Where were the fans yesterday?


Under 10,000 is a poor showing for a sudden death match.
Presumably not all season ticket holders can afford to pay the standard price for a ticket?

ok

We have this every year!



1) It costs money.
2) It was a sure fire win.
3) It was on TV.
4) It was pi[iss[/iing it down.
5) The scheduling of the other match meant you couldn't watch Wigan/Saints if you attended, but you could watch both matches if you stayed at home.
6) To attend every play off match, and THEN the GF would cost at the very least £86 p.p. That's just on tickets (3x£20 and 1x£26). Excluding any Petrol to the away matches, any beer, any food, any programmes, any raffle tickets, any match day parking. I reckon with beer, food, petrol etc, to attend 4 games (one of which is the Grand Final) you're looking at closer to £200.00 per person. Would you want to miss the Grand Final because you'd spent up getting to the 3 televised play off matches?? Most wouldn't.

Yesterday was Leeds' first sub 5 figure Headingley attendance for a SL Play-Off fixture.

Leeds' average attendance for SL Play-Off games (outside the GF) is:

All Venues: Aggregate 340,051 - Average 13,602

Headingley: Aggregate 212,241 - Average 14,149

(The next lowest Headingley attendance (after yesterday's 9,075) was the 10,451 who turned out for Leeds inaugural Play-Off fixture V Halifax in '98.)

Gives you an idea what attendance will be like next year.

That depends on how this season ends (credible or calamity) and moreso whether the Leeds' CEO can generate a feel good factor for 2012 which I sense so far he's been unable to do.

He appears (to me) to be presiding over a squad in decline (perhaps even terminal decline) and yet with statements regarding 'spending the full cap' he's engendering the idea that signings will follow to arrest the slide.

I think, he's going to need actions rather than just warm words to convince a loyal but increasingly cynical fan base (unless that's just me) this time.

No it's not just you. That's spot on for me.

I've said this before, but you can't openly say that you'll spend up to the salary cap then do what he's done recruitment wise. I know that we don't know the salaries of each player, but purely movement wise it's obvious there's tons of room.

Losing Buderus, Cross, Burgess, Lauitiiti, possibly Smith, then we'd expect reduced pay for Webb & Leuluai. Ok, there's possibly a pay increase for Watkins, BJB, McShane, Hardaker, Clarkson to factor in but still... Richard Moore can't possibly be on a Buderus, Burgess, Lauitiiti size wage? Let alone all three combined!

Either he's having a cheap season to try and improve the ground, which I'm sure we could understand if explained as such, or he's spending up to the cap... in which case... ON WHO!?

Or there are more signings to be announced

There needs to be SEVERAL more signings for me to believe we're spending up to the cap.

We need to see the salarific equivalents (new phrase!!) of Buderus, Burgess, Cross, Ali, Senior & possibly (hopefully) Smith. Even if all the rumours were to be true... Richard Moore, Darrell Griffin & Rangi Chase are NOT the salarific equivalent of 6 other blokes (who include Danny 'Money Bags' Buderus & Keith 'Audi R8' Senior!!!).

Jeez you're a flighty one.

[size=150BELIEVE [/size

Same at Wigan, just 12000-ish for a Wigan-Saints playoff.

Game is on its , but RFL too busy defending themselves and pointing out what a great job they're doing to sort it out. I confidently expect the announcement of another 'innovation' (aka gimmick) as the next big thing, when in fact its some trivial 'event' like Millennium Magic. Game going nowhere with the current bunch of muppets and part-timers in charge. Only fans like those of Wigan and Leeds keeping it afloat at all.

Interesting to compare RFL and RFU websites. Single job advert on the RFL site was for a 'development officer' for a whole region of the country. You got 20k per year, a short contract and a free laptop. Average amateur union club makes more than that from its bar.

Can't do anything about where we are today compared to Union but would at least like to see a 15 year plan that has some basis in reality rather than the deluded fantasies of Nigel Wood.

I'll never forget, when playing student RL, listening to some prat from the RFL explaining how it was soon going to be like college football in the US, with 100s, even 1000s paying to watch student rugby. Er...yeah...right. There's a massive difference between ambition and delusion.

