Any increase in away support would be too small to worry about, with most clubs (Wire & Saints apart, and they're not seriously affected by Friday travel). A possible increase of a few hundred, at best, which would be swallowed up by the drop in home support - Friday has consistently been preferred in Wigan fans' surveys.

I don't disagree that the atmosphere is better on a friday but I reckon its due to people being highly strung due to bombing it out of work, getting changed and straight to the game having a heart burn burger for tea. I much prefer the relaxed Sunday games and used to love going to Salford and Cas away on a Sunday afternoon in the sun.

Used to love it as a kid playing on a Sunday morning then going to Central Park afterwards.

Bring back Sunday games!

Lots of good analysis here, in my view. If I could point out a couple of things, though...
Playing rugby for my university many years ago in front of about 10 people, I then went to the US and watched Ole Miss v Tennessee play College Ball in front of 80,000. That's a big gap to bridge. In the South US I have watched high school games played to a high standard in front of 10,000 spectators. What's more just about everyone is involved, cheer leading, playing in the band, selling tickets etc etc. there is a huge cultural gap, and I haven't the brains to work out how to bridge it. American fans aren't so parochial, in any sport (at least within the US itself) so the pro and college teams have very wide fan bases. No local derbies and not many travelling fans. No national team to cater for. A very short season compared to ours, with one major prize at the end. Clubs are franchises, and if they don't pay, they get moved, sometimes right across the country; under that system most English clubs would no longer exist apart from Wigan and Leeds. London Broncos in particular would have been closed down years ago. American Football is a business, without room for sentiment or tradition if they get in the way of commercial considerations. We've a long way to go to catch up, assuming anyone wants to!

I agree. Their sporting culture and ours are miles apart.

I think the popularity of college, and even high school sport, is due to the lack of 'lower divisions' like we have here. Here every small local area has a football team of some sort and people support them in their league (as well as the bandwagon supporters following Man U etc). In a lot of towns in the US the college or even high school will be the local team and local focus of interest. People will be aware of the history and the players that have played in that team, and they may still be living and working in the community and command respect.

Another thing I find different in the US is how seriously people take their sport. They are very in to the concept of sacrifice and discipline and doing what you have to do to make it to the top. They are very in to coaching and even high school/college coaches have sophisticated playbooks.

Agree with your point on franchises being moved around the country. Can you imagine the reaction here if Koukash had come in and said there is no future in Salford, I want to take the Red Devil franchise to Milton Keynes!

Very much so - and in most cases the sports coaches at schools and colleges are the highest paid staff members.

That's worrying, but explains a lot!

How can you expect money from sponsors when the game is in such a dire state of affairs? All of the marquee/media friendly players are moving abroad, the only way to wet sponsors lips is to showcase the best players in the world in our league which will then have a knock-on effect with an increase in attendances, like i said before in it's current state we have to lose money before we can start making some or at least breaking even. Prime example Koukash has started this at salford and im more than sure we ill start to see a rise in attendances when they start winning things, Man Utd get 70,000 fans a week, why? Because they keep winning trophies! You cant deny we ar ein decline, years ago we got crowds of 40,000 plus against manly at central park, so far we have yet to fill the Dw stadium that cant be healthy!

Yes we have, against Saints this year, and plenty times before that. Whether they are charging enough for tickets is another matter. I don't understand why they charge the same price for a Saints game as they do for a London game. I'm not sure if this is a league requirement or club policy. Either way someone, somewhere is missing a trick.

Super League

29th Mar 2013

KO 12:15
Ground: DW Stadium
Att: 23,861

Did you watch it on Tv beacuse i was there and there was empty seats - Ground holds 25,000+, ok it was nearly full but still a loss of over £30,000 in revenue, back in the 80,s 90,s there wouldnt be room to swing a cat at a derby match!

The basic cap penalises rich chairmen who want to put their hand in their pockets.

Whilst it would be nice not to see a Man City come along and buy the league completely, i think there should be a number of loopholes that, if funded and guarenteed by a third party like Koucash can be exempt from salary cap.

2 x British Star player - keep them out of the reaches of Union and NRL
2 x Overseas Star player - combine with a tight quota ruling to keep import numbers down to ensure a smaller number of higher quality imports (bigger names).
1 x British Rugby Union Convert
1 x Overseas Rugby Union Convert - whilst these signings are risky, they are headline grabbers and are probably the best way to get attention from the millions of union spectators in the UK.

All the above is spitballing and would, imo, be affective, but its second by a long way to the RFL getting themselves into gear in terms of proper sponsorship for the sport. Where are the car manufacturers and finacial services that sponsor football and rugby union? There's lots of people who watch rugby league on a weekly basis - they all drive cars and have mortgages, don't they??

No I go to every game. The match sold out, the attendance was lower because health and safety regs prevent us from having the full 25,004, nothing to do with demand.

You're only allowed to sell every seat if they're allocated seats, so Grimmy is right, that's as good as a sell out as you'll get.

Big sponsors aren't in it for charity, they're in it for tax write off and profit increase. They go to sports which attract high net wealth people, or alternatively large numbers of fans worldwide. Rugby League, sadly, attracts neither. Soccer attracts both. Likewise Rugby Union. My wife works in the super rich retail industry in Bond Street, and is involved in a lot of networking and sponsorship. Rightly or wrongly, sponsors aren't massively attracted to a night in Salford with a few thousand locals as they are to an afternoon at twickers or Silverstone with all the big shots. It may not be right, it may not be fair, but it is true.

Wrong again the capacity of the DW stadium is 25,138 and now your making me include facts about the blue sh*te that reside in the stadium, they hold the record attendance or rather Man Utd do when they lifted the cup at the DW the attendance was 25,133 so what was it you was saying about health and safety is this a new piece of legislation???

I think you will find the key word is "Allocated". Seats for rugby are not all allocated, i would imagine the wendyball ones are.

I give up, might as well try to explain algebra to my dog. You can't educate pork

Are we perhaps getting a bit off topic here?

For certain matches they would be. World Club Challenge Final for instance (as was the case against St George).
Therefore it is theoretically possible to achieve a crowd of over 25k at the DW.

Aye but we've had very few fully allocated Wigan games at the DW (Is that the only one, come to think of it?) point is we've had quite a few games that have sold out.

Apologies, i was meaning matches in the regular season.

Correct, and it's a sensible rule really - imagine being the last person to arrive in, say, a sold out South Stand, and trying to find the only (unallocated) empty seat!

What a typical Rugby League forum. Someone addresses some issues about the future of RL as a whole, and within a few pages people's heads are going up their own backsides about seating capacity at one particular ground. Says it all.

It's the nature of the beast.

There are far to many nitpickers on here thats the problem theyd rather argue with people for the sake of it than discuss pressing maters.

Well at least some people have a head and not two backsides. I’m sorry to insult your self perceived giant logical intellect, but that’s what these boards are all about, discussion, and sometimes people talk about the less obvious parts of a topic. IT’S WHAT IT’S ALL ABOUT! So if it’s not up to your standard tough, don’t play, but if you voice an opinion, which everyone is entitled to, don’t expect us all to agree with you.