Why are Super League crowds still crap.

[Teddyboy]

Not trolling but since 1996 english Super League crowds are still f**kin awful apart from Leeds,both Hull teams and the effort made by the french.
Whats happend to the 15000-25000 at Wigan and Bradford and the Wolves and kingpins St Helens are dreadfull.
The Super Leagues idea was about 20000 crowds supporting Rugby League around Europe.

 

[The Tank]

Although I agree, you are a troll, so f**k off.

 

[madunit]

Not trolling but since 1996 english Super League crowds are still f**kin awful apart from Leeds,both Hull teams and the effort made by the french.
Whats happend to the 15000-25000 at Wigan and Bradford and the Wolves and kingpins St Helens are dreadfull.
The Super Leagues idea was about 20000 crowds supporting Rugby League around Europe.

Soccer and Rugby Union are massive in England caompared to Australia.

Then there's the cricket as well.

There's not much of an audience remaining for the SL to get.

The divisions need to come to an end personally. As soon as your team gets delegated no one bothers going anymore.

If all the teams were in the one major competition it would definitely see an increase in crowds across the board.

 

[The Tank]

Super League no longer has relegations, if that's what you're referring to???

 

[madunit]

I was referring mainly to pre-superleague days.

Thats when the dramas started.

Irreperable damage was done by those several divisions, people wanted to watch their team compete in the top competition.

Things might be different next year though, now that the Newcastle Soccer side has been relegated to second divison (I believe)

 

[adamkungl]

Out of 14 stadiums used, 8 are 13,000 capacity or less. That's one reason

 

[cumberlandsashes81]

Aren't crowds larger than in the pre-Super League days and also roughly the same as those in the Rugby union equivalent?

I would say the main issues would be: small supporter bases for some clubs, the complete and utter domination by soccer, and possibly the state of some of the stadia? The current average wouldn't be helped by two fronteir clubs finidng their feet.

 

[Lambretta]

Well, lets look at it honestly.

Football in England is King. Nothing else comes close.

Warrington is a tiny town.

Bradford is a big town and if they're successful pulls crowds, but they've been down the bottom of the ladder all year

St Helens is a tiny place sandwiched between the two largest football cities in the UK - so good luck trying to convince Scousers to travel to "Wooly Back" territory to watch a sport that isnt football

Wigan always had a successful league team, but over recent years it's been less successful and their football team has enjoyed their most successful period ever meaning crowds have suffered

Hull is a big town and they have been trying to build it as a league town, but their normally sh*t house football team is also having their best ever period in their history so that can be a danger

Castleford is smaller than a cockroaches c**k

Wakefield is a reasonable sized town and their crowds should be bigger

Huddersfield is a bit bigger again but they're a football town. But their team is being successful again and crowds have grown, albeit from a very small base

Harlequins are playing a sport that few in London really care about at the moment. Growing a team there is always going to be hard and in all honesty it's a 50 year plan that requires massive involvement at a grass roots level. It can be done, but they need to get into schools and give the lads an alternative to boxing.


League is growing in the UK - but it's painfully slow and against football it sometimes seems like an unwinnable battle. But we need to stick with it. We have a great product and if we can keep on growing the sport at a grass roots level then we stand a chance. It's no good having a great product if no one knows what it's about. They need to play it in schools and have coverage on free to air tv and then it stands a chance.

 

[taste2taste]

League is growing in the UK - but it's painfully slow and against football it sometimes seems like an unwinnable battle. But we need to stick with it. We have a great product and if we can keep on growing the sport at a grass roots level then we stand a chance. It's no good having a great product if no one knows what it's about. They need to play it in schools and have coverage on free to air tv and then it stands a chance.[/QUOTE]


Exactly right.

After spending a year in the UK i was surprised at how small League is. (smaller than A-League in Australia)
In the UK its Soccer, soccer, soccer and a distant 2nd is Union and if the cricketers are going well then the public will jump on their bandwagon, boxing gets a lot of coverage. In my year in London, League made the news twice, a report on the Challenge cup final and the other time was when 'the Volcano' switched to rugby.

