This season’s averages high to low excluding Twickenham games

Leicester Tigers 19,503
Northampton Saints 12,990
Gloucester Rugby 12,918
Harlequins 11,447
Bath Rugby 11,384
Worcester Warriors 9,163
London Irish 7,646
Sale Sharks 7,287
Exeter Chiefs 7,187
London Wasps 6,401
Saracens 6,018
Newcastle Falcons 4,528
Overall 9,805

Saracens and Harlequins will spike after the Wembley game.

Double headers are still relevant "crowds". See round 12 here [urlhttp://stats.rleague.com/rl/seas/2011.html#7[/url

Dire for Newcastle- how do they keep going? And poor for Irish, I'd been told that they were trying to establish themselves as THE rugby brand between Reading and Southampton- and 7.6k is pretty dire.

In fact that's the strange thing- awful crowds in the largest catchment areas. Wasps' behaviour towards the town of High Wycombe and its football team clearly hasn't been missed.

A reference to Rugby League on this thread from gutterfax, what a surprise!

Of course double headers are relevant crowds but sometimes they mask an underlying problem of clubs losing their ‘core’ support at their home grounds – I’m sure that Saracens will announce a fantastic average attendance after the Twickenham and Wembley double headers despite attracting just 6,000 a week to Watford

[url=http://viewforum.php?f=2Try posting that here gf

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I think counting events such as double-headers and the Magic weekend in a club's attendance figures is at the very least highly embarrassing.

So only 1 team have a better average than Wigan?

I must admit I'm surprised that more than half the clubs in the top division aren't getting regular five-figure crowds. This is arguably the second biggest sport in the country and apart from soccer I can't think of another that receives as much airtime and column inches nationally.

I think the root of this is that there is a disproportionate amount of coverage for Rugby Union in the media. As you say, around half of the clubs in the top flight average less than 10,000 per week – the overall average of the Aviva Premiership at 9,805 is much closer to Football League 1 (7,075) than the Championship (17,334) and yet would get a disproportionate amount of national media coverage

Even looking at the Sport England participation figures, the following sports outrank Rugby Union on the number of active participants

Swimming
Football
Athletics
Cycling
Golf
Badminton
Tennis
Equestrian
Squash and racketball
Bowls
Cricket

Football certainly outranks Rugby Union in terms of media profile but I would argue that the others don’t (cricket during the summer of course but probably on a par overall)

The fact is that Rugby Union is high in the public consciousness due to its high media profile but this isn’t reflected so much in the number of people that pay to watch the game at its elite level or those that take part

There is only one sport that has national coverage on BBC of the domestic game of either live games or a magazine program of the elite competition and that is Rugby League, no others are represented in this way. There is no FTA broadcast of the elite english domestic competition, or the elite competition. The most widely read newspaper in the country is dedicated mostly to football there is some coverage of RU but not much. The largest subscriber broadcaster typically broadcasts 1 game a week from the English competition. I will leave you to guess which sport has the best treatment of a team sport in domestic competition.


What disproportionate coverage? The time when it does get coverage is when the major international competitions take place.


The only time cricket gets any strong coverage is around the Test matches, domestic game gets coverage but not much, T20 has improved coverage but that is disappointing now.


No that is not a fact it is an opinion the two things are very different. RU does not have a high media profile the only sport that does is football and is certainly not high in the public consciousness the only places in the UK where this occurs is South Wales and Northern Ireland and a few towns and cities. There are something like 35000 clubs affiliated to the RFU the majority would not be able to tell you the name of their nearest elite club or their local clubs. In terms of media profile before RU went professional it had a much higher national media profile the same goes for RL both sports now are significantly more popular with a lower national media profile, which contradicts your statement.

If you want evidence of this go to the national newspaper archive. Domestic RU/RL was getting very good coverage compared to now. Football became increasingly more popular due to social reasons and coverage increased to what we have now. BBC aside all other media outlets are commercial enterprises and react to their markets.



I am not sure which other sports have higher attendances for all it's matches. Participation you have a point but then again going based on that athletics, cycling and swimming would completely dominate media coverage.

you dont have ITV then with there FTA coverage of Rugby Union. Of course in Wales, NI & Scotland you could add that there are live games every week of the union elite competition.

