Regarding poor attendances during the playoffs I believe there are 3 main factors

Financial affairs in Britain at the moment are generally very bad. People dont know from this week to next if they are going to have a job and what money will be coming in.

Alot of fans plan to go to the final even if their team isn't playing, therefore the grand final ticket prices are around the cost of about 2-3 games. With the fact Sky sports show all the playoff games live on tv, fans can focus their money on paying for the grand final (either to see their team or to attend as a neutral. In a way it's a bit like gambling in some cases, some fans will forfeit the playoff games on the instinct their team will make the final)

Lastly, and I personally feel this is the main reason, clubs across the whole league announce next years season ticket prices but also add in deadlines such as "save your seat", "earlybird discount", "renew your ticket now" and these deadlines are pre-grand final date. Fans are obviously budgeting for next year. Maybe an agreement should be made to include play off games in season tickets, how about across the board at all clubs, so you could also attend a game as a neutral? ie allowing you to go to one playoff game over a weekend (even if your team hasn't made it). I imagine some wouldn't take it up, but I do imagine some would. Or what would happen is fans possibly passing on these tickets to supporters who "pay on the day" and dont have access to these.

Clubs attracting supporters to pay in installments and then advertising a high admin fee in my opinion is also wrong. The RFL allowed grand final tickets to be paid for by instalments and if I remember correctly the cost was around £2 no matter how many tickets were bought. Clubs like the Huddersfield Giants are advertising a £20 admin fee for this option.

Also, and this is lastly, advertising, I drive some 40-50 miles to work and back every day, and if I dont pass a Stobart Lorry, what other advertisements have their been (apart from sky sports whats coming up this month & pre/during/post live rugby league games on sky). If you're not in a rugby league circle, you wouldn't even know it's happening.

Thinking more about it, I'm not buying into this economic thing with the playoffs. It's not as if people are priced out is it?

How many people have you heard say, I'd love to go but can't afford it? Me personally, I don't think I've heard that once.

What you tend to hear is, I'd love to go but what's the point when we could be playing the same team in 2 weeks time or there's potentially more important games to pay for in the near future.

The majority seem to be choosing not to go as the game doesn't appeal or saving up for the next one.

For me, the structure of the playoffs is all wrong (and the league but that's a different discussion). People won't buy a product if they don't like it. Obviously they like the GF, 70,000+ people on Saturday paying says so. That means keeping a playoff format. But removing 1 week and potentially 2/3 teams to make it exciting and worth paying for might increase gates at the business end of the year.

My only reasoning behind why clubs won't do this is it gives more teams chance to get an extra payout at the end of the year and more play off games = more revenue to the prize fund as long as the total number of spectators is higher.

I don't know about the money thing, because all of the family wanted to go it has just cost me an eye watering £157.00. Nature of the finals that when often one or two normally go, everyone jumps on the fixture.

The structure of the competition is badly wrong. Its kind of easy with hindsight to see why, but, in this case, whilst I think the game is run by a bunch of muppets, I'm not going to criticize them for this idea in the first place, which had a perfectly reasonable motivation (give most clubs something to play for), but hasn't worked in practise. The key question is whether they react quickly to fix something which has failed.

The problem is that we've sucked too much meaning from the regular season, which *might* (depending on your opinion) be sort-of OK if the playoffs got everyone hyper-excited, but the clear evidence is that they simply don't. ( Forget the season-ticket thing, if the playoffs mattered as much as they should, it wouldn't matter). So currently the season consists of the unimportant, followed by the uninteresting...with (thankfully at least) just one game at the end that people get excited about.

We've also got to find a structure that keeps League's profile as high as possible throughout the season. Getting a bit of press once a year is no good for the brand.

In my dreams....we get sustained media interest by having a "Champions League" for the top 4 - guaranteeing some big international nights spread through the following season (NOT in some compressed mini-tournament). Two groups of 4, 2 Europe, 2 Aus/NZ in each group. Each team plays each of your overseas away games on a single 10 day visit to the other hemisphere, meaning just one overseas journey (thus minimizing travel costs).

12 team superleague, 1 up one 1 down. 5 teams in the playoffs. If you win from 5th, you take the Champions League spot from 4th. ( This also makes finishing 3rd better than finishing 4th).

Don't worry about ground standards for clubs good enough to be promoted, who really cares? Atmosphere, plus basic safety and disabled access is all that matters.

Agree with pretty much all of this.

I'd reduce the play-offs to 3 weeks also, and have a top 7 straight knock out. Whilst it's good that we have a system that attempts to reward the highest placed teams, over complicating it has proved a huge turn off for many fans.

