Quote ="Enfield Exile"I think you are under-playing the importance of TV. For example, a football game on SKY (last I looked) get's around 400,000 viewers. Meanwhile the CC semi-final between City and United pulled in over 8m viewers. SKY cannot match the coverage of the five channels. Widespread coverage on terrestial TV is the best publicity IMO. City received a rush of ticket sales after the game.'"
Yeah, I know what you’re saying but the City/United clash is a unique example; it was the most anticipated domestic match I can remember for a very long time. And it was broadcast at prime time. I think it shows that top Premier League football matches on ITV or BBC1 could be a boon. In respect to rugby league, which would never get a prime time slot on terrestrial, the allure of a Challenge Cup game on a Saturday afternoon at 2.15pm is hardly comparable.
Quote ="Enfield Exile"My point here doesn't relate to football. It relates to our culture. Relegation promotion exist in an awful lot of competitive team sports throughout this country at all levels. One of the major sporting competitions in this country, the County Championship, has brought in promotion and relegation in recent years. It's improved the competition IMO.'"
But you can argue promotion and relegation in league competition only exists because of football’s success and popularity. Rugby league and cricket had single division tournaments for many, many years before switching to multiple divisions.
I think our culture craves more for David vs. Goliath type battles — a recongnition of who are the big teams and who the minnows. The NRL ideal wouldn’t work over here for that reason. The seemingly nonsensical argument that the NRL is [itoo[/i good and robotic as a result does exist.
Quote ="Enfield Exile"As a supporter, I would rather face a relegation / promotion fight each season than fight it out for a 'wooden spoon''"
That’s a given. The ‘sh
=#000000it your pants’ (or ‘y-fronts’) factor has gone from watching Salford matches these-days because of the safety net.
Bringing it back to the original tone of the thread, I’m not sure these factors largely affect Salford’s turnouts. As you hinted at, there’s no secret formula... or there might be, it’s just bloody hard to find.