How to increase crowd numbers in the NRL

Over the weekend, I read an article that stated that NRL CEO David Smith would be cracking down on the inflated crowd numbers that NRL clubs have been providing to rugby league headquarters.

The act of embellishing attendance numbers at games is nothing new, but apart from the notion of saving face, I’ve always wondered what good it actually does.

Sure, it may allow a club to boast about its crowd figures – or more likely, save the club from an embarrassing number – but it’s the equivalent of telling a first date that you’re extremely wealthy.

Yes, there might be some short-term benefits, but if you’re into it for the long term you’re going to be found out, and you’ll end up being much more embarrassed than if you were just honest in the first place.

The proper strategy for addressing low attendance figures is not to lie about them, but rather to try and actually increase them. Sounds simple, but it’s almost certainly not quite that easy.

In fact, I’m sure club officials discuss ways about improving crowd numbers every single day, but that hasn’t stopped me from thinking of some ideas that I would love to investigate in order to ascertain how feasible and realistic they are.

A caveat worth pointing out: these ideas are on a scale, ranging from ‘easy to implement’ to ‘fairly radical, if not insane’. You’ve been warned; I’m about to get crazy.

Make ticket prices cheaper
I can see club CEOs rolling their eyes at this one and crying that it’s not quite that simple. Well, actually, it is.

The bean counters in rugby league are about to have a heart attack, but I propose that all tickets to NRL matches should be $10.

That’s right, you read that correctly. $10.

Before you dismiss that idea as the ramblings of a mad man, hear me out, because the revenue ‘lost’ by cutting the cost of ticket prices so dramatically can be made up in other ways.

Firstly, 10,000 fans paying $25 a ticket generates $250,000 in gate-takings. 25,000 fans paying $10 equals… you guessed it, $250,000.

I’m utterly convinced that reducing the ticket prices would increase the number of fans attending matches, and that increase alone would offset the financial losses that a reduction in ticket prices would create.

The added benefit of more fans at games can’t be underestimated. Of course there is the obvious benefit that the atmosphere at the game would be better, but increased crowds also increases the amount of sponsors that the club and the competition can attract, along with increasing the investment that those sponsors are willing to make.

Get more fans in at a cheaper price, and you’ll be rewarded financially in other ways.

Make attending the game cheaper
General admission tickets to this Friday night’s game between the South Sydney Rabbitohs and the Wests Tigers at ANZ Stadium in Homebush are $25. Despite my point above about lowering ticket prices, $25 is actually very good value.

Unfortunately, that is merely just one cost of a night out at the footy.

For a family of four, once you factor in ticket prices, parking, tolls, petrol, food and beverages, you’re looking at a couple of hundred dollars. Any way you cut it, that’s a pretty expensive night out for a family.

And when you consider the same family could stay in and watch the game on TV, and that both Channel Nine and Fox Sports’ coverage of the game is world class, you couldn’t blame them if they decide to forgo actually attending the game, and thereby its cost.

And please don’t say something along the lines of ‘If they were real fans, they’d just pay up’. Such a sentiment is not grounded in the realities of raising a family.

All clubs should look at ways they can minimise the costs of a night at the football, cutting the cost of not just tickets, but parking, transport, food and beverage.

In particular, the mark-up price of fried potatoes and keg beer at football grounds is pretty disgraceful.

Build a stadium in the heart of the city
It’s worth noting that eight clubs in the NRL are based in or around Sydney. As such, this proposal is extremely Sydney-centric.

Now, I’m not city planner, nor a politician, or an architect. It’s therefore very easy for me to throw around bold statements like ‘just build a stadium’, without having to worry about reality, feasibility or even common sense.

In fact, it’s not even the first time I have sprouted the crazy idea, having actually written about it back in April 2012.

However, I truly believe that a state-of-the-art stadium in the heart of the city could do wonders for NRL attendance. It would make transport to the game much easier, along with providing the added incentive of a night out in the city, or pre-game drinks with friends.

Instead of another casino at Barangaroo, what about a football stadium? At the very least, re-develop the Sydney Football Stadium site, which in totality is a lot bigger than you might expect, though obviously heritage listing and conservation protection barriers remain.

Cut the number of Sydney clubs to four
Let me be upfront and honest by stating that even I think this is a lousy idea.

However, if the brief at this end of the spectrum is ‘radical’, how about cutting the number of NRL clubs in Sydney to four? Not by killing four clubs, but by killing all eight.

Hey, I said this was radical.

In their place, four new clubs are created, essentially representing the four zones of Sydney: North, South, East and West. The clubs are not mergers, but brand new entities. Brand new football clubs.

The original clubs still exist, but only play in second tier competitions, somewhat acting as feeder clubs for the four new Sydney superclubs in the NRL.

There are some fundamental issues with such a plan, none bigger than the concern that it will it simply alienate fans, rather than increase crowd numbers.

However, if the new clubs are positioned as representative teams for the four regions, perhaps this issue could be overcome.

After all, the Parramatta Eels and the Penrith Panthers don’t necessarily get along, but their fans are unified when their players are selected together to represent the New South Wales Blues.

So there is a precedent that exists, even if it is tenuous.

If fans can be unified to support their regional superclub, it would certainly increase crowd numbers.

The TV deal is based upon 16 clubs being in the competition, so that would need to be looked at again, along with roughly another 5,000 things wrong with this idea, but at the very least, it’s food for thought.

Perhaps Roarers have their own thoughts on how to increase NRL crowd numbers?