Average attendances

[BG]

Taken from a Bristol Newspaper (apologies if its been posted but I could find anything)

I believe these are the figures of tickets sold/issued (incl ST's) and not the actual amount of people through the turnstiles.

The 2 top teams for the last few years are low down in the table but that's as a result of their grounds. I wonder how many supporters they could attract if they had bigger stadiums. The max (Tigers aside) that a club and their catchement area seems to be around 14k - 16k. I wonder if that will increase much over the next 10 yrs (i.e potentially how long CVC will stay around)

https://www.bristolpost.co.uk/sport/rugby/rugby-news/bristol-bears-second-best-supported-2949929

Average attendance at home stadiums (Total Attendance)
Leicester Tigers – 20,987 (230,855)
Bristol Bears – 16,348 (179,827)
Wasps – 16,160 (177,761)
Gloucester – 14,378 (158,158)
Bath - 14,192 (141,924)
Harlequins – 13,044 (130,435)
Northampton Saints – 12,936 (129,356)
Exeter Chiefs – 12,037 (144,446)
Saracens – 9,191 (101,098)
Worcester Warriors – 8,287 (91,162)
Newcastle Falcons – 7,354 (73,542)
Sale Sharks – 6,586 (72,443)

This figure was calculated using Premiership match reports, excluding games which were all played at larger venues away from clubs' home grounds; rounded to the nearest number.
Games excluded are:
The Clash (Bath v Bristol - 60,152 at Twickenham)
Big Game 11 (Harlequins v Wasps - 82,000 at Twickenham)
The Derby (Leicester v Northampton - 40,013 at Twickenham)

[baldpaul101]

This is quite interesting.
If you take out Tigers, Bristol & Wasps & the bottom 3 clubs who still have room within their stadium to fill, then pretty much all the rest are reasonably close to capacity.

As discussed on another thread, if Prem rugby needs to attract 30% more supporters to keep CVC happy, where are they all going to sit?

The fact that most clubs are not prioritising the creation of extra seating perhaps indicates that they themselves don't see a massive influx of paying fans in the near future?

[Neils]

What about the EAs and their big matches. Cant remember where they had it last season - Wembley or Twickers. They give away bucket loads of tickets to get a full crowd.

[andermt]

Original post is missing the following games that were also excluded (original article has an advert in the middle of the excluded games list, spelling mistakes are not mine!).

Derby Day (Saracens v Quins - 42,717 at London Stadium)

he Big One (Newcastle Falcons v Sale Sharks -  27,284 at St James' Park)

The Grand Final (Saracens v Exeter Chiefs - 75,329 at Twickenahm)

[Neils]

Thanks for additional data. Makes more sense now.

[King Prawn Phuna]

This is quite interesting.
If you take out Tigers, Bristol & Wasps & the bottom 3 clubs who still have room within their stadium to fill, then pretty much all the rest are reasonably close to capacity.

As discussed on another thread, if Prem rugby needs to attract 30% more supporters to keep CVC happy, where are they all going to sit?

The fact that most clubs are not prioritising the creation of extra seating perhaps indicates that they themselves don't see a massive influx of paying fans in the near future?

CVC aren't worried about physical attendance at matches...it's the tv rights, advertising, merchandising etc. to  a globally expanded 30% that they are interested in....just look at the locations where they've taken F1 to in the last few years.
Whether you have balti pie or a genuine Cornish pasty washed down with a  real ale as your matchday experience means diddly squat to them that's money in the individual clubs' coffers not money to PRL and the value of CVC's shareholding.

[BG]

Prem clubs will need to increase their revenues  by 30% in the event that CVC are unable to increase income from TV or other sources by the same amount. I hope they do for the sake of the clubs but they were almost silent actionless partners when they had a majority share in F1. My gut feeling is the clubs will end up worse off on a year by year basis.

Whatever deals were struck by Bernie (F1) were done so that CVC could extract even more money out of the sport.

Clubs may well be faced with the prospect of having to find that 30% themselves through increased matchday sales (attendances) and their own sponsorship deals.

Looking at the attendance figures it would seem that each club/catchment area can on average attract about 12 - 15k. I honestly can't see that changing much from now on.

If attendances don't increase then clubs could increase ticket prices but I think that will have the opposite effect on revenue as less people will attend.

A tricky balancing act for clubs. This relates to points made in the "Forum" thread about possible things Wasps management could do (offering occasional friends and family tickets).

Given the amount of spare seats Wasps have, should they slash prices by 30% to increase attendance by 30%, and is that ratio even valid. Perhaps attendance would only increase by 5% if they cut ticket prices by 30%.

[Neils]

Wasps certainly need to look at what their long term settled crowd is (excluding freebees) and work out how to increase attendances. Part is how well the team do of course but selling the match day experience to the West (Birmingham and further). That is a vast untapped area. Out with my knowledge but are there Asian rugby teams that can get a boost from Wasps? Think out the box time now.

[jamestaylor002]

Our attendances are certainly not as bad as the doom-mongers will say and I do reject, to a point, the notion that we have to give out loads of tickets to get people to turn up. If the EA's have to give tickets away (who are rightly or wrongly the most successful English team currently) to fill out their ground, then we can't be doing too badly.

In terms of sport growth, I agree with Neils that Birmingham is largely untapped as I tend to find that there are a lot of people out there who will casually follow a team (like Tigers) but will find the journey to Leicester a bit more cumbersome than to Coventry.

[Wiltshire Wasp]

Wasps certainly need to look at what their long term ...... are there Asian rugby teams that can get a boost from Wasps? Think out the box time now.

From what I have seen the surrounding area is well represented by people who appear to have their heritage in the Indian sub-continent and that representation is not seen in the crowd at our games. If we could tap into all the local groups it can only be for the good.