For some reason they love their rugby (especially Wales) and League is the ugly step child. To gain new fans will take alot of smart advertising, getting it played in schools and getting it put on free tv instead of hidden away on subscription tv.

 

[cumberlandsashes81]

You'd probably have a similar perception of the place of Rugby league (or union for that matter) in this country if you came to Australia and spent the entire time in Adelaide or Tasmania.

 

[madunit]

Exactly right.

After spending a year in the UK i was surprised at how small League is. (smaller than A-League in Australia)
In the UK its Soccer, soccer, soccer and a distant 2nd is Union and if the cricketers are going well then the public will jump on their bandwagon, boxing gets a lot of coverage. In my year in London, League made the news twice, a report on the Challenge cup final and the other time was when 'the Volcano' switched to rugby.

For some reason they love their rugby (especially Wales) and League is the ugly step child. To gain new fans will take alot of smart advertising, getting it played in schools and getting it put on free tv instead of hidden away on subscription tv.

The main reason for this is that the media is mostly run from London, a Union heartland (in comparison to league).

The other is the fact that league essentially is a bastardised version of Union, which explains the lack of interest (it's always had bugger all interest).

They needed to rape Rugby Union ranks early like League did in Australia.

Your opposition stands no chance if you kill them off.

 

[1 Eyed TEZZA]

What is good about Super League and the RFL, is that despite the lack of interest, they are finding their share of the market in different areas. So although they have significantly less coverage then the NRL do, the RFL and Super League are expanding a sh!t load faster and better then the NRL and ARL.

 

[VictoryFC]

I was referring mainly to pre-superleague days.

Thats when the dramas started.

Irreperable damage was done by those several divisions, people wanted to watch their team compete in the top competition.

Things might be different next year though, now that the Newcastle Soccer side has been relegated to second divison (I believe)

The Newcastle "soccer" side still pull gates of 40,000 plus even in 2nd division.

4 home games this year:

vs Reading - 36,994
vs Sheff Wed - 43,904
vs Leicester - 38,813
vs Plymouth - 42,898

And they are 2nd after 8 games. Bad example madunit, probably one of the most dedicated sets of fans in English football

 

[Lambretta]

League really needs to attempt to push into areas where there are no major football teams. Football has the media coverage to dominate wherever there is a team. That means League can only really move out of it's heartland if it's going to base itself where there isnt a football team or that football team is so poxy that it doesnt matter.

Bedford in the South of England is a good example. It's a Rugby Town, football has never done well there, but there hasnt been a league team until recently.

Runcorn and Stafford in Staffordshire are other examples. They're not all that far away from Cheshire / Lancs, so it's not like League would be a completely alien sport. After all, the media in England bases itself from two Cities, London and Manchester. Northern Towns get the Manchester based papers and Southern the London ones.

Anywhere North of Birmingham would get Manchester press and therefore would be used to seeing some form of press on League.

On the East Coast Lincoln or Grantham would be good towns to target. They're not a million miles from Hull, so local development means lads have 2 local ish town in the Super League to aim for.

Having done some searches recently, I have found new leagues in the South which include towns such as Oxford, Bedford, Farnborough etc, and Midlands towns such as Northampton, Stafford, etc so people are obviously having the same ideas as me. But for these areas League is brand new and it will take some time before they can produce actual players, let alone have a team or build interest from the local residents.

However Rome wasnt built in a day and things are starting to happen after 100 years of nothing - so it's not all doom and gloom.

 

[WireMan]

Warrington isn't tiny!! Its the jewel of the North and has 200,000 people living there!! Its just everybody supports United, City, Liverpool or Everton!!

The crowds are not crap, Wire used to average 5000 before the new stadium, the games never been healthier. Yes there not as high as NRL but if you compare Sydneys biggest sport to the biggest sport in the UK then we could ask why only 20 odd thousand turn up to watch a game in there biggest city.