I'd go with:
Week One - Quarter Finals - 1st BYE, 2nd vs 7th, 3rd vs 6th, 4th vs 5th
Week Two - Semi Finals - 1st vs lowest winner, highest winner vs other winner.
Week Three - Grand Final

Simple. Lose and you're out. No bottom half of the league teams. Reward for the team finishing top. One game less in the season. Only one team will get two home games. Just makes far more sense to me.

Agree.

So long as every club's ground has a safety certificate, that's all the game's governing body should be concerned about. Anything else (capacity etc) is a matter for the individual club's directors.

Your problem is, people do care. They do care and they don’t attend. Clubs in poor grounds get poor crowds. They then cant afford to spend the cap, this means they aren’t successful on the field, they don’t attract fans and the cycle goes on.

Minimum ground standards exist because if they didn’t, people wouldn’t attend.

Leeds aint a palace and they do well, HKR is a hole and they weren't the worst for gates on promotion. Bradford is literally a hole and they did pretty well when the team was performing.
Look at Worcester, Exeter, Welsh, Bath RU. Its amazing what a few tents and temp seating can do.

RL has lost the sporting plot.

Leeds isn’t a palace, but it still has good facilities .People are happy with it. HKR have put in place ground improvements with the specific aim and result of increasing crowds, they have also publicly stated this, aswell as their need to increase crowds to compete. On a summers day, Odsal is probably the best place in the country to watch RL.

What is your explanation for the low crowds and poor stadia, and the higher crowds at better stadia, and the clear and obvious correlation between clubs moving from poor stadia to good stadia and an increase in crowds if not that some people who wont attend at poor stadia, will at good?

Have to agree with Smokey

There is always a core that would attend even if you played on top of a hill in driving rain, but if you want the families and next generation to attend they need better facilities.
I go to Wakefield no matter what, but I haven't taken my kid yet, and look forwrad to when I can take him in comfort at Newmarket lane

Would gates increase or decrease with Wakey playing out of Newmarket in the Championship with no hope of promotion?

Clearly I'm not saying it is the only thing.
I have to say we did all right when we dropped down but that of course was because we were heading for promotion and winning games.

What I'm saying is there is a ceiling for attendances in the lower league no matter what, because of the standard of the game, there is then probably a ceiling for a team in Super League playing in a small or under standard stadium. Good team will drag them in, but new stadium will then build on that.
They are intrinsically linked if you want the very big crowds.

BUT some places will never get there. Wakefield is lucky that we have a big untapped market that if we ever get it right could be encouraged to come to watch.
Some communities that used to be thriving towns are no longer so, and will always struggle. its a shame but true.

Why ?

History proves it to be so.

I'm not saying they can't get over a particular number, but they will always be less if they are playing at a perceived lower level.
Same in every sport.
and I take the point that while ever there is no chance of getting to the top level, the crowds will always stay lower.

All history proves is that clubs have been run as sporting charities for decades rather than proper businesses , there is no logical reason any club cannot fill its stadium for every match , if it decides it wants to and looks at ways of making it happen

This Grand Final Attendance thread is interesting!

I'll go for 71k

Of course it is , only in RL would the fans even care about such a subject , as a sport we are a very disfuntional one

The total mix of what does or doesn't attract fans should be a matter for the clubs. The people running the clubs want big crowds just like everyone else so if certain standards are required to achieve good attendance they'd be sensible to aim for those standards.

Incidentally, speaking as a Wigan fan, I think Headingley is the "best" ground in the League, brilliant atmosphere and why I nearly always get off my backside to make the trip there. But nobody would rate it technically as high as the DW ( which often has a very flat atmosphere ).

Why should the League be best placed to decide on behalf of the clubs what is the best way to attract fans? Leave it to the clubs. As the other poster said, safety and access are the only things that ought to be imposed. Less "central planning" - especially when the talent of the central planners is so limited. Same applies to the cap. Get rid. All the League needs to do is impose tough squad limits to stop a hyper-rich club stuffing the bench and the squad with top players to deprive the rest of the comp of their services.

Because clubs don’t exist in isolation.

What hogwash.

A RL club is in the business of selling leisure services. This idea of yours that if every club were only run "as a proper business" then the grounds would all be full is pure nonsense. People just don't have that much leisure dollar and what there is, there's fierce competition to get. Everyone's struggling.

Richard Branson tends to run "proper businesses" and even he, before the recession, couldn't remotely begin to fill London's ground so don't give us this rubbish.

I said ' logical ' reason , thats why you didnt understand it

Exactly. Spot on.

What about doing away with the cap but keeping the 20/20 rule or whatever it is these days? or making it like a 13/20 so that clubs must play youth?

Central Planning by officials at Red Hall is not needed. Scrap the salary cap, 1 up, one down, points deduction for going into Admin and relegation to bottom league if you go bust.

Then just leave it to clubs to do whatever they think will bring them success without going bust.