There's realists who can see the long term damage to the game and then there's the sheep



The game is being slowly strangled to death due to the backslapping incompetence of those who run the sport. The CC and the game in general has to sell tickets at bargain basement "poundland" prices in order to attract fans, whilst the RFL and their cohorts doff their caps to Sky and flush the credibility of the sport further down the toilet. Yet another nail hammered into the coffin which is accommodation to the CC these days. Good luck to whichever club progresses through to the next round as they'll have a job flogging tickets from now on unless they are priced at around £8.

Dont equate yourself to a sheep its an insult to them. Sheep are useful animals.

Was that your successful chat-up line to Dolly?

William Eve is correct

However, I see this as a cheap day out taking my lad to watch a game.
Train to Hudds & back, plus tickets for £16.30 is good enough for me.

I bet Mr Eve attends too. I'll be on the look out

You're not supposed to agree with me on anything. You're supposed to think the sport is currently fantastic, is administered by the very best in the business and it's fantastic news for the game that the price of tickets are £8 or less. Then hurl a bit of inane abuse in my direction instead of discussing the issues at hand and it's a job well done




Don't blame you at that ridiculously cheap price but it's strangling the life out of a historic competition and perpetuating the message that the CC is worthless as an event and possesses little to no value, just like Sky have been telling everyone since 1996.


No I won't... I'll be in NZ or Australia



Might attend the Challenge Cup Final. I expect the RFL will still be devaluing the Cup Final by offering Wembley Wednesday tickets at just £10 each again

Its weird that you call your mum by her first name

You're right, the competition has been devalued somewhat and is in decline, it's clear for all to see. But if the RFL put their hands up and say we made a mistake, what would you suggest would get the crowds back? Putting ticket prices up so the competition appears more valued is lunacy.

Your views are so miopic - it is all Sky's fault. In your view the clubs should charge £50 a ticket to give the competition its true value - get real. The CC is like all knock out competitions a second class citizen to the week in week out of a league. The FA Cup is no different - the public's appetite for this format is waning - the FA have resorted to taking the semis to Wembley to stimulate interest. In the 70s & 80s how many people were actually attending CC games!! no more than now. We are in a recession money is tight what do you want clubs to do charge top dollar and have a stadium with less than 10k or try and promote it get more bodies through the turnstiles and maybe actually generate more turnover through programme and food&drink sales.

You harp on about the international game - if you had it your way we would playing in the winter in a semi pro league with an occasional game on the BBC. How would that help the international game? imagine if a part time GB came up against a full time Aussie side!!

I say it again - we haven't beat the Aussies in series since 1972 - many years of regular defeat well before SL yet it is all Sky's fault. By your own admission the 70s & 80s were a real low point - not one crowd >20k for the 1982 Ashes against the greatest Aussie side there has ever been. All this well before Sky or SL

Jeff you need to move on or move to Aus where everything is so good they don't even have a knock out competition outside of the playoffs. Every game is ultra competitive in the NRL ask the roosters!!

While I can agree that playing standards have dropped and attendances are on the fall, I am curious regarding what you suggest for the game going forward?

5th Round Average Attendances

1994/95....Final year before Super League
4,471

2004....Final year before move to August Final
4,963

2011
4,437

It's doomed!

No, he needs to move somewhere they don't have internet access, do us all a favour.

Mr Eve is absolutely correct in both his posts on ticket prices, its a nice surprise to see a realistic view given to the marketing of what [ishould[/i be a great game of RL but it still remains a surprise and a one-off - as he points out, what happens in the next round, and the next, will prices go back up to circa £20 and if so then why ?

Truth is that to balance the books the crowd for this game will have to be two and a half times what it would have been if "normal" SL prices had been levied, just to get back to where they would have been - we shall see.

Is it really devaluing a sport to reduce ticket prices? I thought sport was SUPPOSED to be about the fans, not the money?

I agree that having to slash ticket prices to get fans to go to matches doesn't say the greatest things about the interest in early rounds of the cup, but surely this thread is about two clubs responding to that problem? It isn't solely theirs to fix at its cause.

Could we not, just for once, applaud people at least trying to get bums on seats for a televised cup game to try to create a spectacle that casts the game in a better light than the swathes of empty blue and red plastic we'd have otherwise?

So they might make less cash out of it. Aren't people always criticising them for milking the fans to the detriment of the sport?

This isn't a thread about the decline of the cup, or the sport in general. This is about what I think is a very sensible initiative that for once has at least half an eye on the image of the sport rather than just the day's balance sheet.

*sits in corner with arms folded looking sulky yet slightly self-important*

That depends on if the additional numbers through the gates spend money on programmes, snacks, club shop etc.
The sort of Ryanair model of RL.

You're not helping.

Thats always the theory and of course it all depends on who owns and operates the stadium as to whether all of that expenditure makes it all the way back into the rugby club's cash box, in theory its a good move for everyone who wants to go, in reality it sets a precedent now, a challenge cup round is now worth £8 and no more, a challenge cup round is worth just 40% of a SL round.

