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The moment the NRL were aware that Manly and North Queensland were set to contest last Saturday’s rugby league ‘second-placed versus seventh-placed’ play-off match, they should have scheduled the game for Brookvale Oval.
That would have been a decision that made the most commercial sense, and would almost certainly have attracted a full house of 20,000 plus to the Sea Eagles’ home.
As it turned out, just over 13,000 fans attended the Sydney Football Stadium for the game, won 42-8 by the Sea Eagles.
Various pundits from shows such as the Footy Show, the Sunday Roast, as well as the Channel Nine commentary team, have had their say about the relatively poor crowd.
Terry Kennedy, from the Roast, opined that it was “only 21 kilometres” from Brookvale to the Sydney Football Stadium.
Ray Warren, from the Nine team, thought it was “ludicrous” that the game was not played at Brookvale.
Andrew Voss declared that finals games deserve to be played in the best stadiums, to highlight their showcase status.
Apart from Kennedy, whose throwaway line was made with as much thought as a gold fish, the various opinions have all had a degree of validity.
It is often said Manly fans don’t travel. That’s possibly a truism, and might at times, be more accurately portrayed as “can’t travel.”
Kennedy’s 21 kilometre-jibe assumed that all Manly fans live at Brookvale, and all own cars.
Pretending for a moment that they all did live around Brookvale, if a supporter wanted to get to the Sydney Football Stadium on Saturday by using public transport, it would mean catching a bus, a train and another bus. Or, a bus, ferry, train and bus if you wanted to throw in a nice cruise across the harbour.
It might be 21 kilometres, but using northern Sydney’s notoriously unreliable public transport, the distance is the least of the issues.
If a supporter did decide to drive, there’s a nice fat $20 parking fee on top of ticket prices, food and drink, which would soon make it an expensive venture for a family night-out.
Given that this was not sudden death for the Sea Eagles, not to mention the game was on live free-to-air, perhaps a few decided to save their hard-earned for future finals games.
No doubt many neutrals would be telling the Eagles fans to toughen up and get out to the game, not have a sook about it being taken away from Brookvale.
But that’s not the problem here.
The problem is that the NRL painted itself into a corner, with Ray Warren saying they should have left themselves a loophole for such a situation.
From a smart marketing perspective, forgetting for a moment who is playing, surely the idea is to maximise the potential size of the crowd?
Had the game been between the Sea Eagles and the Tigers or Dragons, then playing at the Sydney Football Stadium would have made perfect sense, because the game had the potential to attract a crowd greater than what would have been able to fit into Brookvale.
As soon as it was known the opponent was an ‘out of town’ side, the potential for a 20,000-plus crowd plummeted.
Most fans knew it, so why didn’t the NRL?
Only 14,845 fans went to AAMI Park today for Melbourne’s clash with Newcastle. Once again, the Storm were guaranteed another chance regardless of the result, so Storm fans are probably looking at going for a game, deeper into the finals.
I don’t know if the crowd figure at AAMI is regarded as disappointing, but the Sydney Football Stadium figure should be looked at as ‘inevitable’.
And the NRL marketing gurus shouldn’t look north to blame anybody. Just into the mirror.
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