To answer your points:
The difference is - December/January would be right in the middle of the season when the weather is potentially at its very worst - not the same for June/July. There will be more disposable income in June/July too. Clubs play games over the Xmas to generate income - unlikely the same senario in June/July. I can't see how crowds will be enhanced by playing in December and January as opposed to June and July.

International tours are a thing of the past - this is not a SL issue this is a club v country issue and a spectatot apathy issue, clubs are not going to allow their prized assets to be away from the club for 2/3 months. The players in other eras were part time and going on a tour helped fill the off season rather than finding a part time job. The international game is of limited interest to most RL spectators, look at the crowds for tests between Australia and NZ which can be competitive. RL is a club game not an international game such as RU

The challenge cup has suffered in the same way that the FA Cup has suffered in that spectators are more interested in the league - this is also reflected in the higher league attendences now being experienced in SL compared to the league prior to SL. I would suggest higher attendences for 27 games a year is a preferred option to higher attendences for 5 games in a cup competition.

Overall playing standards are much higher now than they were pre SL - the game maybe in a lull right now but it is still light years away from the days of Wigan winning everything.

The lack of sponsors is more about the ineptitude of the RFL than it is about the quality of SL, the likes of Wood, Solly and Rimmer are not exactly high quality administrators - replace them with people who have a bit of acumen in marketing and you would find a decent sponsor. Also it would have been interesting to to see how pre SL they would have got on without tobacco sponsorship.

The game isn't on terrestrial TV but the funds flowing into the game have increased significantly - depends on your view of the benefits of Sky over the BBC - given the coverage the BBC give RL I am not sure what the benefit would be of terrestrial exposure. It certainly didn't have a positive impact on crowds when it was on the BBC?

Why was it moved to august? The rounds are sometimes months apart, so the competition has no momentum, then when we do get to the final it's weeks away from the playoffs.

I liked it much better earlier in the season where it used to be. It really got you up for the start of the season, knowing some domestic silverware was only a few months away, rather than nearly an entire season away, and the rounds were close together as well which helped. Somehow having the rounds spread out more just seems to sap the energy from the competition.

Maybe you could have a close down of SL for a month and have CC every week with a two week gap to the final - so end of April with the final May bank holiday after the play offs in soccer

It was never a problem until these last few years to fit a may CC final into the SL programme, we bend too often for sky as I could only see the magic date being a problem due to proximity

Yes. Apart from the odd conspiracy theorist nutjob, who somehow thinks they instinctively "know" what the attendance was, and are happy to believe (or pretend to) that there are for some unexplained reson regular conspiracies to publish false figures, which for some reason always secure the 100% permanemt silence of the large numbers of people who would be involved in such a conspiracy. Including the Wembley authorities, who obviously would know perfectly well if a fake attendance were published.


And you know this how? This is the weirdest thing; people like you who can pronounce such arrant guff with unshakeable certainty. What qualifications do you have for disputing Wembley Stadium's official head-count, then?

A serious case of





going on round here I'm afraid. I mean I expect nothing less from William, but really, have a word with yourselves

Nail on head
The final of the CC has to suit BBC scheduling.
It had sat comfortably at the end of May for some while but, with the switch to summer rugby and
with the powers that be, not wanting anything near a clash with the GF, it was moved to August.
Not great but, the GF is deemed to be the most important date in the RL calendar and consequently
the challenge cup suffers.
We cant have everything.

I am constantly amazed by some peoples ability to count huge numbers of people on sight. It’s a really really impressive skill.

I can do it.
There were 78,137

I missed the first try counting at the other end, and there was a guy in the posh seats who kept going out for a pee and I may have double counted him.

Anyone who doesn't believe there were 78,137 in attendance must really hate RL.

Ha ha! I see what you did then. Clever

There were a group dressed as penguins but they were massively outnumbered by the thousands dressed as empty red seats.

Can you do the same thing with matches? You could be like rainman but without the social skills.

Not at all, and it isn't a question of whether you "believe" it, but whether there is a sane reason to doubt it. There isn't. It's not a matter of faith or religion. It's just the fookin official, actual attendance figure that's all.

What amuses me though is the fact that you must be the weirdest guy on the block, since you make an entire character by building your endless whining posts in this and other attendance-related threads on the foundations of many years of published attendance figures! It's what you do!! So if official attendance figures are as you seem to believe no more than some form of conspiratorial propaganda invention, why the fsck do you spend your entire waking life adding them up and comparing them?

It would be my preferred method back to back coverage each week. Whether SKY would allow such a pause is a different matter.

That's a bit harsh FA. Its actually therapy for the feeble minded. (Billy is their star patient).

Official attendance does not equate to actual attendance.

Official attendance (which includes all Club Wembley seats whether occupied or not) = 78,137

Number of Club Wembley seats = 17,500

Number of Club Wembley seats occupied at the CC Final = not very many, but I'll be extremely optimistic and suggest 2,500 of them were occupied.

78,137 less 15,000 empty Club Wembley seats = Actual Attendance of around 63,000.

I think to be honest FA, the difference is between the number of seats which were paid for, and the number of seats which had bums on them during the game.

As I understand it, the club Wembley seats are all pre-paid annually, and the annual ticket is for every event at the stadium - so technically, the club Wembley seats were all sold for the cup final. On that basis, just like season ticket holders at club games, they are deemed to be in attendance even if not there. So I guess Wembley Stadium got money from over 78k people on Saturday, and that was the 'attendance'.

Anyone who doesn't believe the ACTUAL ATTENDANCE was 78,137 must be among the weirdest people on the block.

Sky wouldn’t necessarily be the problem. It would be the fact that it would leave some clubs without games for large periods of time which would cause cash flow issues, as well as player preparedness issues (from both sides, some would complain that the players would be out of shape and lacking in match sharpness, others would complain that a club used it as a mini-preseason and came up to the business end of the year fresher and fitter)

Im just not sure why we insist that all matches in the same round are played on the same weekend. We could sell to the BBC 1 challenge cup game a week throughout the summer. Play it on a Saturday when we don’t have the Sky game anymore. 4 games from round 4, 4 from round 5, 2 from the quarter finals, the 2 semi’s and the final would be all played on a different week would give us 13 weeks coverage. A weeks break for the magic weekend (which is on the biggest sporting weekend of the year anyway)a two week break for Wimbledon, and a weeks break after round 5, the QF, and the semi would pretty much mean that round 4 could start at the same time and the final can be at the same time, but we would have coverage for 13 out of 20 weeks instead of 5, giving a much better flow to the competition and keeping interest.

As for the impact on Sky, well I think it would be an advertisement for the game which is good in the long run for them, but from the other side, it also means that they don’t have the 5/6 weeks loss of content the currently have because of the Challenge Cup. As well as giving clubs more flexibility if they did need to rearrange fixtures.

You doing a rainman impression and pretending you have counted 2500 out of 17500 does not equate to the Actual Attendance.

In fact, a little tip for you. If you need to use the word ‘around’ because you are approximating (or in your case, plain ol’ guessing) you cant also use the ‘actual’.

Not only that Smokey but, its fair to assume that the attendance this year was compiled in the same way as the previous attendances at the new Wembley.

Sales of 60k then smokes leaving 12.5k unsold

Is it 60k we have decided on now?

Why not 50k? why not 85k? why not 61250? Or 63451?