76,000 in manc yesterday and will be next week. 45,000 in liverpool every week. God knows how many in London (100,000), 50,000 in Glasgow. Brisbane has ONE team, a nice stadium, and they cannot fill there stadium every time they play. Thats a bit rubbish really don't you think? ;-)

The BBC sport department is moving to Salford in a few years, so hopefully the workers there will see that League is actually bigger than they think.

Stop trolling.

 

[deluded pom?]

On the East Coast Lincoln or Grantham would be good towns to target. They're not a million miles from Hull, so local development means lads have 2 local ish town in the Super League to aim for.

Hull to Grantham is still the thick end of 80 miles whereas Grimsby is about 35 miles from Hull. An example of the media apathy to rugby league came yesterday when the BBC were due to show an hours highlights of the playoffs matches played so far. A rare outing for rugby league on terrestrial television. Lo and behold the Davis Cup tennis over ran (we lost and were relegated) so what became the casualty to make way for the extra time needed? You guessed it. They eventually showed the league at 11.40 pm. Wankers.

 

[St.John]

Whats happend to the 15000-25000 at Wigan and Bradford and the Wolves and kingpins St Helens are dreadfull.
The Super Leagues idea was about 20000 crowds supporting Rugby League around Europe.

Wigan still get such crowds, despite their recent dip in form. They're averaging somewhere between 14 and 16k despite being comparatively rubbish on the pitch compared to their glory days.

Bradford have gone backwards, but still have reasonable support - not as much as the mid to late 90s, but they're nothing like as dominant as they were.

Warrington's average crowd has grown by somewhere around 50% in the last few years, and Saints were never that well supported - they always hovered around 10k, regardless of how well they did. They're up a decent amount this year, and that will jump up a whole lot when they get the new ground, just as Wire and Hull FCs crowds did.

We're quite capable of pulling circa 20k crowds around Europe - we got far more than that for the Challenge Cup when it was played in Edinburgh and Cardiff, for example, and the Cats pulled about 20k in Barcelona this year.

The average will be down noticeably this year, largely due to expanding the top flight by two clubs, neither of which are well supported.

The story of recent times has been a steady and gradual increase in attendances. Interestingly, although some of the traditionally larger clubs have been dropping attendances a touch, some of the other clubs have had a marked increase; Huddersfield, for example, used to pull about 3 - 4k, and now average about somewhere around 8k. Widnes could pull that many quite easily in the top flight, but are currently a division down - I think they'll be in next time around, possibly at the expense of Wakefield or Salford if they don't get their new grounds built sharpish.

 

[Evil Homer]

2000 average: 7,412
2008 average: 9,877

The crowds were much smaller pre-2000, but I don't have data. The average will have dropped this year because of the expansion, as someone has said, but the game is massively bigger now than it was 10 or even 5 years ago.

 

[Lambretta]

Warrington isn't tiny!! Its the jewel of the North and has 200,000 people living there!! Its just everybody supports United, City, Liverpool or Everton!!


Stop trolling.

I'm not trolling mate. I'm saying that League suffers from the success of football in England. You hit the nail on the head when you mention the crowd numbers that follow football and not league.

For a town of 200,000 with no football team of it's own, crowds of 11,000 could easily be improved upon. I never realised Warrington was quite that big.

But the truth is, if a town has a successful football team in England it's league team is going to suffer. We need to look to areas like Warrington and make them League Towns if the game is going to grow.

 

[Lambretta]

Hull to Grantham is still the thick end of 80 miles whereas Grimsby is about 35 miles from Hull. An example of the media apathy to rugby league came yesterday when the BBC were due to show an hours highlights of the playoffs matches played so far. A rare outing for rugby league on terrestrial television. Lo and behold the Davis Cup tennis over ran (we lost and were relegated) so what became the casualty to make way for the extra time needed? You guessed it. They eventually showed the league at 11.40 pm. Wankers.

Grimsby, that's another town that could be targeted as a league town.

Their football team is utter sh*te and they've got f**k all else.

Redcar in the North East is another.