I agree it is a landmark fixture especially as it is the only major RL final on BBC.
I am a traditionalist and don't particularly want to see it moved, my comments were aimed more at explaining why it is poorly attended and maybe that is the level of attendance we should expect.

Having said all that there are ways the attendance can be improved.
Firstly if the RL accept that it is our major showpiece then maybe they should use some of the sponsorship money to encourage fans to attend.

We have approx 30 clubs in the league and numerous amateur clubs. The work should start now to try and encourage all those clubs to take one or more coach loads of fans to next years final.
All clubs have local businesses who sponsor matches, encourage the clubs to use their contacts to get these firms to sponsor a coach trip to the final, maybe for their own employees and or other fans.
In terms of advertising costs it isn't expensive and maybe could be built in either the price of match sponsorship or ground advertisements..
Each club could start a club (similar to say a Xmas club ) where fans could pay in an amount per month or per week towards the cost of a Wembley ticket again this could be wrapped up with maybe payments tothe clubs lottery fund.

I'm sure there are numerous other ways it could be done but the RFL need to find a way of making it worthwhile for the grassroots clubs to put the effort into it.

Back when Wembley was a sell-out every year, the world has moved on. It was often the big trip of the year for many people, but now people enjoy city breaks and overseas trips all the time. Going to London is nothing special anymore, and the loss of the old Empire Stadium takes away the traditional feel.

It was also the only big event, and the RFL can't have that many. They either have Magic or they have the Challenge Cup, and they have it at a time when perhaps 10% of the audience isn't on holiday, but they can't have both. They could easily make it a whole weekend thing somehow. Take it on the road. There are many ways to reinvigorate it, but watching a half-empty stadium isn't one of them.

This.

For supporters of teams who are unlikely to get to finals their day out at Magic is their Rugby League 'big stadium event'. In years gone buy many of them would have attended the CC Final as a neutral. Another thing which is overlooked, the demographic of a Rugby League crowd has changed (mostly intentionally). It's been marketed as 'the family game'. There used to be more men who go with their mates for a good session on the beer. Nowadays there's more families, kids etc which makes a more expensive day out for the whole family.

Stadiums are mostly designed these days with viewing and comfort in mind which has a significant effect on the atmosphere. The sense of occasion can be lost.

Also a lot of fans from traditional but smaller none SL clubs and amateur teams used to go as a regular event, regardless of who was playing. However, over the years the RFL/SL and the snobbish nature of many posters on forums like this has managed to alienate them.

There is no incentive or people at these clubs to organise trips because to them SL is a different world to which they no longer feel an allegiance too, a bit like the International game.

Get these people incentivised again and you will fill far more seats, maybe not the sell outs we used to get but certainly a lot closer. I'd guess we are talking maybe 5,000 extra fans.

Well said.

Wait, hang on...RLFans.com is responsible for lower Wembley crowds...

Challenge Cup is a dying/dead tournament, poor attendances in every round. Throw in there's too many games it's just time to get rid of it.

Could you imaging football doing the same with the FA Cup ??

Clearly the Challenge Cup is not quite right at the moment and THE main reason is the move to summer rugby and the emphasis for success all driven towards the GF.
To abolish the cup, along with almost 130 years of history would be a very, very sad day for the sport.
As with many things that are wrong with our sport, the promotion of the cup is terrible.
Even the addition of the 1895 final to Cup Final Day was done the wrong way round.
Having the lower ranked game on after the main event was mickey poor.
IF we ware going to have any double header events, the lower grade game has to be played first. It's like going to a gig and putting the support band up second

I agree

The final needs moving back 6-8 weeks away from summer holidays.

Scrap this seeding system aswell and go back to random draw. Losing the shock factor of two big teams going head to head in first round proper just takes the excitement of the draw away, now every super league team knows they are more than likely having to play pretty much 3 super league teams to get to the final. Each round should be every 3 weeks and 4 weeks from semi to final.

Scrap magic weekend as that's has served very little purpose, attendance their as stalled and was never really that great anyway. Make the CC weekend the big day out weekend again. Having it 2-3 months away from the grand final means they two events will not interfere with each other so much.

I don't see why creating that bit of random draw surprise rounds played at regular intervals and only the grand final as the ther. It occasion will not help get some cup magic back again. It's never going to be the biggest event ever again the Grand final has that and so it should be, be no reason why it cannot be a close second.

Albeit the FA Cup has, in terms of attendances and prestige has had a similar downturn. Yes, the final is well attended, but knockout rounds aren't, and many PL teams field understrength teams (priority on PL position / European competition).

I agree with an unseeded draw.
The magic of the cup, be it football or rugby league is that the smaller teams have the chance of playing the big teams. Ok, so they may risk running up a big score, but SL teams have big enough squads to make use of.
Big boost to the smaller teams coffers too.

Put the end of season back to Oct 31st

Top 30 pro clubs plus top 2:amateur. split into East and west. round 1 replaces magic and summer bash with 16 west clubs playing at Blackpool and 16 East clubs playing at Newcastle. Unseeded. (solves problem of the 'odd' fixture.) Play for decent prize money.

Further rounds normal CC but let's use the Oct 31 end to allow clubs plenty of rest weeks (and the fans a holiday). These games not being on SKY should be played on traditional weekend afternoons.