Bad mood this morning, probably 'cos we lost, but how depressing to sit in a more-than-half-empty stadium for a Wigan-Saints game.

I give professional RL just 10 more years at this rate, before club owners give up and hand over their teams to Union. Now *that* sounds like fantasy, but I reckon its far more likely than the current idiots at the RFL improving anything.

Warrington was most shocking attendance of the weekend, IMO just 10,006. I know our attendance was numerically lower but considering they were being presented with the League Leader's Shield for the first time in the club's history after the match. Where were all the fans to see it?

I'll [size=150believe[/size it when I see it.

Agreed Warrington's crowd was a little under considering the presentation of the League Leaders trophy but still think Leeds' was worse given the sizeable Hull contingent compared to Huddersfields if you get me and only one was a season-over prospect.

Wow this thread is just full of flakey types. Show some spine FFS - the game has been in much more precarious positions than this with its "death" confidently predicted. It is more resiliant and its fans and backers more hardy than you give it credit for.

Personally, I believe the current era is something of a golden age and will be looked back on as such. Short term difficulties will always arise. And whilst attendances for these games are disappointing, they have been ever since 1998. One could ponder on that at length - but one reading is that the success of clubs in selling fans season tickets has weaned many off the idea of paying at the gate - boosting recurring attendances through the season but undermining to a degree the events for which cash has to be forked out.

And don't compare RL to RU. League is a healthy, largely regional, minority sport. To compare it to a much bigger sport off the field is lunacy that will only ever be futile.

Flying back from Hamburg. None that it is any of your business.

Can't disagree with any of that, the game is on its a[irs[/ie with falling crowds and complete media indifference.

Compare the RU World Cup with the equivalent in RL, is there an equivalent in RL, is there going to be some international games this year, really - theres a small circle of people in the north who go and look for this information, the rest of the country have never heard of these events.

& their fans (or some of the more die hard ones anyway) hadn't just had to fork out ridiculous amounts of money to go to Wembley.
The problem as I see it is that in the current economic climate having to fork out for the playoffs almost immediately after the Challenge cup run culminating in a final appearance is too much outlay in a short space of time.
For my part I chose to stay at home to watch it on tv along with the Wigan vs Saints game after the Spurs vs Liverpool & Man U vs Chelsea games.

Well said that man.

Are you Malcolm Tucker in disguise spinning like that?

I love this post. It's spot on. I like it even more that it came from a Wigan fan.

I especially like the "too busy defending themselves and pointing out what a great job they're doing to sort it out." line. Which is true. They spend more time telling us how they're going to sort it, rather than just sorting it. The "[ilook how good we are[/i" news articles are starting to become embarrassing. I'm sure that if you were to just do a bloody good job, people are intelligent enough to notice what a bloody good job you're doing. I don't need people spending time writing a "[iwe're doing a bloody good job[/i" article, I just rather they spent the time doing a bloody good job.

Don't you mean "lying back after eating many hamburgers"!

I recall Eddie or Phil predicting a 25 k crowd for the Wigan/Saints game . I think it was Eddie .

Agree rising costs and wages not or dropping, when a game is on TV you can't blame people for not attending games that come at extra cost

Which crowds are falling? Is the SL average up or down this season? Playoff and Challenge Cup crowds have been an issue for years and they have been worse than this year in the Summer era. I think you're conflating your own indifference or even the present short-term indifference of Leeds fans with the wider picture. The fact of the matter is the game is in robust health - nothing is perfect, but it is stable, reliable and is secure for the future.

And I'll repeat the point I made to the Pie Eater - what is the point of seeking to tear down our sport by making deliberately negative comparisons with another one which faces few if any of the same challenges and shares few if any of the same defining social characteristics? If you continue to view Rugby League in this way it will forever be self-defined into perpetual failure. You are setting an impossible, unreasonable challenge, but one which gives you free scope to forever abuse the sport for its so-called failures. If you judge Rugby League "success" on its own merits, in relation to its own history, its past failings and its past successes I believe you would come to very different conclusions.

Leeds crowds are falling