Salford were unable to sell season tickets until the season had virtually begun - surely a factor.

Maybe potentially. However due to all the pre season shenanigans I never got round to making sure I'd booked days of work to attend games. So with the last minute buy out happening I've had to work for 2 of the 4 games.
I wonder if others have done similar to me. Though i realise that wouldn't account for the possible 1500 missing from our "core" support.
I would also guess that having to get public transport to the ground wouldn't be the best option especially with children the night before school on a Sunday with a vastly reduced service. Especially in view of it being on telly and on the back of 3 big defeats!

I'm also sure that due to season ticket applications only coming through the door this week will also have an affect this year. Especially in view of the fact there is no 0% finance direct debit option this season. So they are using a firm who charge an admin fee. I know this has put a few people off getting one as it then works out similar to paying on the gate price wise.

But your right it was a terrible attendance. Lets just hope with the new owner and the vision he wants to put into place, his long term goal to increase attendance will work. Then this discussion will be a thing of the past.

Not having pre season ST sales is a bizarre excuse.
If you haven't got a ST just rock up and pay on the gate.

The new owner must be chffed to bits with the backing of the local public

Yeah, but you'd be amazed at how season tickets affect week-to-week attendances.

On a hot, Sunday afternoon in July, with the game not televised, you will get thousands rocking up on the gate.

When it is a horrible kick off time like this, plus the TV factor, and you are not tied down by a season ticket, a hell of a lot of fans will have been giving this a miss.

The new owner is a sensible man. He knows the limitations inplace at present. That's why he got reassurances that the council and peel will get the infrastructure sorted with access roads etc... For next season.
He also knows and understands a winning team will bring the crowds in better than anything else.
He's implementing a sensible plan to build crowds over the next few seasons.
So I doubt very much last night concerned him at all.

An example of how a truly shocking attendance (and come on, sick of hearing excuses, that is abysmal) might be a good thing, if that shock reverberates to the new owner. He's a businessman who seems to know what he's doing, so hopefully will be reading the riot act in respect of finding out, analytically, what the heck is going on (i.e. none of this "its the fans fault" rubbish) and demanding a plan to fix it pronto. I reckon he's smart enough to get things turned around (which actually means smart enough to hire the kind of people who really know how to analyse what's going on and fix it strategically, rather than coming up with a few random marketing ideas).

And please, please, please drop the utter pointless delusion that "low attendances is the 'fans fault'". Thousands of Salford fans didn't suddenly become lazy good-for-nothing, game-better-off-without-them people. There are reasons people don't turn up, and reasons that they do. I'm confident the new guy will work out what those reasons are and do something about it.

You do know that "rocking up and paying on the gate" involves getting there early and spending time queuing up at the ticket office, don't you? People were walking away last season when they were still stood outside 10/20/30 minutes into a game. Whilst I understand it's improved slightly, it's still going to have put many people off.

There's a lot to get right off the pitch at the new ground, all of which will help boost attendances. Nothing bizarre about any of the "excuses", it's cold hearted fact that the problems Salford have faced coupled with issues around the new stadium have had a bad effect on the start of this season. Lack of pre-season ST sales included.

There is good news on the horizon for Salford, they have the Broncos at home next- we may end up with a negative number!!!

Why someone would want to use incomplete figures with such a clear bias and incorrect comparisons to present the game they apparently love in a negative light I don’t know.

How so many people have fallen for it is an even bigger mystery.

Pity Dr Koukash doesn't have a southern based mate who is equally keen to turn around a rugby league club. The Broncos couldn't half do with a Koukash to step in and shake things up!

Too many teams and games. Cut it to 12, 22 games no magic weekend. KO in March when weather is a bit better. Send some clubs to NZ for the new pre season Nines in Feb. CC games to attract a 50% discount on ticket prices for season pass holders.

Where does the money come from to pay for 5 fewer games, a pre-season trip to NZ and a 50% discount on CC tickets?

