19 million followers/viewers for a celebrity youtube fight? the world has yet again confirmed it is in a state of madness.

The RFL had Eddie Hearn in the royal box yesterday. Matchroom sports are the people we need to sell the one off big events.

Mark Evans, the ex CEO of Harlequins and Melbourne Storm also owns the marketing company Capacity Consulting that pushed the 2013 Big Bash Semi-final event....the RFL know they need to use outside agencies to push "events" but have only done so sporadically.......Evans has also been employed by the NRL as a consultant to advise on increasing crowds and event games......he is also the brains behind the boxing-day Twickenham event for Quins that sees 70,000 for a regular season game and he was the guy who first took sarries to Wembley

Hearn will not "suffer fools lightly" and if engaged to promote an event, he will do it his way and he won't come cheap either, but if he can do for the game what he's done for darts, then so be it.......but I'd stick with the guy who has a great record of running event promotions and increasing gates

100% agree RE bringing in outside consulting. Barry does the darts/snooker, Eddie does the boxing nowadays - I'd take either of them or any advice they can give. We won't get Eddie though, he's trying to get a subscription service for boxing off the ground.

The current strategy of de-valuing tickets has never worked and will never work. It's been shown time and time again (in all sports) that cost of tickets doesn't really matter for one off events (sounds counter intuitive I know) all that matters is, do you have an event that people want to go to. One of the key ways of getting that feeling of "must be there" is exclusivity i.e. the thought that it might sell out.

The game feels like it's in managed decline with the same boys getting cycled around the same group of jobs.

I believe when Sarries 1st got close to filling Wembley it was on the back of £10 tickets, however I will raise the problem again, if Wembley gate money goes to the clubs in the final, where will the RFL get the cash to employ Evans/Hearn and market the event properly, there needs to be a significant annual budget allocated to this.

What wre people expecting?

1. Catalans were never going to bring many
2. The semi final and final are in the same pay month so Catalans and Wire would have taken more fans who could have afforded it had there been more than 0 pay days between the games (if you’re paid at the end of a month)
3. With the gap between the semi and final being too short the RFL have no given themselves enough time to sort out an initiative to shift tickets to neutrals and locals
4. Magic Weekend stops all the coach loads of fans from around the country going to the CC final these days as they go to Magic instead
5. When have the RFL ever marketed anything properly without obstacles 1-4 anyway?

Many big soccer clubs were at home in London yesterday too, <REMOVED>....

The cup is on the wrong weekend, it is the busiest weekend of the year for other events like festivals, the Premier League is in full swing, many are abroad.

Moving it back to end of July just before the football starts again would get more media attention, and also it is better for the teams involved for their league run-in (not an issue for Catalans this year as they are so far away in the league, but it did hamper Hull in the last 2 seasons)

also as many have commented we need to work on selling the event to neutrals. If a well supported club had made the final instead of Catalans we would have added 20-25k to the crowd but that still leaves it at 70/75k and still well below the capacity.

Has the date been set for the 2019 Cup Final?

I must agree!

The date needs to get binned !

Well played Catalans!

Agree the final should be end of July. BH weekend is wrong time of year.

Not a bad idea at all !

Wow....at a tenner a head almost enough to prop you up for another season then,,,,,

Interesting that the French media were very happy with the crowd. Yet it's all been negatives in the UK press.

It's on the wrong weekend. Needs moving to when the schools are in, so many schools use to send coaches down. Then there is issue with transport the west coast mainline is always under repair that weekend. The hotels are in full peak pricing.

The attendance did not affect my enjoyment of the game in any way.

Inspired by Catalans win, Red Star Belgrade of Serbia have applied to join for the Challenge Cup for 2019.

Same here. It was an edge of your seat thriller and the presentation by Auntie was tremendous.

Despite the low attendance, the Catalans win has attracted more mainstream publicity than any other CC or GF I can remember. The vast majority was very positive as well - even ITV news had highlights on Saturday night which is unheard of in recent years

No trains to Euston wouldnt of helped.

Yes the attendance should be higher but this is on the whole RL community. Two clubs alone no matter who is in the final will sell out Wembley.

The game needs to reach a wider audience. An audience of people especially in the South East who may only go to one game a year.

And no mention of the crowd. Because the product on display and story that came out of the game were far more worth talking about.

Whenever the FA Community Sheild is, the Challenge Cup Final should be the weekend before.

The double header for the semi is a great idea, put that in late June; keep Magic in late May but don’t make it an EXTRA game (if we don’t make it an extra game it’ll give us an extra free week in the season), make it a home or away fixture for two teams and play the same fixture the year after (but reverse who’s home fixture it is) and then after two years you can change who plays who but make it the same for two years again with AvB in Year1 and BvA in Year2.

Mid-season international game in the USA should be the weekend after Magic. That gives fans who’ve spent a fortune at Magic a week off so don’t have to keep shelling money out.

Then the Super 8s or Play-offs or whenever structure we have will be an uninterrupted run later in the season to the GF.

Absolutely.

18,000 fewer than Wigan and Hull last year....... Those sides not filling Wembley is more thread worthy than your repeated anti expansion rants......

Have the CCF here next year!

There’s something in those ideas.

I do a shirt watch each year; excluding Wire & Cats shirts these are my rankings over the weekend;
1. Leeds – by a factor of 10. Fantastic turnout.
2. Hull FC. Usually top dogs & still a good turnout.
3. Wakefield. No idea why, but I saw numbers everywhere.
4. Hull KR.
5. Cas.
6. Huddersfield.
7. Halifax.
8. Saints.
9. Wigan.
10. Salford, Widnes, London, Whitehaven

I’m not sure how you are going to encourage Lancashire fans to turn up when they aren’t playing.