With Wigan, Saints, Leeds and Warrington all away, there was only one attendance that reached 5 figures:

Widnes v Cas - 4,562
Wakefield v Leeds - 4,364
Hull FC v Warrington - 12,328
London v Wigan - 2,013
Huddersfield v Salford - 5,681
Hull KR v St Helens - 7,611
Bradford v Catalans - 5,188

For an average of 5,963 - must be one of the lowest aggregate attendances for a SL weekly round for some time. Admittedly there are no stand out clashes, but that reads as a very poot set of figures.

Apparently it's the lowest since round 19 2006

But Jeopardy?

Whatever happened to Gutterfax and William Eve, were they banned?

Attendances have been falling since we wrapped relegation so, really jeopardy did work.

Relegation will sort out attendances for bottom teams in the long run as they will have something to play for. One of the worst things the RFL did was introduce a too 8 play-off system. IMHO this really has hurt the intensity if SL.

The attendances are alarming. But hey Nigel Woods "innovative" idea for next year will bring the crowds flocking back.

IMO all that will happen is we will get the same 8 in SL 1, the same 8 middle tier, then the championship clubs struggling to compete with SL because of the different in salary cap. Maybe a championship team may cause a shock in the "one off game" final between 4th and 5th.

But the above attendances are pitiful.

What do London and Bradford have to play for at this point?

Their fans ? Pride ?

I'd be interested to see if the attendances have actually fallen in the licensing era compared to P&R. The average has fallen but how much of that is due to adding 2 clubs to the league at the same time?

Personally I don't think the league system has much effect on SL attendances. I think the economy has had a big effect (I know I've attended fewer games, mostly away games, due to money being tight) and aside from that it's individual clubs doing well/poorly and individual clubs marketing.

Four Yorkshire games with le tour, plus the horrendous traffic and weather Friday will have put a fair few thousand off. Regardless though it's not good enough and instead of doing the easy thing and blaming the economy or Nigel Wood's waistline all clubs with probably the exception of Leeds need to have a serious look at their marketing department and get a grip of it.

As Brian Carney said in last months Total RL, how on earth can we preach about the 'greatest game' to other parts of the country when we can't get people through the turnstiles in our own back yard?

I've suggested before that clubs pool their resources and get someone like Hearn or even the chaps who marketed the RLWC on board. We need to go right back to the 1996 logic and make rugby league fashionable again.

Wonder how many Yarkshire RL fans attended the Tour de France over the weekend as opposed to watching their respective club sides ?

I did and I know quite a few more. All games should have been played Thursday and Monday and left Friday to Sunday free, this was always going to happen when the worlds biggest annual event came to town don't think even football could compete with the Tour de France in Yorkshire

On the plus side the HKR v hudds crowd the week before was the highest ever for this fixture.

Fair call before you mentioned the wendyball aspect in the wrong side of those Hills ..

Wait, how will the prospect of going down to a semi pro bring in the punters? I doubt it has in any sport other than the odd one game a season

Pretty disappointing. 1 hell of a battle for the top 6, then an additional battle for that 8th place spot.

Last season the Giants v Salford fixture has 5, 345 people watching it.

This season it had 5,681.

Poor excuse. I managed to get from Birmingham on Friday to watch Trinty v Leeds then went to Skipton on Saturday for the Tour and Hebden Bridge on Sunday.
Attendances have been low all season - responsibility lays with the clubs not with F1, FIFA, the Tour de France or Wimbledon.

I think the Thursday night games are a good idea but only when its 2 local teams playing.

The Widnes v Cas game should of been 6/7 thousand but because it was on a Thursday night, the Cas following would ofr halved and maybe a third off the home following.

2012 was a record breaking season in terms of attendances. We suffered only one year of falling attendances in the franchising era. 2013. We then reverted to a system which has never worked for us

I expect a good few thousand of you there on the 24th July at the KC then

I believe William is on summer sabbatical, ala old school RL fans.

I’m sure he takes a sneaky look & updates his spreadsheet ready to be vilified once it shows yet another reduction on past seasons.

Licencing, jeopardy, I don’t think anyone can put a finger on the reasons for the decline, it’s probably a combination of things.

Personally I think some the clubs have become too reliant on Sky monies & don’t put in the hard yards to entice people through the gate.

The average attendance for the last pre-SL season was 5543, so we're well ahead there. The lower divisions make much less happy reading with 1368 contrasting with a combined average in Championship and Championship 1 of 866.

Am surprised at the Widnes vs Cas attendance. The way both sets of fans constantly slate Salford's crowds on social media, you would think they both play in front of sell out crowds every week.

last season, salford brought about 30 fans, this year, 200ish, could explain it.
although with upto 100,000 visitors to the huddersfield area over the weekend, i'm disappointed the giants didn't get out and put a big effort into getting some of those to come down...

exactly. I think McManus has said that in 2015, for the first time SKY money will cover the full salary cap. Where is the incentive to pay for marketing staff, advertising etc...when you don't actually need that many people coming through the doors as the bulk of your costs are already covered.

The next step is to enforce a minimum investment in marketing, either done at club level or by a contribution to a centralised marketing fund. All the clubs put £100k into the pot (£1.2m in total), and then it is spent on advertising and marketing of club games at a regional level.