RLWC2017 Crowd Watch

[Springs09]

I think it has, the spread of venues for one thing is a massive improvement. Look at the venues for 2008 and it smacks of an east coast only sport. This time we had pretty much everywhere except Adelaide, plus NZ and PNG. That alone is a big maturing for the game.

Sure avg per game is down but this is the most watched RL tournament of all time in this part of the world so not all bad news. Some better administration (and let’s be honest how many times have we said that about RL!) and it would have been spot on. But then again it is very hard to change Australian apathy.

The Australian venues were ridiculous and the first sign there was something wrong.

2008 was what was needed at the time.

You can't just say 'some better administration' as you can say that about anything. You can say that about 2000.

Yeah apathetic fans are shit but we seemed to reach more of them before this year. Newcastle sold out Anzac Test last year, good crowds for Pacific Tests in Sydney, 2014 4 Nations we had great crowds in Brisbane, Wollongong and Whangerei and Wellington probably had it's best league crowd ever despite still not being great.

 

[Springs09]

There is far more interest and positive media this time around. Why it hasn’t translated to crowds I don’t know. I remember the 2008 wc very well, it was bagged in the media and channel 9 only showed the super pool games. And of those only the Aussie games live and on the main channel. Tv ratings have been huge but if it wasn’t for tonga and png I don’t know if this tournament would have been a success at all.

Aussie games weren't live. Only live game if I remember was the final.

But yes it was far more negative media in 2008.

 

[adamkungl]

All the ingredients seem to be there but as usual RL is held back by its own administration.

 

[Stallion]

What your excuses for the poor pool games attendances were tickets were “cheap and accessible”?

Reality is iif canbrrra and NQ turned upit would be looking alot healthier. nsw govt snubbing of the comp which could have seen healthy crowds in Sydney, Newcastle and Gosford (though 2008 would suggest no guarantees there) and better marketing and we’d be seeing a different picture. Though again if you oook at 2008 and crowds there’s no guarantees that cheap tickets, different venues and better marketing would have made much difference in Australia against a very apathetic fanbase.

Lol. So the opener wasn't a pool game!?

 

[Stallion]

What your excuses for the poor pool games attendances were tickets were “cheap and accessible”?

Reality is iif canbrrra and NQ turned upit would be looking alot healthier. nsw govt snubbing of the comp which could have seen healthy crowds in Sydney, Newcastle and Gosford (though 2008 would suggest no guarantees there) and better marketing and we’d be seeing a different picture. Though again if you oook at 2008 and crowds there’s no guarantees that cheap tickets, different venues and better marketing would have made much difference in Australia against a very apathetic fanbase.

Suggest a cheaper ticket would get bigger crowds but you don't accept that? You then ignore the extra revenue from merchandise sales and the increased popularity of rugbyleague as a result! Amazing logic from u PR. Both failing the code and positive sports business rational in one!

 

[Springs09]

Yep,those would be the venue poor outcomes, along with Christchurch imo, but again they paid big money to host games so that has to be accounted for.

If nsw govt actually backed it’s main sport then we would have seen some,
of those games in Newcastle, Gosford and Wollongong and a semi in Sydney. Blame the nsw govt not the organisers. I think it’s a big step up that the tournament is now seen as a valued sporting event and cities are willing to pay big money to host games.

They talked about $4m before withdrawing the offer. QLD paid $8m I believe and that included the final and semi. NSW are spending $2b on improving footy stadiums, they back RL plenty. They also could have worked directly with places like Penrith, Gosford, Newcastle and Wollongong instead of snubbing everyone because of the NSW government, the same way they did with the SCG Trust. Penrith even had a good bid which was snubbed, which led to Brown quitting after Corey Payne blew up.

The tournament was seen as valuable before it started. Will it next time?

 

[adamkungl]

Brown is a f**kwit.

 

[Burns]

They should reeeeeeally put more CAT C on sale, as by all appearances there is hardly any left.

 

[Stallion]

They should reeeeeeally put more CAT C on sale, as by all appearances there is hardly any left.

Cat C are the cheapest ticket? ! I see a trend ! You sell cheaper tickets you sell more! Better atmosphere, game day experience, future investment/sponsorship interest, player experience , tv audience experience and positive anticipation/crowd flow on for future Internationals. Instead greed and laziness reflect RLWC marketing officials!? Pathetic! A chance to expedite rugby league's long overdue growth thwarted again.

 

[adamkungl]

They should reeeeeeally put more CAT C on sale, as by all appearances there is hardly any left.

