Zoo Zoo Boom wrote:Perhaps if the club up its game then the supporters might be inclined to follow?
Not so sure. In 2005, the year after we had won our 1st championship in decades, I think we averaged over 17k. That's as good as it got throughout a prolonged period of success. We seem to be able to pull in 12 to 13k no matter what the product on show is like, but in reality it's a pretty poor show for a big city club. If even a small % of our keyboard warriors were season ticket holders we'd have no problem selling the ground out and would probably have the funds to outcompete all other SL clubs for Marquee type players. Just doesn't seem to be the appetite for the sport in the city, when you compare what towns like Wigan, Saints and Cas get through the gates proportionally speaking.
ArthurClues wrote:Not so sure. In 2005, the year after we had won our 1st championship in decades, I think we averaged over 17k. That's as good as it got throughout a prolonged period of success. We seem to be able to pull in 12 to 13k no matter what the product on show is like, but in reality it's a pretty poor show for a big city club. If even a small % of our keyboard warriors were season ticket holders we'd have no problem selling the ground out and would probably have the funds to outcompete all other SL clubs for Marquee type players. Just doesn't seem to be the appetite for the sport in the city, when you compare what towns like Wigan, Saints and Cas get through the gates proportionally speaking.
I think that's a snap shot of recent seasons where a few have got fed up and don't go to the games as much as they used to. Success always brings new fans, continued success then breeds a bit of complacency which is why those attendances never got any bigger. I also think it's a reflection of the sport, the product on the field is pretty average throughout the comp.
I thought you were around in the 80s etc Arthur? Attendances now are higher than they were all the way through the 70s, 80s and 90s (maybe very slightly below 1999 but massively higher than most of the 70s/80s). We may not quite be at our peak of the early 2000s, but some of our biggest crowds back then were against the Bulls (two of the 2005 crowds were 20k plus against them). Take them out and we've not fallen much. Its also not fair to compare any season to one following one where we'd just won the championship for the first time in 30 years. Our average crowd at home in 2006 fell back to just over 14k, but then beat the 05 average in 2007. Success does have an impact.
I also think the percent of population metric is a bit off. RL has never been more than a small minority sport in Leeds compared to football. When I was at school I only knew two or three kids interested in RL. There were far more active Man Utd fans who travelled by train to watch "home" games than RL fans, also more Liverpool fans etc, and the vast majority of kids were supposedly Leeds Utd fans. On a percent of population basis vs Cas we ought to average 70k a week or something daft.
Just saying, I've been around long enough to know really cr*p times, and these aren't them. Also that the loss of Bradford to SL was a real damage to the sport.
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