In the last season in SL.. the one in which we were terrible, we had crowds at some of the matches of above 7,500. In the championship we hold the record attendance for 6,800 or something along those lines.
The support is there.

People might come to watch Widnes for the same reason that people in South Wales might go and watch Celtic.. because they are the nearest team and because the product is good value for money.. it's not happening at the moment but they have only recently started to spend some serious money on advertising and they are in competition with RU.. the rivalry between RU and RL does not exist to the same extent between football and RL. Plus.. Football is a winter game and RL is a summer sport.. there is quite a bit of overlap but periods when there is no direct competition.

The sums at the moment are what stand us in good stead.. it is around £35 - £40 to go and watch a football match and there is the cost of paying in children too. Lets say it's about £60 - £70 as a family to go and spend 90 minutes watching football. For £20 - £25 you could attend a RL match as a family.

There is also a little bit of work underway between the two Cheshire clubs Warrington and Widnes to work together in South Cheshire. Together they can bring the game of RL to that area a lot easier than just one club doing it on their own and carve up the support between them. Two SL (hopefully) clubs working together in that area can bring what currently doesn't exist.. top class, affordable, family friendly, local professional sport with the added spice of a friendly rivalry.

It's a new way of attacking things, very interesting and incredibly exciting and Warrington will be backing us heavily in the next round of applications.

I suppose thinking about it you could argue it is expansionism!!! So we should be supported by Expasnionists and Flatcappers alike!!!

You obviously know more on the subject than I do, I'm certainly sceptical.
Couple of things i've bolded as flaws.
Of course you're going to have some crowds of 7500+, you're practically part of Warrington who will bring 3-4000 and St Helens is round the corner who bring a few, as do Wigan. As stated already I doubt you can average that but i'll be impressed if you do.

Celtic represent South Wales, Widnes represent.. well a tiny 'town' next to Runcorn.

£25?? Not if you want to be successful you cant! At Wires for a family to sit down you're talking the best part of 60+ quid.

The last part is very interesting, I wonder what they're cooking up, could be an interesting partnership.

Let me correct you IET.

In the Championship, Widnes got a crowd of around 8,500 for a televised fixture with Salford - who brought about 300. Take around 2k off the gate for the schoolchildren who were let in free and you still have over 6,000 paying specators who attended the 7.30 kick off on a Thursday evening, instead of watching it on tv.

In SL, we came really close to breaking the 10k gate against St Helens, and quite close against Warrington.

We achieved over 8k several times, and as you said, averaged over 7k.

We had a minimum fanbase of 5k home fans in SL, even our last two seasons when we were rubbish.

I absolutely believe that as a Super League club Widnes could attract crowds of 10k including away support.

Seeing as it's you Rich!!

In terms of the areas, I think it's an interesting point but they are going to sell Widnes Vikings (and Warrington Wolves) as a brand name. I think the hope is that the lure of top quality, affordable sport will be a lure to parents in areas which have yet to benefit from knowing about RL. How well they do will be interesting but I think it sounds fairly exciting.
The merchandise of both clubs is now fantastic and the brands are attractive to youngsters.. I hear that kit and cloting sales in Widnes are going incredibly well and you can't move around Warrington for people wearing their gear. How far they can stretch out from their towns into the surrounding areas is to be seen, but the demographics and research shows that towns like chester, northwich and the like are realistic targets. Together I would rather bet with them than against them. More is being made of the Vikings and Wolves brand (which warrington have done well at and Widnes less so until now) although both are adamant that the Widnes and Warrington parts will never be lost and will remain important.
If you are in Widnes then you follow Widnes.. if you are in an area outside Widnes you would hopefully follow the Vikings.. I think that is the plan.

I think the price of a 'family' ticket at Widnes is £25 which admits one adult and two children to the Family enclosure at Widnes. I'm willing to be corrected by someone more knowledgeable on the fact as I don't have any children yet.. but it is certainly under £30.

