Serious question here cause I know that for years you have 'almost' gleefully declared your reluctance to attend a Wigan match, instead hark back to when things were better in the 90's.

So my question to you would be.... If I paid for you a match ticket to the final, along with coach travel, would you go?

Or they get a better TV deal because more people are watching it. I remember listening to something a RU player said when a fan rolled out the old "I pay your wages" line, the majority of income in RU comes from TV and sponsorship & not fans through the gates.

Channel 4 are well pleased with the viewing figures as well hopefully this could be the kick start we want in getting a better deal for TV rights. Cant see the BBC paying more but for a commercial channel with adverts that could sell the game .Channel 4 on terrestrial TV with adverts at the moment Channel 4 only show games on a Saturday afternoon and not Thursday nights were spectators stay at home. The difference with our game and Football if the games are not scheduled for TV most are played on a Saturday afternoon something to look forward to a day out for some and it is the National game .

You are quite right about the cost. Official coach from Huddersfield is £55. Mid range stadium seats same price. Cheapest adult train fare we could find from Huddersfield was £63 - train worked out cheaper for us as the teenagers in our party have railcards which brought the train fare down to £30-35, plus I’d rather travel by train as don’t have to rush off.
No official announcement on ticket sales from the club but I did a quick count up of “red dots” this morning and Huddersfield look to have sold about 4000 tickets on the online site. So not too shabby- 10 coaches are just about full.
The online site won’t take Mastercard

so some folk will have to buy at the ticket office so I suspect some will buy on Thursday, also I reckon there could also be a surge on the 17th depending on the outcome of the Football as town could potentially be in the playoffs at Wembley the day following the CC.

So how come we have any one of the numerous threads relating to the lack of Fans at a game every time there's a final, semi final, low crowd, half empty stadium etc.?
And Season Ticket/Match day ticket sales at Rugby League clubs are proportionately a larger % of it's income than RU or Football for example. So it is More important to RL/Wigan that people come.
Do you think the TV people would pay as much if we got half the crowds we do now??? Or would they say "Look, you can't even get people to come and watch so why should we pay you more?". That's a particularly Dicey game to play.

I'm not going to have too much to say about other teams attendances etc. and 95% of what I read is about Wigan and their attendances.
But I will categorically tell you that Wigan themselves would Love another 2k per week watching the club and get averages up nearer the 13/14k mark rather than 11/12k and it would definitely NOT have a detrimental effect on the TV Deal, quite the opposite.
And most fans would Love having those 2k or more fans at the stadium rather that writing a million Posts on FB/Twitter/Forums etc. berating the club and the lower attendances.

End of the day Rogues has replied to Mr Frisk knowing full well that he/she isn't actually interested/has any intention of going to a game.
But the reply also needs to reverberate with other fans who read Social media etc. who purport to have more than a passing interest in the game and comment Thousands of times, but don't go to games in General.
It's simple
The more people go the better things will get
The less people go, whilst doing nothing other than whinge about one thing or another and influence others into not going the Worse things will get.

Unfortunately I can’t be there as I’m already at a family wedding that day. Yes the question was asked to ‘just move it’ but for forum rules I cannot give the brides response, however it began with F and the second word ended with f.

I do worry though for the crowd. I’d hope we’d take 20k down. Throw in 8kish for the Fev v Leigh fans. Huddersfield though I’m concerned about, realistically and with the best will in the world I can’t see them taking anymore than 6-8k. Neutrals probably another 4k. So the best we can look at is 40k in a 63k capacity stadium.

The RFL now have to be offering deals to rugby clubs, discounted tickets for X amount sold. Same for schools, colleges. Encourage coach trips packed with RL fans, or just sport fans. It’s demoralising to see Wembley year on year half full when some of my best childhood memories from the old Wembley were it packed out.

It’s not even hard to do, takes little marketing and ultimately will result in more income. Probably the exact reason why it won’t happen.

I read somewhere that the peak viewing figures for the Wigan v Saints semi-final on Saturday was just over 1 million.

Oh and just to add I'm gutted to be missing the final as we are all in Pefkos, Rhodes for my wifes "Big" birthday, a trip that was postponed from last year due to covid restrictions, so we'll be tele watchers!!

All undoubtedly true.

Mine was a slightly flippant comment as I've got foot in both camps. I'm pretty tired of the "I go to games and that's the only model" approach. I know loads of people who'd happily pay an NRL Kayo type model to stream games. Stuff like that isn't even entertained as crowds are the be all and end all.

I know it's very niche, but my old man had a very mild stroke a few years back. Sadly, one of the side effects was a massive deterioration in his eyesight. He no longer goes to games because of it, but he'll watch them when they are on TV. He'd 100% pay X amount PCM to live stream home and away games.

Look at us as a club and our annual enforced road trip - Wembley + 2 months of away games & magic on the horizon. Do you genuinely believe that's the best thing under the current climate?

Whilst not being as worried as yourself about the crowd, partly because it will be what it will be at this stage and like I said previously a large proportion of "Fans" (And I basically mean the ones who comment a thousand time more than they actually go) will focus on the negatives that, if anything will negatively influence and impact peoples thoughts.
But
On your point about getting Clubs/Fans to games/Finals I'll say the same thing I've said for 15/20 years

The RFU make it part of their membership criteria that clubs/Amateur clubs etc. take "X" amount of tickets as part of it's membership criteria (Or at least they used to do).