Last time I looked, nobody on these forums was responsible for 'presenting the game' to anybody. Crowd was dreadful, could be a ton of reasons why, good to hear them as far as I'm concerned.

I think I've final understood your problem...you think this board *is* the RFLs marketing strategy!

If you cherry pick your statistics, even when wrong, even when incomplete, and you do it with a clear bias. You are presenting the game in a negative light.

Maybe, just maybe, we don’t need to be looking at the game as something in dire need of help, maybe if we didn’t have people presenting the game in a negative light using incomplete statistics and incorrect comparisons with a clear bias then the discussion would be what a wonderful weekend of games we had this weekend? Maybe if we didn’t try and find a context in which these attendances are terrible but instead looked at them in complete context we might be looking at reasons to celebrate rather than joining the traditional RL wrist-slitting contest.

The fact is you don’t want to question the statistics provided to you, you don’t care if they are wrong, you don’t care about the clear bias they show, you don’t care that they are incomplete. You don’t care because they support your woe-is-me standpoint and it allows you to have a moan and it would annoy you if someone pointed out that relatively, historically, these attendances are very very high.

Put your dummy back in Smokey you big girl's blouse.

Sorry, I forgot that like you shouldn’t wake someone who is sleepwalking, you should never interrupt morons moaning about RL. The shock can kill ‘em you know.

Smokey, explain to me how Salford's attendance is historically "very very" high.

Why would I? I didn’t say Salfords attendance was very high, I said historically the attendances were very high, and historically and relatively they are.

Do you think the first four rounds of this years season are closer to being the best ever attended first four rounds of a season or the worst ever?

I really do enjoy looking at this thread every week and seeing all the excuses people come up with. the number do not lie that this season is being pitifully attended (almost every club is down).

but once again people just stick their head in the sand and cry everything is good!

I wonder how far it would have to fall before people became worried.

Once again I come back to last season when people were celebrating record attendance figures resulting from a series of one off event that wont happen again (cheap tickets for clubs, bulls fans rallying to save the club, new stadia, new club) and fans were having non of it that it was down to these reasons.

now the same excuse is being made for the poor figures, one off events that are causing the falls, except these are not one off events, they are people claiming that the game was played at a different slot last season, that happens every year!

Quality over quantity

So what you are saying is last years crowds were over-inflated due to the reasons you have mentioned? Should we then be comparing to 2011 crowd figures to get a more accurate picture?

Viewing Figures
Warrington vs Catalans

2012 = 151,000
2013 = 216,000
UP 32%

I'm sure he was just about to post that one.

I still can't fathom what winds you up about all this. No matter [iwhat[/i the attendances I'd be much happier if everyone in and around the game was saying "these aren't high enough! what can we do to make it better?" than being silent because someone decided that any such talk is "talking the game down". I mean, sure, we wouldn't expect the PR dept. to put out a press release highlighting falling attendances, but seriously, do you really think that our supposed "talking the game down" on this forum has the slightest effect on anything? You flatter us.

I did that last week



Given Salford's troubles and that Hull/Wire was played on Easter Monday I imagine that 2011 has increased the slight lead it had over 2013. Also Bradford look like they're doing to do lower numbers this year than in previous.........which is bizarre because it's not like the fans have had to splash out loads of money to save the club recently or had cheaper tickets in recent years......can't work that one at at all



But on the other hand
Wakey vs Hudds
2011 - 5,436
2013 - 8,467

Cas vs Catalans
2011 - 4,889
2013 - 5,205

Some go up some go down

And what any of numbers that have been provided on this thread can't show is the amount of away fans difference. If the number of home fans attending games is staying the same and the drop off is in travelling support (for the reason of cost of travelling) then it's all understandable, but nothing Mr Eve can or would want to entertain as an idea even though reading through various threads in the post-season people should've spotted how many people cited cost of travelling as a decider in attendance.

Is there a good reason that you have failed to answer a fairly simple question? If not, its quite telling that you avoided it and invented some straw man about people not wanting the attendences to be as high as they can be.