If I read this correctly, you are saying that of all UK sports, only Rugby League on the BBC has a FTA national coverage of its elite competition

I am really at a loss to understand what you mean by this

Super League is the elite competition of Rugby League and I have never seen a live game broadcast outside of SKY. There is a magazine programme for SL but, as I live in London, I cannot view this and the only time I see SL on the BBC is for the end of season play off highlights. I can however see the weekly BBC broadcasts of Match of the Day and Match of Day 2 and the ITV 4 broadcast of Aviva premiership highlights. As it happens, I am a sports fan so I subscribe to SKY to see all of these live and therefore I am ok with it

The main point of my post is that Rugby Union gets a disproportionate amount of media coverage compared to other sports when mapped against the attendances it draws for its elite domestic competition and its participation levels. As this is a Rugby Union thread, I am not saying it is disproportionate to Rugby League particularly, I would be more frustrated if I were a serious fan of Swimming, Athletics, Cycling, Badminton, Equestrian, Squash, Racketball or Bowls as they receive far less media coverage than their participation levels warrant

Finally, I apologise for not getting through the rest of your post – I made the assumption that it was similar to the first line and therefore not really worth my time

Barnet FC to move out. Were they pushed or did they jump?

Saracens rugby union club now has plans to revamp the Copthall, turning it into a multi-purpose community sports venue, prompting Kleanthous (Barnet chairman) to accuse Barnet council in October last year of "looking to invite others into the borough whilst escorting us out via the back door".

Barnet Council have pushed the soccer club out.

Was just going to point out the problem with your post Thoth, but dids has very eloquently done it for me.

gf, is there and echo in here?

I wonder what Barnet council think Saracens are going to bring to the borough, other than more traffic on 20 days a year?

The idea of a community resource should be that it's in the hands of the community, not in the hands of a professional sports club with a rich chairman.

But can the community supply the council with donations and executive matchday boxes?

French rugby union winger risks two year drug ban. Put missed tests down to negligence on his own behalf. www.rugbyweek.com/news/article.asp?id=33177

French rugby union winger risks two year drug ban. Put missed tests down to negligence on his own behalf. www.rugbyweek.com/news/article.asp?id=33177

Weird goings-on. I would imagine that even with their poor attendances, Saracens are a huge draw for North London's councils- successful and with a North London supporter base. In fact, could it be argued that Sarries are North London's rugby club? (until Skolars are, I hope!)

It's good for Saracens in the long run. Makes it easier to sell tickets to the usual suspects, i.e. the crowd who only appear for the Wembley double-headers.

Saw Wasps v Bayonne last night- weather was dire, but I'm still baffled at how low their crowds are- even more telling on TV.

I'm having some rotten luck of late with choosing games to watch. Today's was Montpellier 13-13 Glasgow. The French never got out of second gear but if it hadn't been for a stupid penalty at the death, would have got the win. I've seen both Scottish sides now this season and I'm guessing there's some Scottish law that prohibits professional rugby union clubs from employing attacking coaches.
In better news, I had Toulon -16 against Newcastle. Couldn't believe it when I saw the handicap so I had to have a bit of that.
As I said last week, Aironi are gash.

[url=http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport2/hi/rugby_union/welsh/16267538.stmWelsh rugby union introduces salary cap at regions.[/url
The cap begins in July 2012 and each of the four teams will spend a maximum of £3.5m on Heineken Cup and Amlin Cup squad members.

Don't the Welsh have "central" contracts for their elite players? If they do, how much of the elite players salary counts against the cap?

Not as far as I'm aware gf. I'm sure I very recently read one of the regional teams saying it would be a severely negative move for the game in Wales. I'll have a look and see if I can find it. --------------- Found it: news.bbc.co.uk/sport2/hi/rugby_u ... 251398.stm

Not as far as I'm aware gf. I'm sure I very recently read one of the regional teams saying it would be a severely negative move for the game in Wales. I'll have a look and see if I can find it. --------------- Found it: news.bbc.co.uk/sport2/hi/rugby_u ... 251398.stm

No worries. I thought they had a system in place to try and stop their best players doing a "Henson" and whoring themselves to the highest bidders, or in other words, the French



I am a believer in Central contracts for an elite group in Rugby. The top 60 players, best 30 in the A group and the best young 30 in a B group to protect them against (a) foreign interest and (b) having all their eggs in one basket.
Here in NZ the players under contract to NZRU are usually evenly distributed amongst the 5 provincial teams and I would imagine it would be the same model in Wales....so how that would be severly negative I fail to see? If you don't play in NZ provincial Rugby, you won't get to pull on an AB's shirt....and as well paid as Dan Carter and King Richie are here, I have no doubt they would earn mega-euros by comparrison if they didn't want the black shirt.

French whores



Does the WRU have the funds to hand central contracts to 50 or 60 players? The former Ospreys coach Lyn Jones obviously doesn't think so. Maybe reducing the number of regional clubs from 4 to 3 would end up working for the Welsh game as it would mean more quality Welsh players in the remaining 3.
The beauty of the game in Wales is that it's so popular that there's a constant torrent of talent and that is what the WRU need to build the game on. Let the cream ply their trade abroad for silly money if that's what they want to do and good luck to them while they're at it. As with many unions around the world, the national team is far bigger, more significant and important than the domestic scene.