There was one regular season SL fixture last season where I questioned the attendance - that was the Catalans V Hull KR game in Toulouse. An agenda was being played out that day along with a propaganda message at one end of the stadium which was empty of fans, apart from a large banner spread out saying [i"Toulouse for Super League"[/i.

I don't take any interest in Union attendances but that bloke from Dubai who finds simple things complicated appears ever so keen today to display his ignorance on so many subject matters, I didn't want to let him down



Those Union attendance figures which I compiled are a surprise to me. I had an idea that Aviva Premiership attendances were higher than those in Super League, but only marginally, and certainly not as much as over 47% higher on average!

....ah, but not if you remove those "event games" as well as double headers, take Leicester Tigers away from the equation and ignore games that kick off at 3pm on a Saturday...then they are not as big at all. Then, if you remove all the middle and upper middle class s who went to public school who pay over 50 quid each to go to Twickenham, as well as ignoring all the millions of people who tune in to watch the 6 nations, you can convince yourself that Rugby League is more popular as far as the British Public think and not a Northern Hobby played by pit towns along a motorway as well as by an invitational side from London and one from France!

Leicester Tigers crowds wee all over most SL crowds chump. Wash your flat cap.

So, according to you, the game should remain in the bowels of low socio-economic sub-culture of British society? Sorry chump, we don't all holiday in Benidorm and watch Big Brother......

RU has a much higher caliber of personnel supporting the game too. That is why RU is much cash rich. Not hard to work out is it?

RL - has an image of flat caps, £1 shops and dumb pork pie eating fat northerners who love holidaying in the cultural hub of Benidorm...



RU - has a much more sophisticated image of culture, wine, arts and enjoys the more intricate holiday destinations of Spain (away from the tackiness)....

PS, I prefer RL as a sport but am starting to resent the stupid sub-culture RL has. The NRL is the only way out.

Good work! SHOCK HORROR - RL in denial......

Re an earlier point about introducing RL into schools (especially here in the South) and setting up leagues. This was done a few years ago by Shane Rampling the player/coach of St.Albans Centurions (now coaching back in Australia)
He along with others really helped introduced RL to the Hatfield/St.Albans area which had previously being dominated by onion and with the help of the club have an established juniors section as well as the schools participating regularly.
Same thing with Hemel also. Medway Dragons are a superb example of what can be achieved in a relatively short space of time, but without further support nor a higher echelon club there is often a drop off or no further progress..vicious circle really
The Southern regions do have a taste for Rl, it just needs constant backing by the RFL in a way that makes sense..not their strong point sadly

We had the St.Albans cents minis along with the Verulamium schoolboys leading out the England & NZ teams at wembley , organised by Gary Tetlow (co-founder of St.Albans cents) he was the leading force behind the 800 tickets sales for the RLWC just from the club alone including many whom had never gone to a game of rugby..period

I'm in the affluent classes and a RL fan, we are out there!



TBH looking at price of tickets to RL game in UK and Oz I think you have to be reasonably affluent to watch any sport live these days!

Actually I'd disagree, if you live within say a 5 mile radius of your team (& a very high % of RL fans do) then paying £20-25 every other week (say £12/week or even cheaper with a season pass) with maybe the odd away game isn't THAT expensive.
It's the equivalent of 5 pints of beer a week, or 3 pints if you live in the home counties..lol. Cigarettes are what, £7/packet almost, so 2 packs of fags and that's your ticket right there...
For the ladies a season ticket can be spent in about 3 or 4 sessions down the salon..




Yes for some people they have higher priorities, I get that, and for some they just cannot afford to go that often no matter what they do.
But i'd confidently say that a fair % of people spend their money on other things that are completely and utterly meaningless or do actual damage to their body when they could actually have a good social day out watching their team...win or lose.
RL is for life, you can't walk away no matter how disgruntled you get with the game or the idiots in charge nor matter how badly your team are doing. You go because it's in your blood and you bloody well love it, and getting other folk from other backgrounds to go watch it because it is so good is a part of that because you want to share how great our game is



Can't wait for the new season now

Australia has finally woken up to how sht RU is, its only a matter of time till the rest of the world follow us!

Yeah.......coz where Australia leads, the world follows!

indeed it has in so many ways and cases. Google Australian inventions to see just how much.

