Billy.....you have an entire thread that is based around "official" attendances. Crying foul when it suits does you no favours buddy.....stick to the party line and accept that the attendance at Wembley was as reported.
78,137 is a bloody good crowd IMHO with the added expense of RLWC just around the corner......and harking back to the days of Old shows a narrowness of mind I didn't think you possessed. Post war (25 years or so) sport was considered a great channel of entertainment and attendances across the board went up....since the late 80's RL fans attending the CC have decreased gradually due in part to the Wigan dominance and then the Grand Final of SL vying for the disposable income of RL fans.

BTW Billy.....other than sports, the number of activities trying to attract attention and revenue of the British public has multiplied out of all recognition since 1954......we take 1.7 annual holidays abroad each year, we have SKY TV and Mobile phone bills to pay, we dine out a greater number of times...the list is endless. 60 years ago our parents still had their ration books Billy........RL was a local team sport played out with fierce rivals from next door.....RL today is a business and you harking back to day of old is the attitude that is indicative of that which is holding the sport back!

I think it's quite accurate and I was there

I do agree that the final date should be moved to a little earlier in the season, say June or July so that we have a better spread of big events and to move it a little further from the Grand Final. Many people end up choosing either the Grand Final or Challenge Cup final because they are too close together and too much of a struggle financially so moving it would make it more bareable.

You must have me confused with someone else if you believe that I care about what folk think of me on here

If I were to stick to the party line, there wouldn't have been a SL attendance thread in the first place. I don't believe there were 78K in attendance yesterday and [url=https://twitter.com/Chrisirvine/status/371352271776276480I'm not alone in that viewpoint[/url.


Richard Lewis was of the same viewpoint about the games history when extolling the virtues of Super League. How disappointing that you share the same viewpoint as him.


Wigan dominance pre-SL era had nothing to do with it. OTOH, Super League and the switch to summer has dealt the Challenge Cup a series of terrible blows. The most significant decreases in attendances in the CC have taken place during the SL era.


I didn't introduce 1954 to the thread... I merely responded to it. You'll get no argument out of me about how the world has changed and it's effect on leisure pursuits. However, the thing holding the sport back isn't attitudes of old... it's the poor SL-era product itself. Yesterday's game in the CC Final encapsulated that paucity of skill and talent far more than I or anyone else could with mere words on a RL forum. The best marketing team in the world would struggle to convince anyone to buy into any of that crap. It was a showpiece event disaster of the game's own making.

I'm just about old enough to remember 70's rugby league. The sport was in a real mess back then. Apart from the entertaining biff and the freedom to dish out GBH with impunity, the game was dying on it's @rse as a spectacle in terms of playing standards. The Kangaroo Tour of 1982 was the wake up call and kick-up-the-@rse the game desperately needed at the time. Unfortunately, Super League has since reduced the game to an even worse spectacle than it was during the 70's, and it doesn't even have the gratuitous biff and GBH to fall back on either.

I didn't say it was a popularity contest, I said accepting figures given as official attendances is the core value of your SL attendance thread and to decry the CC announced figure smacks of double standards. As for the tweet? It's an opinion....nothing more, nothing less.


Richard Lewis was spot on......if you keep looking backwards then you have less control over where you are heading. Jumpers for goalposts billy bostons sidestep have little place in modersn sports business.....


Average CC final attendance 1897-1995 = 54,806
Average CC final attendance 1996- to date = 74,141.
Stats can be used to suit billy as well you know....






This is your opinion Billy and like s, we've all got one, but the point you attempt to make everywhere, that the modern game is sterile and uncompetitive as a result of the advent of SL is flawed on loads of different levels.

The 1995/96 season saw crowds average 5,300 or so across 11 sides...down from 5,600 the year before. SL I saw crowds of 6,571...they have grown steadily to 9,097 today over 18 years...a jump of close to 40%.

