Agree, faxlore, but my argument is that the admission has got well ahead of itself and needs to be redressed along with the players' wages.

Season tickets are also becoming less appealing, and not just because of what's happened this season, which incidentally could have serious repercussions gong forward in season ticket sales. Which in turn could see even more fans getting out of the habit of going as they might pick and choose their matches. Maybe other ideas could include a £15 admission with a £5 off voucher for the next game?

FWIW I think admittance should be cheaper but also FWIW I don not think that by lowering the price we will get more people, or at least not enough to make the difference, through the gate.

I wonder what the cost of admission was in 1998 when we finished third. Unfortunately my brain cannot recall that. It would be interesting, as a few minutes research shows that the median wage in Calderdale has risen by 70% between then and 2019.
I hardly watch SL anymore as I found it tedious and much prefer the competitive Championship where most teams can beat any other. The skill levels are pretty good just at a slightly lower pace and with smaller athletes than SL . I think the Championship is value for money.
I realise that the cost for a family can add up but the club do deals for families. Never forget if a supporter pays £19 the Vat man takes 20% of this to pay for NHS etc.

We're all just exchanging views FD all with good intentions and trying to think of a way forward and there's bound to be different views.
Again £19 is a lot of money and I would love to see it at a tenner or £15, just saying the clubs are caught in the dilemma of pricing people out or reducing it and running at a loss.
We have mentioned "on the gate" a lot but it would also have to be implemented pro rata across the season ticket prices as well.

I'm sure the club have a better vantage point to see the overall picture over me for example and must have considered it.

I remember standing down at the Shay next to a former director during a game and saying to him "you look tense, we're winning and playing great what's up with yer."

He replied yes that bit is great but I spend more time these days worrying about how many empty seats and spaces there are and how to keep it going and him mentioning this very subject of how to get it right and get more people in, that was a good few years ago and still remains.

As I mentioned, at the moment they must base any current and future planning on what the state of the game is now.

Regarding this from what DG said in the last statement from the club they have a plan in place for the next 2 or 3 years, to survive, consolidate and then grow based on the current situation.

Across the game and certainly at our level I don't think there will be a better time to implement some of the reductions we've discussed if the clubs can come together and with the inevitable less central funding they will be forced to operate on lower income and get some parity and I'm just as sure the BoD will be revising their planning in any case, they have said they are continuing to scrutinize every last detail.

Players will be willing or forced to accept less if only less is available but as mentioned there are other overheads that will only go up and there's not much we can do about that without opening other areas that will stop fans going like mergers and moving out of the town etc.

I agree with GRB. lowering the admission price wont bring more people through the door. I know this quite a few years ago but i feel that some of the cause for lower gates was down to the introduction of Sunday trading for shops eyc and (dare i say it) SKY TV. When i started watching Fax back in 1978 there was no Sunday shops open so folk went to watch Rugby League on the afternoon. Then as i lad when i started playing I loved playing on a Sunday morning then going to the game with my Dad in the afternoon. Now, as we all know, everything is open and RL is competing with all the world has to offer. Isnt it strange that RL was born out of workers not getting paid by owners of mills etc for playing RL on a Saturday so they moved to a Sunday. Now the (again) retail get the right to open on Sundays and RL are back struggling while the 'mill' owners a making lots of money off people shopping on Sundays.
Anyway, SKY, When Fax played midweek games back when' there was always a good crowed. 3-4 thousand playing Wigan or St'sor whoever. Now with Thursday and Friday Televised why would someone from Hull bother to get home from work on a Friday and try to travel to Wigan for the match when they can stay at home. and watch it. Yes it was good to have SKY take up RL but I think it has not been as possessive as it could have been.

Greg - I agree lowering the price will not be compensated by an increase in numbers that's why I am arguing for the "missing " compensation to be filled with a multilateral decrease in wages. But I also think a tenner will see far bigger crowds for the big games, especially Bradford. Recently their presence at the shay has seen very disappointing crowds, probably even being outnumbered by the bullies.

Cowfax - I remember the first time paying over a fiver. It was at saints in the 90s who were always more expensive than every other club for some reason.

Faxcar - in my opinion a merger or move out of town is the same as the club becoming extinct. I for one will stop going. I think Bradford are only getting decent crowds at dewsbury because the move is temporary and they intend returning to Bradford.

Ps - going back to the lowering the admission, I remember fax lowering it to a tenner a few seasons ago against whitehaven (can't remember the reason) and the crowd was unusually high over 2000

Understandable but a bit sad how this thread on new signings seems now to be devoted almost entirely down to the cost of attending games. I may be wrong but in the past when the club has had spells of success I don't remember any calls for this . I have been daft enough to follow the team, regardless of cost or the quality of play for a long time - and while I fully appreciate the cost of attending games can't be ignored I feel if you gave most wavering supporters the choice of watching a competitive team playing decent rugby for £19 or watching a young team getting battered, you'd get consistently higher gates at the former. Once the club start announcing next seasons signings the excitement this generates will hopefully move peoples thoughts more onto the anticipation of getting to watch some rugby again.