Australia is the first country to show just how inferior RU is to RL and the public have awoken to this fact and abandoned the kick and clap game in droves. It will soon be totally decimated, they've cut salaries, been relegated to Pay TV and are realising they can't even sustain 5 professional teams in the whole country. NRL is developing the blue print for others to follow.

couldn't be any further from the truth.

yes now take out the event day attendances and it will drop by at least 3k. Also leciester tigers ground only holds 24k and there is no way they have sell outs of game. Like i said inflated figures for what ever reason.

Thank you for proving a point that it can be done just needs the correct amount of backing.

Why people class human beings is beyond me but hey prejudice, stereotyping and discrimination comes in all forms.
The "affluent classes" as I would define them are probably those born in the late 40's and during the 50's.
It would appear, according to experts on these subjects, that there is more disposable income available to them, ignoring all the hoo-hah regarding state pensions.
The challenge is to get them to be more involved whilst realising that you need to keep the younger element interested as well.
Time for the clubs , RFL and SL to look at what they are doing and need to do regarding the promotion and marketing of the game as a whole.
I will start and say the RFL website needs a total overhaul with first thing needing to change is the awful drab colour scheme.

You are wrong again but that should be of no surprise to anyone. Excluding the "event" attendances, the average drops by just over 1k (or 1,150 to be exact). Without the event attendances, the Arriva Premiership average is still almost 34% higher than Super League.

=#0000BFSuper League Total & Average (2013) = 1,557,659/182 = 8,559
=#FF0000Aviva Premiership Total & Average (2012-13) = 1,662,682/132 = 12,596
Less Event Day Attendances (2012-13) = 186,165 from 3 events
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
=#FF0000Aviva Premiership Total & Average (2012-13) = 1,476,517/129 = 11,446
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------


Check out Sky Sports 2 right now. Another Leicester home game (this time a pool game against Ulster in the Heineken Cup). Guess what? The ground is chocka full.

difference being heineken cup and not aviva. and Ulster have quite a big following as well.

So what were saying is if you want to get attendences above 20k make sure there is no good football (soccer) club within a 50 mile radius?

Got it.

Have you been counting them on TV?

What I'm saying is that Aviva Premership attendances are way higher than Super League attendances.

Have you got that?

The self-flagellating dubairl clearly hasn't.

Im sure you have. but no i watched saracens today and that is enough union for the day.

If Bradford and wakefield had been relegated out of SLE,then in a couple of years time Leeds would probably have been the first club to attain regular 20k gates,but hey ho lets keep working on ideas to keep failed clubs in the league

You wonder why people have issue with the points you make when you present them to a rugby league forum like that?

And I seriously don't care if extreme kite flying has higher attendances in India than rugby league does in England.

There is a 1000 different variances which stop it being a direct comparison. Proximity to the premier sport in this country is only one of them (I'd be very interested to see how Leicester tigers attendances and Leicester City fc attendances track together over time mind.)

The only true statistics in your list would be Leeds rhinos vs Leeds tykes (but I don't believe tykes are in the top division at the moment) and harlequins ru vs harlequins rl (where I'm sure ru "wins dramatically" but if quins ru had been dragged around the city of London for the last 30 years it might be a different story) there are arguments I suppose that Salford vs sale is fair but then you start having to quantify "identity" of a club so probably not.

Stats can be made to show literally anything. That's why to the majority they mean nothing (my stats professor used to say that) - in sheer number your data suggests more people physically attended an area whereby professional sport rugby union is occurring. The rest is conjecture.

Ah.,.....so his response to sweeping incorrect statements using facts isn't to your liking then? If the more insecure posters amongst us weren't so hell bent on making themselves look stupid, then Billy would be out of a job. I for one enjoy his statistical posts.

He doesn't offer contradictions......unlike your good self.




Which is it? Either you care or you don't?

Then....and this is pretty clever, you compare the 2 Leeds clubs but almost childishly dismiss the Harlequins clubs and the 2 sharing the stadium near Manchester because they most assuredly don't suit your point of view.








Actually, the stats in this case have not been manipulated to how anything. They were simply produced as the seasons average attendances for the 2 top leagues, one in Union, the other in League. Because Union comes out streets ahead, you of course say "stats can be made to show anything".

I'd be interested to see how much you learnt from your Stats professor. Show me, using the published attendance figures above, how Superleague has a bigger average attendance than the Aviva Premiership!