I accept that the RFL were OTT last year in their back slapping over record attendances, but the bottom line is more people attend games in the top flight now than did in the years preceding SL.

this is pretty sad, not one other sport feels the need to question the attendance of their main (or one of their main) final.
Yes the club wembley was spartan, have you thought some might be watching from in the bar area?
However as all sports do it why the need to deseminate the official attendance, really, why?
I would think it isn't a problem tot he RFL as the money comes in from the club wembley seats no matter what.
We either find a stadium that can hold about 75k or we just put up with the souless crap that is wembley.
Frankly i'd be happier with it being at Cardiff every year, at least we wouldn't eed to worry about the weather either

August bank holiday will see possibly 20% or more fans on holiday, many others will have recently returned a little lighter in the pocket
The bank holiday is early soccer season and the euphoria around that reduces column inches
End may has little competition and max exposure

That's good then. It pleases me that Speccy finds you way more popular than he does me. I was beginning to worry at one stage after he named me before he did you on that troll thread of his. There'll be no competition from me... he's all yours




Core values? Double standards? Very amusing

This is the Virtual Terrace. I have my own reasons for the SL attendance thread and none of those reasons pertain to satisfying any alleged "core values" and personal requirements of anyone. You may climb down from that self-appointed, loftier-than-thou troll pedestal of yours now.


And opinions are like @rseho... oh, hang on... what's this?


Doesn't seem to be a problem down under where the game is frequently marketed around it's history... where they celebrate past players and past exploits... State of Origin being the most obvious example which harks back to it's history all the time. They couldn't market it successfully any other way. The trophy for the NRL premiers contains a sculpture of former greats Norm Provan and Arthur Summons caked in mud! So long as Richard Lewis thinks that kind of thing is crap though. Quite a stark difference between that and Super League's attitude to the games history... the game used to be rubbish but now it's all modern and great. Wow! That's really worked well since 1996 hasn't it? Your dismissive attitude to the history of the game and it's lack of importance (where the SL marketing strategy is basically everything was crap before SL and that includes Billy Boston) is noted.


If the Super League era is entitled to claim credit for increased domestic attendances based on the uptake of cheap season tickets then it is entitled to take responsibility for the games current failures too... the failed franchising experiment, lower overall CC attendances, lower Championship attendances, lower international attendances, less high profile games on terrestrial TV, lower profile of the sport in the media, lack of sponsorship, deteriorating playing standards, etc.

Worry about the weather? I don't much like the new Wembley but the idea of doing away with one of the increasingly few factors that promotes variety in the games we watch appeals even less. Yes, the 2013 final was pretty dire but the other side of that coin is that we've all seen some utterly compelling games played out in diabolical conditions. I'm too young to have seen the notorious 68 watersplash final but I bet that was no classic either. It seems to have stuck in the memories of those who did though.

Jeff,
You would like a return to winter rugby - I am unsure as to why you think that would be a good idea?

The winter/summer thing isn't as clear cut as it used to be. I was massively in favour of the switch to summer, but I think a lot of people, including me, underestimated how much competition there is for people's time in summer. Not just other sports, but holidays, day trips, etc. Of course, in winter we compete with football and union, but there's not much crossover from those fan bases to league.

There's no doubt that at least initially summer rugby improved the product, but modern grass pitch technologies ( and of course artificial ones if you want to take it that far ) have massively reduced the problem of mud baths - you never see them in football any more.

In summary, I don't think a switch to winter would be all that bad, and may even be beneficial.

It's not going to happen though, not least because it would leave Wigan and Hull homeless.

And Huddersfield

And Huddersfield and London maybe?

The difference between the Summer and Winter season is nothing more than playing part of that season during the months of June & July instead of December & January... that's all. The difference is the opportunity of playing half a dozen meaningless regular season fixtures plus an even more meaningless Exiles fixture during the months of June & July.

Could you remind me what are the benefits of playing in June & July are, what we've gained and why you think it's a good idea?

Do you think playing standards have improved as a result of the switch? Do you think the loss of proper international tours and the devaluation of the Challenge Cup has been a price worth paying? Do you think the sport has increased it's national profile? Do we have more or less high profile games played out on terrestrial TV and watched by millions? Do we have more or less sponsors queueing up for a piece of the action?

