I agree, the website ought to be more up to date but as for being the main focal point I'm not so sure.
No one actually knows how many Eagles supporters have online access, no one really knows where they live, how they get to matches, whether they are season ticket holders, whether they are Goldrush members, whether they buy Golden Gambles, merchandise etc, does anyone know what fans would like to be able to buy?. You need to know more about your fan base before you do anything and spend any money at all.

Take the number of people who post on the fans forum as a percentage of the number of fans that we may have at the moment - less than 10%? So yes have a website because they are available to a lot of people but the return you get has to justify how much is spent etc.keep it up to date so keep it simple and have something that can be maintained easily to keep costs low.


Eagleblade has it spot on - the club needs a dedicated person (I don't want to say full time because I doubt that the club could fund it) to carry out the marketing function, someone who understands what marketing is about and someone who can best use any budget allocated to them. Magnificent 7 has touched on this point many times, marketing is much more than giving free tickets out, without feedback and follow up it's a pointless exercise - you may get a couple of hundred more people but not sustainable.

Eagles ought to be able to tap into United's resource, they must have a marketing team and maybe someone isn't 100% busy all the time.

Regarding staying at Bramall Lane, I really hope so at least for league games anyway. My biggest fear is United hitting a run of good or bad form. If good then they may not want the Eagles "damaging the pitch" even though we know we don't. Likewise if they hit bad form it's something else to blame.

I understand what you mean but most people will use the website to just find out simple info (kick off time etc) and its a pretty poor image for the eagles as 1st point on contact for most.

I agree a marketing person is a must for a club but I think the idea of tapping into the blades fanbase is a goodway to go first. Perhaps (if we are there next year hopefully) then before the season advertising discount tickets to blades fans and who takes up the offer then gain their information via the blades who will no doubt have a huge database which will be full on their information

The eagles from their can tap into what promotions and advertising campaigns have/haven't been a success for united and copy their sucessful ones somewhat to the same people to hopefully repeat the sucess.

But yes in my opinion the three things the eagles need to do is, sort out the website, get someone devoted to marketing in a part time position so mark can commit fully to coaching and set up online shop for sales of tickets and products to bring in a new form of income.

I agree fully with the above points mentioned.

If you pay a dedicated person, say, £20000, exactly how many extra bums on seats, at full ticket price, does he or she have to achieve to pay his own salary ? About 150 a game ? I wouldn't have thought that was too difficult for someone reasonably competent.

Bottom line is - we've kept blaming Don Valley for poor crowds. Now we have Bramall Lane and they're no better. Or not much. If we don't get bigger crowds, we can abandon any $uper£eague ambitions.

Well sums add up if the club gets to keep full admission cost and if the increase is from match 1

At DVS didn't the club pay back so much per paying adult.

The question is, AE, whether we have genuine $uper£eague aspirations or not.

The target might be 180 or 200 to break even. To get into $uper£eague, we need more like 1800 or 2000, so the breakeven target is [iextremely[/i modest.

I must say that i think travelling support has improved a lot with the move to the Lane. That can only be a positive amongst all the negatives.

Travelling support to the Lane or Eagles' fans elsewhere ?

Away fans at the Lane

Time and trophies is what it'll take. If you can stick with Bramhall Lane and start competing for and winning trophies then in 5 years time you could be sitting pretty. Attendances soon pick up after a trophy win and you've still got plenty of Sheffielders who remember your Challenge Cup success, so for a young club you have actually got a bit of history behind you too.

After Widnes were regulated by the formation of Super League our attendances nose-dived for a few years despite the construction of a new ground. It wasn't until we became competitive in the division that they started to pick up again to become the highest in the division and have yo-yo'd a bit depending on on the field success. A lot of fans felt (rightly or wrongly) that we had been cheated by the formation of Super League and drifted away. The farcical merge of your club with Huddersfield must've effected some of your fans in the same way (though you may correct me on this point as that is pure speculation).

If you can keep stable home ground that people enjoy going to and nab a couple of cups you'll surely get the attendances up, you've got a massive catchment area and your local soccer clubs don't do as well as ours so a bit o' success'll go a long way.

Yes but "we can give your supporters a nice away day out" is not a winning policy in the Superleague franchise bid.

Was merely saying that more away fans increases our average gate.

Yes, I remember how attendances exploded after we won the Challenge Cup. No effect whatsoever.

Success on the field isn't everything. And, even if it was, there aren't enough trophies for everyone to be winners.

It does, but we need fans of our own.

Selling tickets at cut rate prices to large companies could be one marketing tool they could use. Wigan sold a whole stand to Heinz I think (but correct me if i'm wrong) and they brought around 3,000 people against quins

Obviosuly we'd get nothing on that scale but Sheffield Hallam have around 4,000 staff and say we got 200-300 to a game and off the back of that 30 become regular supporters then why not? Keep it going with other companies (south yorkshire transport, council, uni of sheffield etc) all having a certain games in the season they i don't why we couldn't increase our overall gate by about 100 or so next season. It's not a huge increase in fans but it's a start. Then put offers on for "child in for £1" or "bring a friend for a fiver" sort of deal.

It's only ideas so don't shoot me

No, I think that's good.

Agree - just needs someone to evaluate all these ideas.

There needs to be an email box for people to submit these to - either an existing one or a new one and it's also important to feedback stating whether it's something that can be implemented or not and if not just simple reasons why not.

Tell yer what then, why not just call it a day?

It's one option, of course.

A good iniative letting the armed forces in for free for the Leigh game,Another good idea but,Was put up on the united website this morning,FREE ticket for thursdays game against Leigh,IF YOU HAND YOUR SEASON TICKET INTO THE TICKET OFFICE BY 5:00PM TODAY,It only went on this morning,A good idea but surely better to have advertised it, say after the last home game,These are the things that need to be looked at next season.

Hand in a seaon ticket at united for one ticket to an eagles game, sounds good to me!

With any luck they might lose your season ticket. Speed out.

That's a good reason why clubs were reluctant to ever sack the old manager - Arthur Cox

I'm a Film & Media Production student at Sheffield Hallam University and I would be interested in improving Eagles TV, I would have access to better equipment and I also have several ideas on how it can be improved. Who would I need to contact for this?

A bit off topic - but contact the club and they'll point you in the right direction.

Probably best to leave it till Friday. There's a match on tomorrow.

Or Monday if we lose. Unlikely though that may be.