London Wembley is an outdated tradition and with folk travelling 4hours by car and coach it's a complete waste of human endeavour. Etihad stadium is having its surrounding redeveloped with hotels and restaurants - 55000 capacity will mean sell outs and a higher ticket price made affordable by easier travel which will give the RFL the revenue they need.


.

Giving up Wembley means giving up decades of tradition. A feeble and defeatist idea.

But is it defeatist I love Wembley the old Wembley I have been to the new Wembley loads of time has well it is not has good has old I think time to move it from their with a better date

Really mature.

To clarify, the elitist attitude of some SL fans, you clearly being one, puts people off. Sadly you will never comprehend this such is your apparent arrogance, ignorance is a vicious circle.

no but really...RLFans.com is responsible for low crowds at Wembley






Come on now

I'm not sure that's right, because the Grand Final, which is explicitly Super League focused, often has fans from all the clubs from all the leagues. It's just never recovered from the demolition of the old Empire Stadium, because other concepts grew, such as Magic, and the new Wembley doesn't have the tradition of the old Wembley.

If you move it from Wembley you might as well just scrap it. Since scrapping it now would make us Cup holders for eternity, I'd be okay with that.

That's a fair point but, Football seems to have coped with the upgrade and the FA cup final is still revered in most quarters.
The major difference is that, unlike RL, the FA Cup final is still just about the last act of the football season, whereas, we now focus on the GF.
You could say that the Challenge Cup is now more akin to the old League Cup in football and that too has lost most of it's kudos.

The FA Cup is nowhere near the standard that it once was. Look at the teams most managers put out throughout the tournament, with even smaller clubs prioritising league places, staying up, getting promoted or whatever, and treating the Cup as an inconvenience. The reason why the final still sells out easily is because it's more often than not contested between clubs who have far larger fan bases than any rugby league club. No one sees it as a massive competition or dreams of winning it anymore though.

The FA Cup is skewed by the elitism that comes with finishing in the top 4 of the Premier League and qualification to the Champions League, or at the other end survival in the PL.

The reward for winning the cup, is secondary to those (a few hundred grand plus a Europa League place)

Similarly positioned, the CC now offers little reward compared to SL survival or a GF win, and the weighted draw, coupled with the difference in competitive strengths of squads in and outside SL, means the realistic chance of Championship club ever winning it is minimal.

So, if they wanted to make the CC more engaging and relevant again, they need to somehow address the reward mechanism, to make the victory more meaningful - eg a wildcard entry into the end of season playoffs or something?

I think you would be surprised at the prize money of the semis and finals of the FA Cup
Semi Final runner up £450k
Semi Final wwinner £900k
Final runner up £900k
Final winer £1.8m
These prizes are cumlative too, so win the semi and final and thats an extra £2.7m in to the coffers + all the earlier rounds prizes too which admittedly are much lower

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I like that notion.

That's peanuts compared to £100m for finishing 4th from bottom, and continued existence in the PL though and £1.9m extra for every place they finish above 20th.

[urlhttps://www.totalsportek.com/money/premier-league-prize-money/[/url

Then if you look at the top end, there's a massive difference between financial reward for Champions League versus Europa League too

[urlhttps://www.statista.com/chart/13892/price-money-europa-league-vs-champions-league/[/url

So if they offered a CL place to FA Cup winners, it'd be more notable !

“In addition to England home games [that are NEVER full! and the FA Cup final, the stadium also hosts other major games in English football, including the season-opening FA Community Shield, the League Cup final, the FA Cup semi-finals, the Football League Trophy, the Football League play-offs, the FA Trophy, the FA Vase and the National League play-offs.”

Only the EFL Cup final and FA Cup final ever see a full house out of all those football games at Wembley. Nobody ever comes out with “let’s move the League 2 and League 1 Playoff finals”.

Let’s face it, that’s our level. Only once this decade has the League 1 Playoff Final been bigger than the CC final attendance. Even last year with the 50k Catalans v Wire CC final attendance, there were 26k at the Rotherham v Shrewsbury playoff final.

Okay, this year’s Lg1 playoff final saw a 77k attendance but that was between two big clubs - Sunderland averaged 32000 in the third tier of English football last season, and Charlton used to get home crowds over 75000 between the wars. Both of those clubs’ attendance histories make even Leeds and Wigan rugby league clubs seem like little efforts of sports clubs.

Yet our little efforts of sports clubs still attract 62k-80k to Wembley!

Crowds fluctuate. Spurs got a few 85k crowds at Wembley but also got a few 30k crowds and nobody said a Dicky Bird. Lg1 play off finals have been between 26-77k. The CC final crowds have been between 62-80k apart from last year.

I think that’s just fine!

Leave the CC Final at Wembley, I love my Wembley trips (7 in the last decade) as you never know if it’ll be your last ever one.

Stop messing about with the culture of the game!

The only thing that needs to change is the date. Move it away from the football season. United and Liverpool, two clubs that have a lot of fans in St Helens and Warrington and of St Helens and Warrington who will have gone to the United and Liverpool home games instead of Wembley, were both at home last Saturday. And get back out there to the other SL clubs, lower league clubs, amateur clubs, junior clubs, school teams etc. and have a system in place to get them to the CC final. And don’t have it on a Bank Holiday weekend when loads of people go away.