Re: 2015 Attendance Thread : Tue Feb 17, 2015 4:42 pm  

Is this a private Hull battle now?

Re: 2015 Attendance Thread : Tue Feb 17, 2015 4:51 pm  

Mr. Zucchini Head wrote:

Are Friday's really that bad for families? I can understand Thursday's being more of an issue but surely the kids can stay up once every other Friday? In fact during the summer a lot of families will be having days out at the beach etc on Sunday. That isn't an issue on Friday nights.

Personally I aren't that bothered. It makes no difference to my ability to attend. Hell they could play at 10am on a Tuesday for me as far as that's concerned. Going to games on a Friday means you can't watch the TV games which I like to do (not live anyway), but on Sunday's it interferes with my being in the golf course or whatever else I want to do on a weekend. So there's pros and cons for both.

I take it you have never had to look after a child who didn't get to bed before midnight the night before. Forget the no school tomorrow argument kids are a Feckin mare if they haven't had enough sleep. As for seaside on a sundays Id love to know where all this disposable income is being earned.

But it's an argument that will never go away and will polarise all fans. A polarisation which was not there before super doper league.

Re: 2015 Attendance Thread : Tue Feb 17, 2015 4:52 pm  

Leeds get plenty of families and children on a Friday night. It doesn't seem any different when we have the odd Sunday game.

Thursday's do have an effect with school the next morning for kids. But I think parents are happy for the kids to have a late night twice a month on a Friday night.

Re: 2015 Attendance Thread : Tue Feb 17, 2015 5:09 pm  

@airlie_bird wrote:

I take it you have never had to look after a child who didn't get to bed before midnight the night before. Forget the no school tomorrow argument kids are a Feckin mare if they haven't had enough sleep. As for seaside on a sundays Id love to know where all this disposable income is being earned. .

No I haven't. But a) Where the hell are you taking them if they aren't in bed before midnight? If it's a home game you are home not long after 10, and b) it's only twice a month.

As for the second point. A day building sand castles is far more expensive than 4 tickets at the KC is it?

Re: 2015 Attendance Thread : Wed Feb 18, 2015 5:39 am  

Mr. Zucchini Head wrote:

No I haven't. But a) Where the hell are you taking them if they aren't in bed before midnight? If it's a home game you are home not long after 10, and b) it's only twice a month.

As for the second point. A day building sand castles is far more expensive than 4 tickets at the KC is it?

Not everyone (in fact I'd guess very few as a percentage) live 5 mins from their home ground. If you drive certainly at the KC it can take 3/4 hour just to get off the car park. I won't even mention places like Salford. Hence why it is invariably 11, 1130 midnight before they hit the sack.
As for sand castles yep that's cheap, but travel food etc Yep it's clear you've not got kids. Most families that watch RL (remember working mans game) will struggle for one special day out a month probably every two or three months. So to say they can afford tickets to a match and then a complete weekend of free family time at the seaside etc is really not feasible. If everything at the seaside was free then maybe it would work. So that's my thinking about these jobs which allow massive disposable income.
I'd hazard a guess that some families will probably opt for kids in bed by 9 on Friday up fresh on a Saturday and what little money they have will then be used on ice cream, drinks, food for the kids on Saturday or Sunday.

But as I've said its a polarising subject and ain't worth arguing about. Those without kids probably can not comprehend how expensive it is to entertain kids and the choices that have to be made however much we love our RL teams.

Re: 2015 Attendance Thread : Wed Feb 18, 2015 8:12 am  

Back onto attendances I think we do ourselves an injustice far too often.

Sporting life have a results page for most sports. If you take a gander down that page you will see the Premiership in Union had an opening 2 weekends with the following attendances.

Att: 13,474
Att: 5353
Att: 66164 (double header at twickers)
Att: 66164 (double header at twickers)
Att: 22639
Att: 2,776
Att: 13,102
Att: 12,755
Att: 9,721
Att: 6,374
Att: 5,888

As you can see they are hardly flying ahead of SL as a competition. The massive difference is their european competition and reach goes beyond our own. And their international game is far more high profile and well organised.

Taking Football, RL and RU league attendances. In terms of people attending I'd rank them as

Premier League Football
Championship Football
RL and RU
League 1 Football

We focus too much on the attendances, we need to focus elsewhere to grow the game. That maybe a 9's competition to bring in new viewers like 20/20 has for cricket. But the international games and growth into France and Wales should be our real focus.

If we could get Wales and France off the ground we could have a tri-nations in the northern hemisphere on a yearly basis that would draw in the causal viewer like our league cannot.

My point is that the club competition looks fairly healthy and micro inspection of the figures does not really help. Does Union start beating itself up over figures like 2k and 5k turning up for an opening game???

Re: 2015 Attendance Thread : Wed Feb 18, 2015 6:59 pm  

Ain't answer to your question no Union does not beat itself up over 2k attendances. Simple reason being is that it attracts mega blue chip sponsorship. I had the pleasure / misfortune (depending on which side of the fence you sit) to go around Twickenham on Saturday and went into about 40 private boxes. It's a whole different ball game to the one i know in league. Major major corporate sponsors ploughing millions I would guess into a sport I suspect they know little about, but they do business around it.
RLs image is not one for a corporate market like that and as such we will always be second fiddle.

Re: 2015 Attendance Thread : Wed Feb 18, 2015 10:01 pm  

bewareshadows wrote:

In terms of people attending I'd rank them as
Premier League Football
Championship Football
RL and RU
League 1 Football

Other sports governing bodies are rightly concerned about falling attendances, but I can't think of any whose fans are as preoccupied with them as League. Still, here are the ACTUAL last full seasons domestic average attendances for the competitions you refer to.

Premiership - 36,657
Championship - 16,555
Aviva - 12,754
Superleague - 8,365
League 1 - 7,488

You will see that if you wanted to lump the closest 2 competitions together, Superleague and League 1 are only 11% apart, whilst Superleague and the Aviva are 48% apart........

Re: 2015 Attendance Thread : Wed Feb 18, 2015 10:33 pm  

enigmatic wrote:

Other sports governing bodies are rightly concerned about falling attendances, but I can't think of any whose fans are as preoccupied with them as League. Still, here are the ACTUAL last full seasons domestic average attendances for the competitions you refer to.

Premiership - 36,657
Championship - 16,555
Aviva - 12,754
Superleague - 8,365
League 1 - 7,488

You will see that if you wanted to lump the closest 2 competitions together, Superleague and League 1 are only 11% apart, whilst Superleague and the Aviva are 48% apart........

They WERE that apart last year. Not having 13 London home fixtures that don't get much more than a 1,000 and a Bradford club in freefall will see that number rise up. And take Wigan for example, instead of getting their average pushed down by the visit of London, they'll possibly be getting 2nd home matches vs Saints and Wire in the Top 8 round of fixtures to really bump up the numbers.

Re: 2015 Attendance Thread : Wed Feb 18, 2015 10:39 pm  

ThePrinter wrote:

They WERE that apart last year. Not having 13 London home fixtures that don't get much more than a 1,000 and a Bradford club in freefall will see that number rise up. And take Wigan for example, instead of getting their average pushed down by the visit of London, they'll possibly be getting 2nd home matches vs Saints and Wire in the Top 8 round of fixtures to really bump up the numbers.

Don't feed him, he won't listen.