea that these teams are basically thrown together once every 4 years with minimal activity in between. Which is very very close to actual truth in some cases.

There's no continuous narrative. There's no ups and downs. There's no annual speculation on who makes the team or who's been dropped or who isn't performing or young guns breaking into the Test squads.
And we've seen those stories build over the last 6 weeks for some nations - but they're long gone and forgotten by 2021 if they don't play again in that time.

I don't believe that deep down anyone really cares about eligibility rules or nation hopping, or ticket prices or even competitiveness. They're all obvious excuses. People might even think they really care about those things, but we saw that go straight out the window as soon as it looked like Tonga had a shot at the final. Less obvious but far more important is that people who aren't basically international RL geeks just don't feel any attachment to these teams or their stories over a long enough period of time.

 

[Jim from Oz]

I don't think it's a big stretch to say that a large cause of fan apathy is the idea that these teams are basically thrown together once every 4 years with minimal activity in between. Which is very very close to actual truth in some cases.

There's no continuous narrative. There's no ups and downs. There's no annual speculation on who makes the team or who's been dropped or who isn't performing or young guns breaking into the Test squads.
And we've seen those stories build over the last 6 weeks for some nations - but they're long gone and forgotten by 2021 if they don't play again in that time.

I don't believe that deep down anyone really cares about eligibility rules or nation hopping, or ticket prices or even competitiveness. They're all obvious excuses. People might even think they really care about those things, but we saw that go straight out the window as soon as it looked like Tonga had a shot at the final. Less obvious but far more important is that people who aren't basically international RL geeks just don't feel any attachment to these teams or their stories over a long enough period of time.

Totally agree with this and Billy the Kid's post above that.

And I don't see much changing between now and 2021.

RL in general is just being appalling administered ATM, NRL included. Bring back John Quayle!

 

[Billythekid]

I don't think it's a big stretch to say that a large cause of fan apathy is the idea that these teams are basically thrown together once every 4 years with minimal activity in between. Which is very very close to actual truth in some cases.

There's no continuous narrative. There's no ups and downs. There's no annual speculation on who makes the team or who's been dropped or who isn't performing or young guns breaking into the Test squads.
And we've seen those stories build over the last 6 weeks for some nations - but they're long gone and forgotten by 2021 if they don't play again in that time.

I don't believe that deep down anyone really cares about eligibility rules or nation hopping, or ticket prices or even competitiveness. They're all obvious excuses. People might even think they really care about those things, but we saw that go straight out the window as soon as it looked like Tonga had a shot at the final. Less obvious but far more important is that people who aren't basically international RL geeks just don't feel any attachment to these teams or their stories over a long enough period of time.

Totally agree.

 

[Burns]

"...World Cup decider as organisers hope the Suncorp Stadium crowd creeps above 40,000, well below capacity at the rugby league cauldron."

http://www.smh.com.au/rugby-league/...fter-wayne-bennett-barbs-20171201-gzwnmz.html

Hope?

In. The. Bin. With the organisers.

 

[adamkungl]

Hopeless

 

[King hit]

With the high ticket prices and negative publicity it isn’t a surprise.

 

[Stallion]

Agree completely. The prime issue is apathy, and it seems to be an Aussie RL problem. Bet those Socceroos tickets for the 2018 World Cup qualifier weren't given away. It got 76k because of the significance of the event. When Aussies deem international RL significant, like an NRL grand final or State of Origin series, tickets will be snapped up regardless of price. Giving away tickets for peanuts won't solve apathy, it may not even greatly affect attendances...Salford gave away tickets for free for a Super League game and it had no impact at all. There is apathy in Salford, which is why Koukash departed, just like there is for international RL in Aus.

Barring Salford who are the exception, apathy is not the cause in England of an 8.5k average Super League attendance, it's the lack of RL fan base to call upon. RL fans in England are every bit as dedicated as football fans..I follow both sports, attend games involving St Helens and Liverpool, and the passions are very similar. Anfield having 54k every home game compared to just over 10k at St Helens http://the18thman.com/2016/09/28/su...down-on-last-season-attendance-review-2016/2/ is purely down to the sheer volume of fans that football can call upon and has nothing to do with desire to watch each team. The percentage of followers of each sport that attend games would be pretty similar I'd imagine. We then saw that passion among RL fans here at the 2013 RLWC when the attendances were excellent even for games not involving England.

I'm not blaming Aussies for their lack of interest in attending games like in England btw. With a RLWC we get to see quality NRL players that are a step up from what we are used to. An Australia vs NZ final is still a must see game for a huge swathe of RL fans here. Aussies see the top players in the NRL every week so an international game involving lesser players isn't exactly a huge draw, add in the constant beatings the Aussies dish out. The goal is to make international RL more competitive, especially to those who support the dominant team, and make it more of a must see event.

The soccer was on a weekday. Tickets were $60.

 

[morningstar]

Lame.

Hope one of the bright sparks at RLWC2017 is planning on upgrading Cat C ticket holders in the nose bleeds into Cat B tickets on game day. Least they can do is make the lower bowl look at capacity.

Just wandered down to the fan zone in King George square. Pretty sparsely populated apart from travelling England fans. No ticket booth, if they are handing out freebies that is the place to do it.