Obviously Billy takes great pleasure in publishing these figures and, likewise, Smokey seems to enjoy knocking them back. I'm not in either camp although I do have a leaning towards Smokey's point of view. I did take the opportunity of asking Billy what we, as supporters, ought to be doing about it. Strangely enough, he has chosen not to reply.

We all know someone we used to see at RL games but who has stopped going......if you're from the heartlands, you also probably still see these people from time to time in and around your town. Why not strike upa conversation with them and find out why they stopped coming and invite them to come along with you to the next game? Whilst you're at it, pester your mates who are married to the round ball to come along once their wendyfest is over.....their jingoistic fervour will assuredly see them snap up tickets for RLWC 2013. Any mates who are now Bird/kiddie up, get them to bring their nippers to games (on the pretext of giving 'er indoors a break)....

In my 8 years in London as a Broncos fan, I must have brought over 100 newbies to games....to a man,woman and child, they all enjoyed themselves...one even began driving us up to away games. RL uses to be about community.......the clubs need to mobilise their fans and try to recapture that.........and cut out this League of Extraordinary Bull malarky that is delivering 2/10ths of SFA!

IMHO that is

I keep telling them this at Leyth , do they listen , do they foook

These are the club averages so far this year. Im sure Jeff will be happy to work out the side by side compared to last years in the corresponding fixtures. 1 thing that I have noticed though is the gap between Hull in 5th and Bradford in 6th. Im sure in previous years it hasnt been that much.

Leeds - 14,598
Wigan - 14,596
St Helens - 11,898
Warrington - 11,372
Hull FC - 11,172
-------------------------
Bradford - 8,508
Wakefield - 8,230
Hull KR - 7,591
Catalan - 7,140
Castleford - 6,728
Huddersfield - 6,612
Widnes - 6,575
Salford - 3,409
London - 2,193

Just because he provides information about falling crowds, it doesn't obligate him to provide a solution.

( in any event, he's offered several reasons, right or wrong, why he thinks its happening, which are therefore implict suggestions for improvement )

It's ridiculous. I'm sure you are critical of say, this prime minister, or the last one, or whatever. But could you really do better? Really? Doesn't mean you're not allowed to comment on the deficit.

They dont, they cant, it is too small a sample size. It would be like picking week 18 from 2011, for instance, and asking why our games are being attended by only 48k per week. Or picking week 1 in 2011 and asking why our games are being attended by 70k+. The smaller the sample size, the less trust we can have in how representative they are. 7 rounds isn’t representative.

If the numbers spoke for themselves, we wouldnt have them being compared to cherry picked statistics, they would be complete and not partial, and we wouldnt need Mr Eve and his creepy accolyte running around telling us the sky is falling

Thanks for responding. As it happens I sing the praises of the game long and loud and will be taking 3 NEW people with me to our next home game, and with any luck they'll like it so much they'll start coming on a regular basis.

Aside from the bottom two they look respectable. Surprised Catalans aren't pulling more and well done to Wakey. Ours (HKR) have been pretty steady and won't increase until we get some results on the field. Hopefully the new away stand will encourage a few more hundred each game to travel to Craven Park to follow their team.

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Only if we're allowed to use it.

Yes, well done to Wakey home attendances on the back of adult season tickets costing £125 (less than £10 per game), young person 16-21 season tickets costing £50 (less than £4 a game) and junior season tickets costing £25 (less than £2 per game). It remains to be seen what their home attendances will be like when those hugely discounted prices are withdrawn.

Just as an aside William. Which club do you follow, are you a season ticket holder and what are you doing to increase the number of people who turn up to watch?

I notice that you see fit to mention that, but don't see fit to mention that Huddersfield season tickets are about 50% up on last year.

Several reasons? Really? Care to try list several different reasons that he has offered?

So, we shouldn't be congratulated for doing something to improve our attendances?
Jeez, you could put a negative spin on anything couldn't you really?

Sigh.

Seriously Billy?
Wakey are to be congratulated for their "long term" plans to increase attendances in the hope that the year on year growth becomes organic and when the prices creep back up, the crowds will continue to grow...especially in their new stadium.

It is a concern that attendances seem to be slipping slightly and your updates are fine, but knocking Wakey for attempting to "buck the trend" is churlish at best and class C trolling at worst.

Ticket prices going back up after heavy discounting.
Top 8 playoffs reducing interest in regular season.

You may not agree with either, but he's made those points many times.

Let it be known, several now means 2!

And he's just knocked Wakefield for cheaper tickets

Its par for the course mate.

On the whole though Trinity's attendances have been on a gradual increase since about 2004.

Because it is potentially unsustainable

Yes and for the last 12 months I've seen him trying to argue on the Leeds site that fans should get more matches for free on a season ticket, he thinks getting 13 games for the price of 11 isn't good enough and said it was better 'back in the day' when you got more 'free' games on a Season Ticket.......so excuse me if don't fall for his hypocrisy and garbage like some clearly have.

Why is it knocking Wakefield? If we're trying to understand what's the general state of things re. attendance, its good to know who's heavily discounting. Not because its a good or bad strategy ( totally depends on circumstances and what your plan is, but would seem to make sense for Wakefield) but because its good to try and understand where we're at with respect to 'real' prices. As has been pointed out, the minute Huddersfield prices went up, attendance dropped.

As you often point out, W. Eve. has an "agenda" - his thesis being that attendances are falling because of structural problems. Local increases due to heavy discounting don't undermine that thesis and he's entitled to point that out. Other things may undermine it, that's fine, make the point, but if we say "hah, you're wrong, look at Wakefield" its a fair response to say "no, you can't count that, because look what happens when discounting stops, my argument is that the fundamentals are wrong meaning drops in attendance at 'real' prices "

P.S. you just added a third..."not enough free games on season ticket". Several: more than two but not many. Thanks for the help there.

Huddersfield crowds have dropped, but not by as much as I expected. I would guess they are making a lot more money than last year.

Still only 4500 took up the option of the cheap season ticket, leaving just shy of 4000 walk ups in a antiquated ground with few comforts. I imagine it will be close to capacity tomorrow so that average should be boosted.

Not quite as simple as that , if you are comparing 2013 to 2012 then wakefields ST s are actually 25% higher than last years.
Albeit still discounted.

Yes it is good to know, but he chose to conviently ignore the discounts offered in 2012, 2011 or any other previous years to push his agenda. The main problem is that he hasn't even remotely ''try and understand'' about attendances, that you and some others can't see that is baffling.



If he wants to present a PROPER argument about attendances he needs to provides both sides of the story, he continuously choses not to and goes for the negative spin on things. When I (or others) provide the other side, yourself and others, label us as RFL & Nigel Wood lovers simply because you don't want to hear anything other than the bad side of things. People have said ''no, you can't count Saints, Salford etc.'' but has that stopped him or his 'followers'.......No, so you can't then turn around and ask us to do what you fail to do, it's yet again more hypocrisy.



That reason came from different threads so you can't claim that as ''he's given several reasons'' on this particular thread, he simply hasn't........it's also fundamentally contradictory to his remarks about Wakey making games more affordable, and he wasn't properly questioning or reasoning Wakey's prices, he was sarcastically knocking their improved attendance figures. So really the ONLY and SOLE reason he has given on this thread for lower attendances is PLAYOFF FORMAT.........it's lazy, incorrect, inaccurate, poor, pathetic, negative, agenda driven rubbish that he hopes will get enough people to drink the kool-aid with him. Seems he has a few gullible followers unfortunately!