Just lifted this from the rugby league site.

2019 average attendances so far

Barrow 1,367 Batley 1,114 Bradford 4,481 Dewsbury 972 Featherstone 1,841 Halifax 1,817 Leigh 3,103 Rochdale 954 Sheffield 1,089 Swinton 1,269 Toronto 1,483 Toulouse 2,728 Widnes 5,133 York 1,940

Not sure how they work out Toronto, who haven't actually been at home yet, and their nominal 3 home fixtures were around 1800, 1400 plus over 7000 for a double-header. Will be interesting to see their first home crowd at Lamport this weekend. Then, of course, it's us, so obviously that will be a sellout.

That said, the attendances of the bulk of teams are depressing reading. That's roughly only 30K speccies home average the whole division. Makes it all the more creditable how comparatively high the standard of rugby produced in the Championship sometimes is, given the severe financial constraints these figures, and the lack of any real RFL funding, must impose.

Agreed.

With more resources and marketing know-how I'm sure these figures could be increased a lot. I've enjoyed this season enormously so far. It's a shame so many are missing out.

According to loverugbyleague.com.

"Attendances in the Championship are up 52% across the board, helped in part by Widnes’ relegation and Bradford’s promotion to the division, as well as Toulouse’s game against Toronto that was held at Stade Toulousain.
The cumulative attendance is up 69% at this stage of the season, and comes before Toronto have held any of their home games in Canada"

With the right marketing the Championship could easily become the equivalent of the EFL Championship and become a really vibrant and successful competition - that may well become a reality when Super League pull up the drawbridge!

Judging by the Elstone article MG tweeted the drawbridge is up...caps on overseas teams and the caveat 'must be up to standard' is being muttered more and more.

Toronto - too Canadian
Toulouse - too French
Sheffield - too poor a ground
Bradford - too 'Odsally'

So i guess they are already playing the 'London or ......' game. If it becomes 'Huddersfield/Leeds or ....' I think we'll see that promotion is suddenly removed from the table with any number of cobblers excuses being made.

What about Catalan - are they not too French?

Yes... hence the early season, ridiculous demand for a bond for the CC....(yes, I know it was the RFL but they are the SL's poodle at the minute)

Now you do raise a good point though...what if they ever have to play the 'Catalans or one of the unfashionable M62 clubs' game

With the SL sponsorship up for renewal next year with Sky, and the way SL want ALL the money. I believe the Championship should look elsewhere for their own sponsorship and TV rights, its not that impossible. if Sky want the Championship rights as well then we should get more of the pot or draw away.

As has been mentioned above I'm not sure how the figures have been calculated given that the Fev average above is lower than our lowest gate in the championship.

Not that it changes the thrust of this thread the attendances in the championship are poor compared to the quality of Rugby on display.

Figures taken from the Fev website gives:
BATLEY BULLDOGS (H) ..................2,145
HALIFAX RLFC (H) .......................... 2,534
SHEFFIELD (H) ............................... 1,891
DEWSBURY RAMS (H) ................... 1,923
YORK CITY KNIGHTS (H) ............... 2,216
TORONTO WOLFPACK (H) ............. 2,101
Total: ............................................... 12,810
Average: ........................................... 2,135

the thing I do not understand is how it was ever possible to con the Championship clubs into signing away all broadcast rights to Sky without either any guarantees as to actual broadcasting, and/or a slice of the pie.

It should be obvious that if Championship games were not to be weekly televised by Sky, then the Championship clubs should be free to make their own arrangements - or even negotiate their own deal, and divi any money arising.

For the RFL to makeweight the broadcasting rights into the deal, with no contractual agreement to broadcast, just to stop any other broadcaster showing live RL games and spoiling Sky's exclusivity, I see as absolutely shameful.

So we end up (for example) where the Bulls games are never going to be televised, but neither can we stream them like we did in League 1 - because Sky own the rights.

I believe it was Nigel Wood's doing.

And we do get 'a slice of the pie' don't we? Where do we think the central funding comes from if it doesn't come from the Sky pie?

I think there a many different levels of finance, and ambition, within the Championship clubs. Given the 'austerity measures' which seem to apply around Odsal at times I guess that many of us think we're one of the poorer sides, but when you consider the level of staffing (players, coaches, back room etc) and of course the money we pay for season tickets, we're clearly in the higher levels of the division. Many clubs though stagger from one leccy bill to the next so they probably don't care over much about whether they will appear on TV or not. Mainly because they most likely won't.

I honestly think his heart was in the right place with this. He wanted to make sure the lower leagues weren't cut adrift and left to fend for themselves....soon as they get rid of him his concerns is looking very concrete.

what was our central funding! £150,000K per team in the CC compared with 2 or 3mil in the SL hardly a great share. also if the Sky funding drops the CC gets less and the SL gets it all.

Totally agree with this. It seems he was right in doing so too because as you put, without him there the threat has become reality