If the RFL made it part of theirs that each SL Team had to take say 100 each, Each Championship/League one club 50 each and say each amateur club had 20 say (People can do the Maths on the ticket numbers etc.) they would be able to get 20/25k sold in advance of the day plus the Neutrals/others who purchase from the RFL
Clubs could Sell/Promote/Raffle these tickets from the start of the year, every year locally etc.
Without going into Boring detail a local sporting organisation bemoaned the fact that their end of season County awards ceremonies had dwindled attendance numbers over the last 10 years and year on year I proposed a similar thing above. Make it a criteria that each Club had to receive "X" tickets and they could raffle them off (So in effect costing them nothing) and people would get a good night out etc.

Numbers doubled the first year they implemented it (Albeit I accept were taking in Hundreds rather than 10's of thousands, but the principal is the same).

Edit - Missed the bit about the enforced 6 week Road trip May/June in my reply
Whilst not ideal, and accepting that Yes it does have a negative impact it is one of those things, for now, we can't control.
And certainly the old "Build our own stadium" crew aren't contributing in any kind of viable way as commercially it just doesn't and wouldn't stack up.

Someone with a better understanding of how the financials stack up on Streaming games, coupled with the legal implications of the impact on the SKY/Ch4/BBC deals

I can't imagine it would be either simple or cheap
So whilst in theory agreeing, and again in theory would accept a No reduction actual/Physical crowds coupling with an increased online/streaming crowd, I'm not sure how that balance would/could work 9Without impacting on crowds and in turn how that would affect further TV deals and other commercial impacts.

I suppose whether it is expensive or not is dependant on what you want to compare it to. The tickets are cheap as chips compared to an England RU Autumn International for example and are certainly cheaper than the FA Cup Final next week (and bear in mind some Liverpool fans will be making a third trip to Wembley inside three months as well) but they are expensive compared to a Lancashire T20 match for example (unless it's Yorkshire)

What I will say, is that RL fans have it FAR easier than any other sporting fan in the country.

https://twitter.com/thechallengecup/sta ... 89857?s=12 Saturday's @Betfred #ChallengeCup Semi-Final between @WiganWarriorsRL and @Saints1890 peaked at over 1 million viewers and pulled in the highest audience share in the UK for any game of Rugby League since the 2017 World Cup Final...

https://twitter.com/thechallengecup/sta ... 89857?s=12 Saturday's @Betfred #ChallengeCup Semi-Final between @WiganWarriorsRL and @Saints1890 peaked at over 1 million viewers and pulled in the highest audience share in the UK for any game of Rugby League since the 2017 World Cup Final...

As the BBC said - THE Derby

There’s nothing wrong with the ticket prices, you can’t give them away at the end of the day and £30/£15 for the cheapest seats is great value. It doesn’t change the fact it’s tough times for many families though and as a bloke who goes to football, rugby league and cricket, we’re absolutely a family game and more so then those other two games. Football stadiums are filled by huge swathes of young blokes and cricket internationals are exactly the same. Lancashire games have plenty of families there but it’s very affordable. I look around me at rugby games and there are so many groups of mum/dad and kids (and maybe grandparents). It’s totally different having to fund a trip down south for a family of 4,5,6 etc than it is if you’re going on your own with your mates.

I don’t have an answer to it mind. The tickets are cheap enough IMO and I wouldn’t want the final on our doorstep, so I’m stumped.

Personally I don't want to move the final away from Wembley because I'm a fan of all things "traditional". The one good thing about this year is I get to go to a new stadium otherwise I'd be peed off that we aren't going to Wembey.

The only place I can think of as a more northern venue that is "good enough" would be Newcastle. 52,400 seats, good area for the weekend and it's not THAT far away. Problem then is where does Magic Weekend go to?

You can't play it at OT because that takes away from the Grand Final, so as you say....what's the answer?

Good idea.

I know those RU tickets are like gold dust. The clubs can sell their allocation (to approved suppliers), or sell to members who want to see England play.

Hopefully the new Everton ground (if it goes ahead) will be a good option.

I think its unfair to compare us to say Liverpool, whilst they may have had three trips to Wembley, its likely the majority of those crowds won't necessarily be the same supporters over the three games (apart from the few thousand mega rich ones). They could fill their allocations made up of non season ticket holders who have purchased their match tickets from regular season ticket holders or touts. Not many working class lads can afford three Wembley matches, a season ticket, champions league final tickets.... Unless they are drug dealers or their missus is on OnlyFans.

Does look like a good option, more so than Anfield which has similar legroom to Elland Road (and Economy Ryanair).

Go back to the 80s and at least a quarter of the crowd at Wembley were made up of neutrals made up of Amateur Clubs and rival/lower league clubs. Coaches and coaches of them.

There will be plenty that have done them all. I know someone who watches them home and away and he is certainly not "mega rich".

At least going to Spurs, nobody can moan about the M62.

Bizarrely there isn't a link to buy tickets for the Cup final through the ticketing webpage nor are the club promoting it with a banner on the main webpage. The only link is via the news item released earlier today saying tickets had been put on general sale.

7,300 is a decent number at this stage though, especially as it won't include RFL sales.

Just seen the 7,300 quote from the club. Pretty happy with that after 3 days and us not having not long since set up the new ticketing system. There doesn’t look to be loads left on the ticket site as well, so whilst it might not be the old days of 30,000+ going down to London, it’ll be a healthy number when you factor in the RFL sales and what we sell from now on.

Neutrals would certainly not be intrigued by the stadium. In fact I would have gone if Wembley, as my sister lives near there!
Think most neutrals would have preferred Wembley, though I may have a late change of heart as Hudds is my home town club and good to see them going well…….

Agree, the page is not that easy to find, and I was specifically looking for it.