I look forward to the semi final and Wembley final ticket prices being slashed to 40%.

It appears we've come a long way from the time Alf Davies was able to increase ground admission by 20% for a Challenge Cup Quarter-Final tie with Widnes and still sell Headingley out to the comparatively sorry state of affairs we see today.

Generally speaking back in the day the Challenge Cup was viewed as the bigger game with more riding on the outcome and liable to attract the bigger audience when compared to the equivalent League encounter and understandably so.

It's probably to the game's credit that the League has advanced - albeit it's sad to see the Challenge Cup has suffered along the way.

This may be slightly off on a tangent, but in terms of value for money I think RL has come down a bit, ignoring whats happeneing on the field.

When I started going as a junior in 1998/9 it was £5 for a junior and £10 for an adult. In 15 years that price has more than doubled, whilst the salary cap has come in and reduced the major outgoings of the clubs significantly. Its not just at Leeds either, as most clubs have gone up in price too, though I think the gap between the cheapest venue and the most expensive is quite significant.

The question is, are we seeing a weakening of the brand when prices are cut? Or is it that the prices are just being re-adjusted after a period of over inflation.

Obviously, the £8 entry is designed to get people through the door, and falls outside of this. However, the challenge cup suffers more than most games due to the reality of how much it actually costs to go to game. Most people's mental arithmatic is rubbish, and they don't bother to work out how much their season ticket is. They accept that its the best deal, and get a season of benefit. Often they are bought as presents at Xmas, so the cost is hidden. When its a cup game, or a play off game the cost is there in black and white. The fixture is arranged at relatively short notice so people stay away. At £8 the deal is good, and I would hope that the fans of both clubs embrace the match, and show that if a game is priced reasonably then more people will attend. It would then be up to the clubs to decide where the sweet spot is for them when taking into account programmes, burgers and beers.

If only 5,000 turn out at £8 then I guess the nail is really starting to be hammered into the Challenge Cup, and is also indicative that some games just don't excite people no matter how much you discount them

For the game, surely the real value of the Cup is that it's big showpiece final happens on live terrestrial TV, in front of 70k or so at Wembley.

It isn't the only competition in the world that really only generates a lot of excitement at its business end.

I don't really agree with the worry over the precedent set. The precedent set is that the value of something (in economic terms) is what people are prepared to pay for it. If you generate more interest, the price can go up.

The sale of season tickets is bad for cup attendances, but good for business stability and planning. C'est la vie. If that means you have to charge less for cup matches, and that doesn't end up making them loss-making, where's the harm? Even if it is setting a precedent, is it such a bad one?

For the same bottom line profit, would you rather have a small crowd at a higher unit price (and I include increased overheads in the aforementioned bottom line) or a large crowd at a lower price? One harms perception of the business wich has the potential to damage it, one could create a bit of 'buzz' around your business. Benefits of that may be pretty marginal, but if they cost next to nothing then hey, why not?

To be fair about half of that increase is due to inflation. And I think clubs have suffered in the last 10-15 years from a lack of investment in stadia/facilities 15-30 years ago requiring either large sums for investment in new stands/stadia/facilities or higher maintenance costs on often unsightly grounds. Plus a large increase in spending on off-field things such as conditioners, sports science, training grounds etc that in the past was probably spent on players wages

Mainly because its a strange business model, its one that has a finite number of opportunities to sell to its customer, you have a fixed number of days that your retail outlet is open for business and they are very limited other than the possibility that you may get between one or five (six?) extra home games every season and thats your lot for that stream of income - you can hardly blame them for wanting to milk the hardcore of supporters for every last bean during those bonus matches.

To throw away an opportunity to charge top whack for one of those bonus games when it might be the last chance you'll get this season is a brave decision, to run the possibility that you might make a loss on that game because of your brave concept would be like a kick in the balls.

You've got to be looking for 10 to 12k for this match or the concept of challenge cup price slashing is doomed, there is no other reason for doing it.

Just a thought but you could go to this draw for £8 then potentially (assuming we win) meet either Sheffield Eagles or Halifax at home at a cost of £20?

I don't think we're talking about throwing away an opportunity to milk the supporters here. Experience suggests a reluctance on the part of said supporters to turn up to be milked. I'm sure if the clubs thought enough people would turn up to pay top whack for it to make it a money-spinning opportunity we wouldn't be having this discussion in the first place.

So it might not be as brave a decision as you're implying. But still shows enough initiative to be applauded IMO.

Do the clubs whose game is televised receive any direct additional monies as a result of their game being shown live on terrestrial tv?
The costs of staging the match are largely marginal.
ie all the regular fixed costs including players etc have been budgeted for in the SL costs.
Cup games are a bonus, therefore any £ though the turnstiles is practically addtional profit.
Add on the income from perimeter & other advertising then clubs should be in clover.
Or at least those clubs that own their own grounds should be.
NB this does only apply to the televised games.
In the days when Leeds pulled in 26000 for the Widnes game, we were lucky if 8000 attended the regular league rounds.