So same story as Melbourne opener. Make it seem like there are a few seats left when there are in fact thousands empty.
Is this some delusional false scarcity to drive demand thing?

 

[Springs09]

Not for 17/25 games they haven’t. It was very reasonable to watch the pool games.
If you can go and see an international for $20 ($16 if a Telstra customer) you can’t say it was too expensive and put people off.

I agree scheduling of some but that’s the compromise when you have cities willing to bid big $’s to host games, something we should be very pleased about.

Scheduling for most games were atrocious. I wouldn't call the Australian pool games reasonable particularly the opener. A bunch of those 17 you mention were played in Townsville, Cairns and Canberra which were atrocious scheduling decisions. The apathy of fans in those cities are partly to blame, but they shouldn't have had 3 games each in the first place.

It's quite reasonable to watch most NRL games. It's the scheduling that's off. GA for most games are cheap, but when it's on a Thursday night or Friday 6pm there's a problem. The problem with ticket prices in the NRL/Origin are for the big games. They see they attract a big crowd so they try and milk the hard-working average league fan for all they've got. I went to the GF in 2013 and spent $65 on a ticket, the next year it was $165 for the same seat. And that leads to situations where we don't sell out the GF or Origin like this year.

 

[Stallion]

Scheduling for most games were atrocious. I wouldn't call the Australian pool games reasonable particularly the opener. A bunch of those 17 you mention were played in Townsville, Cairns and Canberra which were atrocious scheduling decisions. The apathy of fans in those cities are partly to blame, but they shouldn't have had 3 games each in the first place.

It's quite reasonable to watch most NRL games. It's the scheduling that's off. GA for most games are cheap, but when it's on a Thursday night or Friday 6pm there's a problem. The problem with ticket prices in the NRL/Origin are for the big games. They see they attract a big crowd so they try and milk the hard-working average league fan for all they've got. I went to the GF in 2013 and spent $65 on a ticket, the next year it was $165 for the same seat. And that leads to situations where we don't sell out the GF or Origin like this year.

Well put!
This is a very damaging stance for the code. In a market and time whereby other codes are looking at pilfering rugby league's loyal areas the powers that be do this !? The world cup should have been a "thank you" to rugby league fans in this area and had cheap ticket prices as a feature of this acknowledgement. Instead they tried to pilfer the fans just like they have tried to in the NRL and SOO games! ? Shame on these so called people(paid officials) that are running/influencing rugby league. They are not making decisions in the beneficial interest of the code and its longevity into the future.

 

[Burns]

So same story as Melbourne opener. Make it seem like there are a few seats left when there are in fact thousands empty.
Is this some delusional false scarcity to drive demand thing?

That’s what I was getting at in my post, yeah. I’m kinda skeptical that all the CAT C’s are on sale at the moment.

 

[Perth Red]

Lol. So the opener wasn't a pool game!?

Opener was a one off, hence why it’s called an opener. Everyone agrees the ticket prices for the opener and semis was too high. The rest were very reasonable or on par with what you’d expect for a major sports event. And they didn’t get great crowds so clearly ticket price is not the major issue.

 

[Perth Red]

Suggest a cheaper ticket would get bigger crowds but you don't accept that? You then ignore the extra revenue from merchandise sales and the increased popularity of rugbyleague as a result! Amazing logic from u PR. Both failing the code and positive sports business rational in one!

Suggest selling out stadiums (lol like that is going to happen In australia) and losing out on money is not a good outcome for the rlif. Merch sales? Do you know how much merch they would have had to sell to make up the ticket revenue loss if they went with your hairbrain pricing? I’ll tell you, a frickin truckload at every game!

But yeh let’s cost the rlif a shed load of money that it could be spending on growing tthe game just to get an extra couple of thousand a game in the door. Makes a lot of sense!

Perth sold out last years trans Tasman test friendly with much much higher ticket prices. For RLWC they sold 75% of tickets at much lower cost but featuring more neutral teams. Not a bad result. I doubt making $20 tickets $10would have effected the crowd at all. If you wanted to go you could do so for $20 which is incredibly cheap for two games of international RL.

The only complaint I could make about ticket prices is for opener and semis where the cheaper tickets were too high.
Only complaint about venues was Canberra and NQ getting too many fixtures..
Other than that most of pricing and game fixtures was spot on.

 

[insert.pause]

I was confident the final would sell out, but a few days out and it's not looking good. It will be beyond embarrassing if we have bays of empty seats behind the posts like last week. Pricing is obviously wrong for there to still be soo many tickets available & the "but its a World Cup Final" argument doesn't mean shit if people don't value it at that price. Basic supply/demand tells you demand isn't there for a RL WC at $130 a head. That is the reality.

