Quite excited

We have a relegation fight to look forward to

No, tbh I think that is an utterly ridiculous target and completley unrealistic. Fair enough, be positive and hopeful but a 10k average in 10 years time is unfeasible and impossible. I would rather that changes are made within the club for the better and a 5 year plan is implented to improve our attendances to the minimum required level to break even (or at least be competitive financially), instead of plucking pointless and irrelevent 10 year figures out of the air.

I think an average of 6000 would suit suit me at the moment, with the odd bumper crowd.

But that target is a few years away tbh.

Mmmmm.....nice if it happens, but I reckon it won't happen in my lifetime.

Below are the average gates for Londons' SL team from 2000 to 2009.......as you can see we have a 3,600 odd average over that period so to increase this by 30% is going to nigh on impossible without some serious outlay on Marketing.
I have always said, 5,000 should be the first target and then...thereafter, the crowds will grow "organically", but 10,000 is just pie in the sky....
3430
3232
3803
3545
3460
3918
4238
3428
3630
3368 (to date)

Of the teams now in SL, below is the average gate for each team over the years (since 2001) when they visit the Stoop. (Still to play this year)
Celtic C's 2245
Salford 2670
Hudds* 2800
Wakefield 2896
Catalans 2971
Warrington 3413
Castleford 3567
Hull FC 3708
Hull KR 3776
Bradford 4016
Leeds 4596
Wigan 4762
Saints 4764

* 12,000 double header adjusted to 2,800

If we are to try to get an average of 5,000 by the next round of franchise/licence applications, then we need to add nearly 19,000 to the gates per season, over the next 2 seasons (1,500 a game). Given that away fan numbers are well down this year (not saying we should rely on them) due to Crusaders, France & Scotland being added to the "big trips", I would love to know how the RFL and The Quins team think they will find these people. An increase of 30% in gates is not impossible, but if each customer is worth £9.50 (IL's figures, not mine), then basic economics state that it will cost nearly £20 to get them in for the first time and you start making money the third time they visit. By my calculations, this points to a spend of £380,000 to get these people to TW2.......what are the odds of DH sanctioning that kind of marketing spend?
£760,000 over 26 games to achieve the 5k average that gets a 40% capacity point........ Is 1 point worth that much money?

League as a sport needs to get a boost before we see 10k crowds down here with any sort of regularity.
Union had it with its world cup win and players becoming household names, to go with the work the clubs had been doing. Cricket had its (temp) boost with the advent of that nonsense 20/20.


New peeps to sport tend to go about once or maybe twice in their first year.
A couple more after that, and then they start thinking about attending more regularly.

For years the team has moved location and seen wholesale changes to the squad. meaning that its effectively the first time going each year.

I know people keep saying "give it time" but really thats what we need, together with the community work etc.

10k crowds in ten years a bit of a stretch, although if we can build each year and start challenging for honours, who knows.

Although I support the slow build strategy, part of me thinks that you can't jump a canyon in small steps. At some stage there will need to be a surge, maybe on the back of a trophy or someone coming in and employing Gutterfax........

towards the exit

How's the gardening leave going?

Could well be the first post of yours I have really agreed with. Any growth has zip to do with marketing in the first instance, it has to do with evolving a desire to want to watch that sport live as part of the natural psyche of the viewer, and that as a generalism, is not prevelant in the South of England.

Marketing is all about creating the desire for a particular product, making the recipient want it...

To run a marketing campaign, the first thing you need is a target. Then, you need to calculate the Budget available (including contingency) and the measurement peramiters.
In the case of QRL....If the target is 5,000 average gates and the budget is £300,000k, then the measurement needs to be spot on.
Then, you try different routes to market and gauge response, sticking with (and ramping up) the successful ones and binning the failures. After 6 months, you will have a recipie for long term sustainable marketing, but you must continue to try new avenues as well.

As an example, you place a £2,500 1/4 page ad in Metro and Lite.....offering free beer/food (get Greene King to sponsor it) and a £5 ticket on production of a completed form.
After the game, data entry the forms, contact the respondants, ask what they though and offer them a £10 ticket to the next game. The resultant £10 tickets sold is the "return on investment". Yes, you may get 1,000 turn up to the original £5 game with free beer, but they aren't any good to you unless they come back! Proctor & Gamble, the world largest advertiser ($1,000,000,000 per year) say that a consumer only becomes a customer when they buy your product for the 7th time.
Is you get 100 of the 1,000 to come back...it works and should be repeated but if it doesn't, dont stop all forms of marketing.......try something new.
This trial and error method is the only way to figure out what is best for you. The alternative is to employ a marketing agency....and they don't come cheap.

I think you've missed a nought off. Quins need a 300% increase to get to 10k.

I said I was using IL's calculator


300%.........happy now?

did he borrow that calculator off Justin Morgan ?

If Quins RL brought the price of a ticket down to £14.28, then we could buy 1500 per game ourselves, achieve the target, and not actually spend any money - 1500 added ticket sales * 14 home games at £14.28 each = £299,880.

Assuming my calculator is better than IL's obviously.

[url=http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/rugby_league/super_league/celtic_crusaders/8135198.stmCeltic Crusaders Chief Executive claims that they need 4500 crowds to "break even"[/url

Am I missing something in all this crowd stuff

Just gone into the Quins RL site to be greeted by a page advertising the next 4 fixtures, good way to take you into the site I thought until I read the banner over the top of the Leeds fixture saying

"Record League Attendance"

I read it si 4,378, even Alistair Campbell couldn't spin that as a record league attendance. Best crowd of a miserable set of crowds but lets stop taking the mickey with the headlines

My God, you're right. Even by our club's standards that is an absolutely ridiculous thing to put on the splash page. Not only ridiculous but absolute b*****ks too.

Am I right in thinking the biggest QRL crowd was the 8,000 odd for the first game at the Stoop v Saints?

You would be. Apart from the double header.

I never count the double header - as I remember most of the RU fans had either left or headed for the bar to celebrate their promotion. Either way, what are the club doing with this 'highest league gate.......EVER!!!' thing?

It's a battle to win over the 'locals' I fear too. I talked to a couple in a Richmond pub last week who attended a Quins game earlier this season, as they are 'rugby' fans -supporters of London Welsh they told me are in the financial sh*t at the moment.

The experience they had means they won't go back. Apparently those noisy northerners put them off, and the language was appalling. They'd never seen or heard anything like it apparently



There is a culture problem for you in that area. Lots of people who are dyed in the wool Southeners who are intollerant of the north. Seeing League as a Northern game turns them off straight away.

You need to really market games against the Catalans, Crusaders, and another London team is desperately needed to attain the 10k. Lets hope you do it eh

Im not sure thats strictly true. I'm of the belief RU has a middle to upper class following. RL is a working mans game and attracts the "white van man" and what comes with that sort of person.(borne out of where its roots are)
RU is grown out of grammar schools etc and has been stated previously the average salary at Quins RU is £40k. It is a social scene rather than a thorough understanding of the sport scene-if that makes sense

There is a fundamental difference socially between the sports.

Whereas football crosses all social boundaries-or appears to.

Try telling that to the folks in the valley's



Born out of the working class agreed, but by and large now hi-jacked by big business and the corporate world. Once, not so long ago either, players lived within the communities they played in. These days the vast majority live with the other "nouveax riche". At the top end "ordinary fans" are being priced out of the game.