[url=http://www.bradfordbulls.co.uk/news/4966/BULLS%20PLEDGE%20BUS%20TO%20HIT%20THE%20ROADPledge Bus[/url

Sounds a good idea. Hopefully it'll reach people who've sort of heard about the pledge but don't understand how it works and therefore be able to explain it to them and push on for those last 3000 names.

And Stuart Duffy will be the guest on BBC Radio Leeds Sports Program tonight. Hopefully he can plug the hell out of the Pledge

you dont consider ~100 pledges a day when we need to average 250 ish a day to be struggling?

I never said 9k was a bad figure did I ?

just cant see a 3k surge in the next 12 days unless theres some positive news coming out of club.

There will probably be a two week extension to the pledge deal with a fanfare of publicity to accompany it !

No, as I have no clue how many a day they are getting - and i suggest neither have you.


Well, pretty much, yes! You did say that they were "struggling badly" and that "if it continues as it is" then it'll be 8.5-9K.

Are you claiming you meant, "We are struggling badly, and if it continues as it is, it will be a good figure"?

so you're choosing to disregard the couple off messages adey passed on from the ticket office that there was no backlog and the count on the website was pretty much current?

as for the 2nd bit I meant we are struggling badly (if you accept the daily update as reasonably accurate which I do) to reach the 10k figure. I never said I consider 9k to be a bad figure, quite the contrary especially when you add the junior tickets (which dont count towards pledge total) onto the figure. Im guessing we'll be in the top 3 or 4 SL clubs in terms of season ticket holders evenif we dont reach the 10k adult ST pledge target.

"Discount" would be strong, but surely you've seen the counter stuck for days, meaning it CAN'T be right most of the time?


Fair comment, and (save that there isn't a "daily update", I wouldn't argue with your conclusion.

I've seen the counter stuck over weekends when I wouldnt expect them to update it ( and have reminded gledhill of that repeatedly when he's moaned every saturday morning). Apart from that I can only remember one occasion, last weds I think, where there was no update. So I think on weekdays the counter is reasonably accurate ( obviously its going to lag realtime a little as pledges wont stop coming in after counter is updated each day but it should be a reasonably consistent lag day to day).

Dont get me wrong FA I want us to get to the 10k figure as much as anyone else. I'm just stating my opinion that we wont quite reach it, based on my interpretation of the figures we're being given. Whilst there will probably be a bit of a late surge of people who've left it til last minute I dont think it will be big enough to cover the shortfall unless we get some sort of positive announcement from club to give added impetus and get a few more stay aways to sign up.

Agree on the above as this what happend with Bradford City when they were stuck at the 8k figure two years ago.

I think we'll end up with just ovet the 9k mark which is going to mean 10k gates at Odsal for every home again for the first time in five years.

I don't have any info on this either way but one sure way to make sure no further pledges are received is to announce that the 10000 figure has been met and passed.

Any marketing man worth sixpence would turn the deadline into a ticking clock with the 10000 just within reach if only YOU get off the sofa and pledge. My guess is we'll meet the 10000 with seconds to spare.

That's what the Pledge Bus will be doing this week and next although I still think that the club should hire the banner plane.

For less than £400 that would get the message across.

Cynical. But likely very accurate.

[urlhttp://www.thetelegraphandargus.co.uk/sport/8406637.Bradford_Bulls_pledge_bus_coming_to_a_town_near_you/[/url

interesting that we seem to have gained over 240 pledges between todays counter update and tomorrows t&a story being put on website a few hours later. Maybe there is a bit of massaging of figures going on

Stuart Duffy sounded quite good on Radio Leeds tonight.

What did he say?

He was talking about how confident they were of making the total 10,000.

Bigged up the big recruitment drive taking place for the next two weeks.

He was asked some of the questions about major concerns when asked what would happen to people who haven't pledged (maybe waiting to see what happens) he pointed out that the tickets will be on sale to anyone at the final price no matter whether they had pledged or not and reiterated though that they need to pledge to get the price down and that they are pledging to spend 60 quid only. He reminded everyone about the sliding scale of prices and when asked why the published those leading to (again) is it because they aren't confident of reaching ten thousand? He replied that it's on the FAQ's because people had asked it and that the way things were going they expected to reach 10000 anyway.

Sounded confident really - he was obviously repeating the scripted marketing stuff but it sounded quite good and he did come across as confident of reaching the target.

I know it's cynical but maybe we've got 10,000 already and that's why there's confidence in the camp. There might not be a delay in processing pledges but maybe there's some stretching of the truth going on as to how many pledges we have on the website?

I hope this is the case.

To be honest, when it was announced I thought we'd easily meet the target - in fact, I thought we'd be looking at nearer 12k comfortably.

It's just a pledge scheme, but still we've got, I think, at least 6 different conspiracy theories about it! The one I like best is we already beat the 10K but are pretending we haven't. But some of the others have artistic merit too.

Do we get to vote for our favourite?

You've obviously missed the previous 3930 as well.

We should have a count as to how many times he posts something wrong (if you include each Leon post, that'll be worth a few thousand on it's own). See whether that figure hits the 10,000 before the pledge.

This my hope as well. The club will want to maximise the potential sales of season tickets, so why would you announce you have reached the target before the deadline. I fully expect us to creep ever closer to the 10k the nearer we get to the deadline, with the Bulls asking people to make that one last effort to achieve the figure, ending up with 12k in pledges

8.5k - 9k would be a good result. The problem is that if we miss the 10k mark and the price goes up, even by a small amount, it will give those that are having second thoughts an excuse to bail out. If we get 8.5k "pledges" we might end up with only say 7k taking up the offer. There will inevitably be some drop outs, even if we hit 10k, but probably a smaller proprtion.

But my recollection of the first time City did this was that there was a disappointing initial uptake but a surge towards the end, especially when they announced the two week extension. So still time for it to work.

To be fair so did I.

I still wonder whether some folk are worried that they will have to pay whatever price it ends up as, so they won't commit, even though they aren't pledging to anything other than the sixty quid. From posts above it seems Duffers has put that point firmly in the public domain, but maybe they need to emphasise this a bit more, in as many places, and as loudly, as possible.

I can't get my head around the idea that just a few years back we had 12K plus average attending games and now, even with the new look and all the positive vibes springing from it, we seem to be struggling to get much more than 7K to commit to a £60 season ticket. Obviously playing fortunes have dipped but surely Yorkshire folk know a bargain when they see one!

I think the "playing fortunes" bit outranks the "bargain" bit when it comes to attendances.

Obviously price is a big factor but I dont think you get big crowds just by being cheap. I know I've spoken to people that were regulars not many years ago but haven't pledged and to be honest their eyes glaze over when I bring up the subject. They're just not interested. If we were to do well next year, not necessarily taking the competition by storm, but just generating some of that feeling of expectation that was prevalent in 1996 they'd be back like a shot and wouldnt be that bothered about missing out on the cheap season tickets.