 

[DC80]

To get Australians to care about the World Cup, we need a QLD origin like period of international dominance. 10 years of England, NZ and Tonga winning all major titles would make people actually want the kangaroos to win.

I’m cheering for an England win, just as I cheered for NZ in 2008 and 2013.

If even a hardcore league fan like myself doesn’t want Australia to win, no wonder the average punter could give a F.

I think you have nailed the main issue. Pricing is an issue, but only a secondary issue. If the RLWC was seen as the ultimate must see event prices would be largely academic.

Dominance to the extent that Australia have had only breeds apathy among Aussies and as a result give less importance/attention to the event. The reverse is the case with us (England) where constant losing makes us elevate the importance of it. We sold out Old Trafford despite it being Aus vs NZ in the final because it's seen as the highest level here, whereas in Australia that status is given to the NRL/State of Origin.

Def a factor though there probably isn’t many codes/countries that get apathy from being successful lol
Thankfully the English RL fans haven’t given up despite 46years of disappointment!

There's successful and then there's winning every RLWC bar one in the last 45 years.

 

[titoelcolombiano]

Here is interesting look at what each team was able to attract crowd-wise this world cup (includes crowd averages for all games including quarter and semi finals):

Australia: 18,323
Tonga: 17,944
England: 17,653
New Zealand: 16,582
PNG: 13,741
Samoa: 13,449
Ireland: 12,920 (helped by being in a double header with England on the bill and a PNG game)
Wales: 12,425 (helped by being in a double header with England on the bill and a PNG game)
Fiji: 11,534
Lebanon: 11,291
France: 10,843
USA: 9,212
Scotland: 8,552
Italy: 7,893

Is it possible that Samoa and Tonga are more popular than the Kiwis in New Zealand? Here are the average crowds for the three in New Zealand only:

New Zealand: 16,582 (four games)
Samoa: 17,857 (admitedly only the one game)
Tonga: 20,127 (four games)

 

[Perth Red]

I was confident the final would sell out, but a few days out and it's not looking good. It will be beyond embarrassing if we have bays of empty seats behind the posts like last week. Pricing is obviously wrong for there to still be soo many tickets available & the "but its a World Cup Final" argument doesn't mean shit if people don't value it at that price. Basic supply/demand tells you demand isn't there for a RL WC at $130 a head. That is the reality.

It’s not $130, tickets go from $70 behind sticks to $170 best seats. That’s cheap for a major sports event. I paid $160 for half way line. Good luck seeing pretty much any top entertainment event for that price for those category seats.

 

[Stallion]

Suggest selling out stadiums (lol like that is going to happen In australia) and losing out on money is not a good outcome for the rlif. Merch sales? Do you know how much merch they would have had to sell to make up the ticket revenue loss if they went with your hairbrain pricing? I’ll tell you, a frickin truckload at every game!

But yeh let’s cost the rlif a shed load of money that it could be spending on growing tthe game just to get an extra couple of thousand a game in the door. Makes a lot of sense!

Perth sold out last years trans Tasman test friendly with much much higher ticket prices. For RLWC they sold 75% of tickets at much lower cost but featuring more neutral teams. Not a bad result. I doubt making $20 tickets $10would have effected the crowd at all. If you wanted to go you could do so for $20 which is incredibly cheap for two games of international RL.

The only complaint I could make about ticket prices is for opener and semis where the cheaper tickets were too high.
Only complaint about venues was Canberra and NQ getting too many fixtures..
Other than that most of pricing and game fixtures was spot on.

So you acknowledge some of the most important games were priced too highly?! About time. This pool game which happened to be the opener set a dissapointing tone for the rest of the tournament. Can you understand that? When the opener exhibits price gouging what sort of a message does it send for the rest of the tournament? Not a good message that's for sure!You have reluctantly conceded the semi final prices were too high and you still advocate continued high prices for the final which is yet to sell out? Your price gouging the fans logic is damaging for the code as the rugby league public in the main are probably not as wealthy as yourself and have a limited disposable income. Your dismissive comment on merchandise shows what little understanding about promoting the game exponentially via clothing and other such visible attire can do for a code. When more people attend a sports event more people buy merchandise especially when they haven't felt like they have punished for a ticket price. You just don't get it PR. This code needs to be seen as popular as much as possible and the
major embarassments we have witnessed set the game back significantly in the eyes of the general public. We differ PR. Pilferring the sports public isn't my idea of promoting this great code. For you it is!