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The Blues View Drop Down
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    Posted: 10 May 2024 at 22:53
I heard that Blues this season have averaged (I think) 3,042 this league season.  Adding almost 200 on last year.  I guess we will be beaten by Coventry, who have had some impressive attendances but good to see the increases at both, which helps the finances and shows there are well supported teams below the Premiership!
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Kimbo View Drop Down
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Points: 6266 		Post Options Post Options   Thanks (1) Thanks(1)   Quote Kimbo Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 10 May 2024 at 23:17
Originally posted by The Blues The Blues wrote:

I heard that Blues this season have averaged (I think) 3,042 this league season.  Adding almost 200 on last year.  I guess we will be beaten by Coventry, who have had some impressive attendances but good to see the increases at both, which helps the finances and shows there are well supported teams below the Premiership!

Average Attendances:
Coventry 3373 (down 67)
Bedford 3061 (down 2)
Doncaster 1884 (=)
C. Pirates 1548 (=))
Cambridge 1411 (=)
Caldy 1182 (up 11)
Nottingham 1133 (down 1)
Ampthill 1069 (=)
Ealing 1024 (up 16)
Hartpury 958 (down 36)
L. Scottish 668 (=)
(The up/down/= refers to the previous round btw)
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A long time lurker who you used to occasionally post on TV audiences (back when the championship was on TV)

Here are some useful figures for some context, now regular season is finished.

Premiership total attendance 1,316,849 over 90 games.
Championship total attendance 175,342 over 110 games.

Compared to France:
TOP14 (with 2 rounds to go) 2,204,597 over 168 games (will be around 2.4mil at end)
PROD2  1,345,310 over 240 games.

So you have around 3.75 million watching the top2 domestic leagues in france compared to 1.5million in England.

Then you throw in the TV money, at 9.2M euros per team in top14 and 0.67M for proD2. The Premiership is £2.3M (after CVC's cut) and the Championship is nothing.

It's easy to see why the French can support 30 fully pro teams and England has around 14.

The powers that be, talk of making the Premiership the best league in the world but it's just hot air. They can't compete, as unlike France, they have a rival code and the deepest best supported pyramid in world football.

So they are mostly reliant on RFU subsidy and sugar daddy owners, which is no long term solution. Maybe they could listen to the championship clubs and look at a whole game solution.

Andy I


Edited by Andy_I - Yesterday at 12:21
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Some interesting stats there that I hadn't thought about before.

What I would say is that actually, based on those figures, the Prem is equal to the Top14 in France in terms of attendance figures, relative to number of games (eg 90 Prem games to 180-odd Pro 14 games both garnering approx 2.5m. If anything, the Prem would see slightly more. Appreciate its all hypothetical but not the wide gulf you might expect. Obviously the size of the Prem is a contentious issue and a big part of the problem with unsustainable clubs having gone bust, and that's another whole topic of conversation.

Where you see the big difference in figures you have provided is with the respective second tier leagues. If you applied the same number of games to both leagues as per the above with the Prem/Top14 (e.g. attendance/game ratio) the Champ would be left in the dust by some 1m deficit when compared to ProD2. 

I'd suggest that in the current climate, this is where the RFU believe they can gain some ground on their French counterparts and its clear to see that they have been severely lacking in finding the right way forward for a fully pro top two tiers. Hopefully things are finally being addressed with this.


Edited by Nat1 - Yesterday at 14:21
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Don’t forget all the “home” games where tickets are also sold cheap at Twickenham and Tottenham’s stadium that will also skew the figures for the Premiership making them look better. If Quins or Saracens fill a Twickenham that’s 6 to 10 times a usual home game.
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Some brave and good soul has collated all of this on Wikipedia, and I've merged some tables to get the below. Overall 1594 on average this year vs. 1336 last year. Nearly a 20% attendance increase year on year, much fueled by Coventry's surge following Wasps dissolution, but growth everywhere except Caldy. A special shout out to Knights, who also had a huge jump.

ClubHome
Games		TotalAverage 2024HighestAverage 2023 Change YoY
Ampthill1010,5981,0602,837805+255
Bedford Blues1030,6213,0625,0002853+213
Caldy1011,8161,1821,5001288-106
Cambridge1014,1921,4192,054n/a n/a
Cornish Pirates1016,2421,6242,4741509+115
Coventry1033,7333,3735,0472499+874
Doncaster Knights1018,5121,8512,2641062+789
Ealing Trailfinders1011,3541,1352,155994+141
Hartpury109,3409341,603812+122
London Scottish107,3227321,053667+65
Nottingham1011,6121,1611,4171128+33
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Thanks Gerg. That helps.

I'm a very occasional visitor to Bedford and it's always a good atmosphere (and it has rained every time).

When the train to Bletchley is switched back on, I'll make more games.
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Points: 2 		Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote Andy_I Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 2 hours 25 minutes ago at 12:27
Originally posted by The Blues The Blues wrote:

Don’t forget all the “home” games where tickets are also sold cheap at Twickenham and Tottenham’s stadium that will also skew the figures for the Premiership making them look better. If Quins or Saracens fill a Twickenham that’s 6 to 10 times a usual home game.

If you take out the 3 big games the average drops to 12,876. So they do bump the average up a bit.

As for ticket prices, you could go to the Saracens game for as little as £15.  Cheapest spurs tickets are around £60 and the NFL games are over £200!!
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Originally posted by gerg_861 gerg_861 wrote:

Some brave and good soul has collated all of this on Wikipedia, and I've merged some tables to get the below. Overall 1594 on average this year vs. 1336 last year. Nearly a 20% attendance increase year on year, much fueled by Coventry's surge following Wasps dissolution, but growth everywhere except Caldy. A special shout out to Knights, who also had a huge jump.

ClubHome
Games		TotalAverage 2024HighestAverage 2023 Change YoY
Ampthill1010,5981,0602,837805+255
Bedford Blues1030,6213,0625,0002853+213
Caldy1011,8161,1821,5001288-106
Cambridge1014,1921,4192,054n/a n/a
Cornish Pirates1016,2421,6242,4741509+115
Coventry1033,7333,3735,0472499+874
Doncaster Knights1018,5121,8512,2641062+789
Ealing Trailfinders1011,3541,1352,155994+141
Hartpury109,3409341,603812+122
London Scottish107,3227321,053667+65
Nottingham1011,6121,1611,4171128+33

The sad fact is that only Coventry and Bedford attract more spectators in a complete season than the top supported Premiership clubs average per game.

And bearing in mind the Premiership is virtually bankrupt as it is who on earth (other than the RFU who appear to live on a different planet) can possibly think two professional divisions is remotely feasible?   
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Storty View Drop Down
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Does anyone know the reason behind Cambridge's attendances jumping up from the season before? People just more interested in watching a higher level? Because in Nat 1 they had one of the lower attendances even in the season they won the league. Think the average was under 500. They've done really well to grow their fanbase. 
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The sad fact is that only Coventry and Bedford attract more spectators in a complete season than the top supported Premiership clubs average per game.

No sport is financed purely on ticket sales.
I worked in F1 finance for over a decade so know a little about this

Championship needs to understand why rugby benefactors like it and stick with it and maximise that.

.
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Points: 1212 		Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote Runitback Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 4 minutes ago at 14:48
Paltry supporter numbers for LS, is this because no interest in a Harlequins extras team ?
Run with it
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