It's an interesting time that we are living in. Since taking over at Widnes Steve O'Connor has harboured good relations with our neighours and I think it will bear fruit in the next coming years.

SL has loads of clubs from small towns.

to make a strong RL club they have :

1. heartlands
2. tradition
3. all seater stadium unlike the many dumps of SL

etc.

they will add to the strength of the competition.

an ideal heartlands club and without the financial problems of the past, a welcome addition to SL.

your sport isnt big enough to leave widnes out of SL for long

they have a good chance at a 10,000 average in SL after 3 - 5 years.

wakey for example were getting close and have now slumped.

aussies have heard of wigan, maybe widnes, then leeds and st helens (in general). and maybe halifax thru chris anderson

very good example.

Hull KR have had a fantastic turnaround from the depth of NL1 to the top part of the SL table.

very good comparison

You've tried this before, you have no idea what you are talking about.

Our lowest ever Super League crowd was 4800 yet you trot out figures saying that we were getting 4-5000 after the honeymoon period. It's just rubbish.

Our final year we averaged 6800 and it would have been more had we not already been relegated.

You talk about us representing a small town next to Runcorn and a team like Celtic represent South Wales but that's rubbish if you get nobody from their watching the games. We could easily say we represent Liverpool in the same way Salford say they represent Manchester or Celtic say they represent the whole of Wales. There is the same amount of chance of ever tapping into it.

People make the mistake of thinking we need to average 10k to be included. We don't, we just need to be better than the current worst teams and in my opinion we are.

If Burnley are big enough for the premier league then Widnes are big enough for Super League.

so Hull tigers dont play in the Premier League now mate.

absolute nonsense.

You've tried this before, you have no idea what you are talking about.

Our lowest ever Super League crowd was 4800 yet you trot out figures saying that we were getting 4-5000 after the honeymoon period. It's just rubbish.

Our final year we averaged 6800 and it would have been more had we not already been relegated.

You talk about us representing a small town next to Runcorn and a team like Celtic represent South Wales but that's rubbish if you get nobody from their watching the games. We could easily say we represent Liverpool in the same way Salford say they represent Manchester or Celtic say they represent the whole of Wales. There is the same amount of chance of ever tapping into it.

People make the mistake of thinking we need to average 10k to be included. We don't, we just need to be better than the current worst teams and in my opinion we are.

If Burnley are big enough for the premier league then Widnes are big enough for Super League.

Runcorn is the main area we are looking at getting support from. They are a town slightly bigger than ourselves that has no sporting team. As Halton we have a catchment area of over 120,000.

As somebody with experience of schools in Runcorn I know that Widnes do a lot of work with the Primary schools there. What is encouraging is that the children (and the staff) refer to them as the Vikings and not as Widnes. When we played Salford and got 8000 a lot of the children at that game came from Runcorn.

There is definately a lot of work that has been done in those areas and I'm sure it will long continue but the club has plans to expand beyond these and into the areas I metioned previously along with Speke, Hale and other parts of South Merseyside.

All we need to do is call ourselves the North Cheshire - Merseyside - North Wales Vikings and we'll be the first name on the sheet.

Edited for RLF accuracy

widnes will easily get bigger crowds than wakey, salford or cas get currently.

You 100% sure on that?

Not sure we'd beat Cas (we'd be close) but we'd definitely beat Wakey and Salford.

6,750 average (appx) in your relagtion season would point to you being correct regarding Salford, but Wakey.....close run thing. You are the only CH1 club at the moment I would back to top a 5k average in your first year back in SL and that is for sure.

1 million percent.

enough lies and promises.

deliver or get out of SL.

its that simple.

im sick of seeing mickey mouse clubs in SL.

i cant see cas breaking 10,000 in their current ground.

i could see widnes doing it with a good team on the park and being in SL for a while like wakey have been, and cas have been (except their relegation year)

Watch your NRL and we'll stick with our mickey mouse clubs

Now look what you've done...