Like RL Bandit, I used to be sold on the idea of the switch but not any longer. The positives and negatives of the switch no longer add up. If anything, the negatives of the switch now outweigh the positives.

They could extent the capacity at the LSV and you could lodge with the centurions

,Hull could do the same at HKR

I think the RFL need to re-look at the pricing/price bands for next year. The areas where £21 tickets were on sale were pretty much full (such as at the very top of 3rd tier) while 'better' seats where left empty.

While I feel £21 is too cheap for a supposed major sporting event, at the same time £50/60 for seats down the side that are only on the 20metre line, or in the gods on the 3rd tier is too much. And perhaps meeting in the middle and charging £40 for all of these areas would be better.

I also feel there are far too many price bands and it makes it a confusing event to buy tickets for. For example one block of the stadium can be 2 different prices.

I also don't understand why for other events such as the World Cup they are selling tickets that face the TV camera's first, before opening the whole ground up for sale. Surely it makes more sense to get the lower tier, and the stand facing the cameras sold out first before we open the rest of Wembley up?

Interesting point which I'd not considered but why would they be homeless? Is it a contractual thing which determines what months both RL clubs can play at the respective shared stadia? Reason I ask is that those stadia are shared between both Soccer and Summer Rugby seasons during the months of August, September, February, March, April and May. Why would Wigan and Hull necessarily be made homeless in December and January?

On a similar vein the whole pricing strategy of the RFL must change. At the game on Saturday they were saying book for the final in 2014 to get a 30% discount. At the start of the season there were similar offers. Yet I booked just before the semi final and got a 50% discount. This is all completely wrong, people are not necessarily rewarded for booking early and in some cases get punished. I know this has happened to me previously and I have learned my lesson never to book too early.

The RFL should make it clear that its first offer is the best that you will get and each subsequent offer should be on a reducing scale. Its pricing policy is all over the place and certainly doesnt attract people to book early and it is bound to have an affect on crowds. If a neutral books a year before they will save and go, if a floating fan doesnt because they always think a better offer will come and the final then isnt appealing, or maybe they have another attraction instead, then they may not go at all.

I agree with that too, far too many discount codes and offers going round now and this leads to people hanging on before they buy.

on another note: why had the RFL made no effort at all in putting up banners, flags etc outside the ground? every game I have been to at new Wembley has had branding from the event put on the ground, but on Saturday it was just the generic 'Wembley Stadium' banners. While that may not make a huge difference to the crowd, it made it look like a unimportant event and I suspect it was a misguided cost-cutting measure.

Cant believe the comments about returning to winter.
Some folk have very short memories and a switch back to winter would decimate attendance figures and could severely damage TV sponsorship, as we would be going head to head with the round ball game !

I agree, moving back to Winter isn't the answer.

but I do feel moving the final slightly earlier would be beneficial. The August Bank holiday is jam-packed with other events, such as Reading/Leeds Festival, Creamfields, a full schedule of Football, Ashes Cricket...while there is never a completely clear weekend of events in Summer, there are a few weekends at the end of July where we would get much better media coverage and a chance of getting more neutral fans in.

Which part of June & July is so precious that the game simply must be played during those two months instead of playing in December & January instead?

Apart from those two months, there is no difference... the game is still played in Feb, Mar, Apr, May, Aug, Sep, Oct and Nov.

Errr December & January are freezing, and July & August are far better months to sit outside and watch rugby

the above sentences are 100% of the RFL's marketing Strategy.....and there, ladies and gents, lies the root of the problem with regard to attendances.

The domestic game stops early in October. Yes there are internationals. But these are fewer in number and every other year played abroad.
I agree the cc has suffered. Although we will disagree over the final. I do think the cc suffers for being so spread out. I would prefer the competition to be earlier to compress it.

Lewis helped the rfl get in much better shape. IMHO in his early tenure. But the stobart deal and London life support and lack of transparency over licensing and it's bias hurt his final years.