That is actually a very good point. Despite allegedly being the biggest sport in Australia and having a huge TV deal etc etc, this year the average attendance in the NRL was 15,940. Considering the competition gets a lot more exposure and all the rest of it, we aren't all that far behind in terms of crowds.

If Nigel Wood pooped gold bricks and gave them to orphans, there would still be plenty on here lining up to criticise him for it.

Sadly. no matter what good work he's done with RLWC 2013 he's never going to get any credit for it.

And rightly so.

Have you seen how much the price of gold has fallen?

I gave him credit in the first post.

I am going to give Nigel Wood credit right here and now for the very successful aspects of the World Cup in the UK.

I am also going to give him credit for believing in the value of London rugby league and for trying to help London Broncos survive.

However I see no signs that he is going to be proactive to help the game develop in France, so that is a negative.

I agree it could have been handled better PR wise, but for it to make a bigger impact they simply needed more trucks converted to the new branding.

if we do get GoDaddy on board, then I hope we can get them to include some web advertising on the many websites it runs. A TV ad with Jean Claude Van Damme (their latest spokesperson) wouldn't be bad either!

What really annoyed me was that they said on the back 'sport should be following your local team'. Someone stuck behind a Widnes branded truck on the A30 would hardly be inspired to start following ESL based on that message!

Yes

You're quite obsessed with France, aren't you? Surprising that, considering you are not French....

IIRC It was a split decision and RFL had the casting vote so 50% of Clubs were against the Stobart deal and would have taken the Betfair offer of £750k

Not sure how TV viewing figures compare but average SL attendance is circa 8,200 so actually we are way behind on crowd figures (unless I am way out on my club average attendance guestimates)

Leeds 15,000
Wigan 15,000
Wire 11,000
Hull FC 11,000
Saints 10,000
Catalan 9,000
Bradford 7,000
Hull KR 7,000
Wakey 6,000
Hudds 6,000
Widnes 6,000
Cas 5,000
Salford 4,000
London 3,000

What I mean is, when you consider the money and publicity involved in Australian RL, you would be expecting them to pull in much bigger crowds. Attendances seem to yo yo a lot more there, for example on Good Friday I think it was, Canterbury v Souths had a crowd of 50,000, whilst their average was only circa 19,000.

It didn't take long after the positive distraction of the RLWC to get back onto (moans about) crowds and sponsorship

If you take out Brisbane, NRL attendances are completely pants for the money and media coverage they have.

Something I pointed out upon 1 st seeing one of the trucks, it was always going to be a TV based initiative ( potentially subliminally getting the whole nation of motorway drivers to tune in to SL on SKY ) and yet the message was localy worded

the Professional RUGBY clubs in either code and their last full seasons averages:
1 Stormers 36,822
2 Lions/Kings 32,720
3 Reds 31,848
=#FF00004 Brisbane 30,480
5 Bulls 28,954
6 Sharks 23,323
=#FF00007 Souths 22,261
8 Leicester Tigers 21,244
9 Harlequins 21,046
10 Blues 20,953
11 Cheetahs 20,078
=#FF000012 Canterbury 19,590
13 Toulouse 19,519
=#FF000014 Sydney Roosters 19,368
=#FF000015 Newcastle 18,821
16 Saracens 18,002
17 Bordeaux 17,701
18 Clermont Auvergne 17,250
19 Tards 16,960
20 Stade Francais 16,727
21 Leinster 16,525
=#FF000022 Melbourne 16,302
=#FF000023 New Zealand 16,197
24 Toulon 15,539
=#FF000025 Leeds Rhinos 15,197
26 Crusaders 15,084
27 Munster 14,699
=#FF000028 Wigan 14,545
29 Bayonne 14,506
30 Brumbies 14,287
31 Chiefs 14,280
=#FF000032 North Queensland 14,112
=#FF000033 Gold Coast Titans 14,028
34 Gloucester 14,004
=#FF000035 Manly 13,522
=#FF000036 Cronulla 13,470
37 Racing CF 13,145
38 Highlanders 13,096
39 Northampton Saints 12,812
=#FF000040 Parramatta 12,456
41 Force 12,427
=#FF000042 St George Illawarra 12,422
43 Grenoble 12,417
44 London Wasps 12,357
45 Montpellier 12,152
46 Rebels 11,947
47 Perpignan 11,872
=#FF000048 Hull FC 11,680
49 Bath 11,516
=#FF000050 Wests Tigers 11,452
=#FF000051 St Helens 11,345
52 Canes 10,850
=#FF000053 Warrington 10,663
54 Ulster 10,544
=#FF000055 Penrith 10,337
56 Biarritz 10,327
=#FF000057 Canberra 10,226
58 Ospreys 9,856
59 London Irish 9,471
60 Worcester Warriors 9,306
61 Agen 8,669
=#FF000062 Bradford 8,536
63 Exeter Chiefs 8,367
=#FF000064 Catalan 8,363
65 Cardiff Blues 8,055
=#FF000066 Wakefield 7,972
67 Castres 7,780
68 Scarlets 7,746
=#FF000069 HKR 7,495
70 Sale Sharks 7,266
71 Mont de Marsan 6,454
=#FF000072 Huddersfield 6,368
=#FF000073 Castleford 6,306
=#FF000074 Widnes 6,015
75 London Welsh 5,302
76 Gwent Dragons 5,223
77 Connacht 5,149
78 Glasgow 4,180
79 Benetton Treviso 3,808
80 Edinburgh Reivers 3,779
=#FF000081 Salford 3,125
82 Zebre 2,405
=#FF000083 London 2,213

The ARL/NRL have targeted bigger crowds as being a key part of making their revenue 50/50 split with TV and other revenue...it is currently about 25% other and 75% TV.
The other RUGBY teams here have MASSIVE International presence and revenues to fall back on and Smith understands that a reliance on TV cash is a dangerous way to run a business.

First year into a billion dollar tv deal after two decades under the yoke of Murdoch... Give it a few more years and see how the game is travelling.

Year 1.
Attendances down, TV viewers down...tracking well

Their ground only holds 12,000! Have we included the total attendance for the double header by any chance?

Well at least we have got a good set of data points, a large data set to make our conclusions on. Great analysis.

Have you and Billy been sending each other late night text messages again?

Where did you get the Harlequins figure? I thought they average 10K at the Stoop? Never been much more than that when I watch Sale there.

Given the 18k figure for Saracens I think its inclusive of their Wembley promotional games, which may be true of Harlequins too (who (IIRC) play a couple of promotional games at Twickenham). Hence they're respective averages are 'boosted' by the occasional 50k+ attendance.

Hence perhaps a modal average would be a more appropriate method of demonstrating 'regular' attendance.

Re. TV figures in the NRL, 4 of the biggest TV audiences are for the Wests Tigers, Dragons, Eels + Broncos, and they were rubbish last yr, with the WC effect, S B Williams back, Hayne bn given a boost by the WC again, W Hopoate back, I'd be amazed if TV figures don't go up this yr. Also the affect of the Nines too, think that'll help.

that's how many tickets they sell in a season......decrying "event games" further underlines the insecurity of some RL fans who choose to ignore the event games put on in the NRL (Anzac day/OTR games/double headers etc..)
There is nothing to stop SL clubs taking games to bigger stadiums.........I'd be asking why they don't bother rather than trying to devalue the attendances of Union.