Rarely do posts stay on thread Ilkley, the thinnest of links is that income affects signings which is how it went in that direction.

Another angle of looking at is after cutting the cost of say attending, at the moment you will end up with lower standard players, a losing side because the better ones will go elsewhere.

Then what can the club do to reverse the trend...........nothing you are stuck with it.
Crowds are going to go down because of the poor performances and entertainment value.
You can’t buy any better players because you have no money.
You can’t put the prices back up because that would make the situation worse.

Again it’s this financial dilemma of continually going from hand to mouth all the time.

As you say, what we need are the announcements on new signings and if a couple are exciting as mentioned by DG then it will give us a lift.

You appear to be losing track of my argument, faxcar. The admission price reduction needs to be multilateral with a low championship salary cap to prevent " the better ones going elsewhere". You can't do it unilaterally, I get that, unless of course the gamble of reducing the admission doubles the crowds.

Incidentally, everyone seems to be poo pooing the last scenario I have mentioned even though it's hardly ever been trialled. But I've already mentioned our own example of letting fans in for a tenner against Whitehaven a few seasons back (when if I remember rightly the admission then was £15) which saw an usually high attendance of over 2,000. Other examples include Huddersfield getting 9,000 against Catalans.

If people think a winning team will attract lots more fans no matter what clubs charge, I'm afraid they'll be disappointed. Aka Salford recently getting to the Grand Final who still had an embarrassingly small knot of fans (albeit noisey) in attendance.

Apologies for high jacking the thread, Ilkley Fax.

The club have often in the past been able to really push the marketing for an individual game, including cut price admission , as a way of hopefully introducing new spectators to the game. I feel however a longer term drop in admission prices is too big a gamble for the club to take if it still wants to put a competitive team on the field.
I also don't feel a low imposed salary cap is is either workable or even desirable.At the moment Fax obviously don't have a wealthy benefactor, but if a David Brook or Tony Gartland came along again with the possibility of putting together a team capable of getting into and then being competitive in super league I think the vast majority of supporters would welcome them with open arms!!
I won't comment again until we have some positive news on retention/recruitment - something which I think is desperately needed to lift the mood of supporters and get them thinking positively again about the prospects for next season.

I’m not losing track about anyone else’s argument FD, simply staying on track of my own alternative argument or reasoning because of the dangers involved and from the start highlighted the need to act multilaterally.

Agreed is you can’t do it unilaterally but that’s one of my points, if the club were to do it now then that’s exactly what they would be doing, the entire argument around reducing admission prices now would in fact be unilateral.

As I have said the BoD can only plan now, by looking at what is actually happening now and not on what doesn’t even exist or on what may or may not happen in the future, but if in the future things change then they may well do so.

All the examples you have mentioned were one off promotion events, there will be a number of reasons and factors involved but a common denominator is they were not intended to become the norm and all fall under the category of being loss leaders.

The Whitehaven game with 2,300 in attendance was largely down to “The Big Apple Day” initiative with someone who attended winning a trip to New York.

I attended the promotion event and they had a dark purple Statue of Liberty with the spiked head on the stage and I remember them saying that it was connected to the “tremendous promotion that had been advertised” and humorously adding that we weren’t signing Wayne Price.



The fact that these were not repeated or being used en mass by anyone in the game proves these loss leaders would only lead to loss.

PS: And if people think that watching a losing side will increase or maintain the numbers of the paying public then they will be sadly disappointed as per Bradford for example who in the modern SL era have gone from World Club Champions, record crowds and a glittering trophy cabinet to playing at Dewsbury.

Fair enough, ilkley, that's your opinion and i respect that. However, I get the feeling the majority on here are happy to "plod along " hoping something will happen, such as a sugar daddy. But be careful what you wish for. We have already seen what's happened at leigh and Toronto with their sulky sugar daddies and look how much huddersfield owe davy. It's eye watering.

And if you think new fans will pay 19 quid even if we're winning you're living in cloud cuckoo land. If radical changes aren't made we'll be down to sub 1000 crowds on a regular basis in the next 3 seasons. As with other championship clubs.

Ps just read your post, faxcar. How do you know the whitehaven game was a loss leader? Maybe the club was hoping the "excess " fans would continue to attend at full price, if I recall we played well. The sums suggested we made more with the promotion because whitehaven matches have always been poorly attended.