The 20,000 dream

[ancientnloyal]

I think some knew before the fans forum #2 that IL wanted, quite quickly, to get crowds of an average 20,000 at the JJB. He reiterated this point last monday at the forum.

Personally I can't see how this is going to happen. We are of course a town competing with the Premiership and Championship teams in the local area, Wigan as a town economically isn't very rich - we are quite poor.

Ticket prices are due to go up in the North stand and season tickets are going up by around £15 due to there being 1/ more games at home next season and 2/ our prices for travelling fans is £5 less than huddersfield/ hull kr etc... Away fans have had it relatively easily, easy to get to stadium, free parking, cheap entrance fee... I believe hull kr attendances will drop by 150-200 supporters if prices rise... this is significant...

When we play Catalans we should have 20,000 wigan fans, it is unrealistic...

20,000 IMO is an unrealistic target, maybe 17,000 then 17,500 to get us to Leeds' region... Mick Hogan has the job to see that this can be achieved whilst prices rise... so better marketing, better word etc...?

You cant fault IL's determination but 20,000 sadly wont happen.

[pedro]

Thing is its 13 games next year same as this at home....how can he expect us to pay more for a degrading unsuccesful team?

[Matthew]

The only way I can see that happening is if the results on the pitch dramatically improve.

I can't see Wigan RL poaching many fans from the latics - as the markets are in direct competition with each other. Even if latics don't survive in the premiership next season (which is unlikely) then I don't think that we will inherit fans from them.

In order to attract extra fans; you need to be playing rugby that people want to see - fast following exciting attacking rugby; backed up by passionate robust defence - people do not want to watch a team folding like a deck chair in strong wind ala last Friday night.

[Wigan_forever1985]

people wont pay for averageness forever if anything the crowds at wigan will decline. Not to say that wigan fans are glory fans far from it but its a case of you cant demand top notch prices without having a top team. Leeds have the best attendances now and why is that? because they have an exciting team that has a chance of succes in everything they do. Leeds fans would fall off if they were playing like wigan are now!!. Trouble is at the moment there is no light at the end of the tunnel for wigan the manangement keep saying we need to do this we need to do that but they aren't actually doing anything.


They say there is a lack of leadership yet this seems to be more an admission and acceptance rather than a point to address. in 2005 betts had control of a squad completely decimated by injury and a youth team at best. Wigan fans were ok with this side getting battered cos it was hard to make a case for them not and they still managed to beat stains!!. for the last 2 years we have had a great team on paper and no excuses for lack of silverware should of at least made the final of the CC last year!.

I just dont see what a fan's incentive is to watch wigan at the moment is it go and watch the team basically running of the hangover that your money paid for?

[centralparkwembley]

well with wigan being a rugby town I feel that we should easily be able to attract 20,000 fans to watch us. To do this though we will need to up our marketing schemes and promotion of the sport through schools (the next generation of rugby fans) 2 years ago when we where in trouble of relegation our promotion of games was second to none but this season it seems to have changed slightly, hopefully we can get that promotion back and increase our average.

[warrior till i die]

for us to reach 20,000 many things need to change.

1) Performances- every club has its "glory supporters" and if we began to perform better we would attract greater attendances. Loook at bradford about 5 years ago, they were attracting near 16,000 crowds to odsal when they were playing at their peak. Also look at leeds now, they are attracting healthy attendances due to their performances. If we improved our performances I could see the average attendance increasing to about 17,000

2) Marketing- I think we need to market games better and promote our matches more. It is all good promoting games like saints and warrington (which generally attract good attendances) But we need to heavily promote the other games and not just in the wigan area but also bolton and surrounding areas. This will attract fans from other regions who could potentially be interested in watching us.

3) Promoting in schools- (Similar to what centralparkwembley said) we need to push the sport in schools and give away freebies. Kids will come along and watch the rugby and potentially want to come back. Therefore we are bringing in the next generation of supporters which can only improve our average attendances.

It is possible for us to reach 20,000 fans as an average but we need to seriously work hard for this to happen

[Matthew]

One very small point to make...

When you watch Wigan on TV - they come out through the paper banner and run out on the pitch. As well as the line of cheerleaders on the pitch - they usually have a line up of little kids (in Wigan shirts) stood next to the tunnel.

9 times out of 10 at least one of these kids will put their hand out as the players go past; hoping for the players to slap hands as they go past - 9 times out of 10; nearly all of the players run past without doing it.

Now I know that players need to focus on the game - blah, blah, blah - but surely it wouldn't do any harm to have these kids returning to their school telling all their friends how they "high fived" their favourite player as they ran onto the pitch? One little lad looked really disappointed as they all ignored him as they ran past.

Interacting with fans like this would surely make the players feel connected to the fans - and those little kids are surely the season ticket holders of tomorrow?

It's sometimes the little things like this that can make a difference

[ancientnloyal]

The problems with schools is that we cant give freebies every match... kids are too young to think for themselves they want to watch Wigan they'd need their parents to be interested ideally so they can take them to games. Thats a minum of 2 season tickets or match tickets we have to attract, double the effort?

saying that freebies to schools is a good idea, secondary schools we need to focus on because those kids are old enough to go with their friends and go on from there.

[GeoffN]

I think some knew before the fans forum #2 that IL wanted, quite quickly, to get crowds of an average 20,000 at the JJB. He reiterated this point last monday at the forum.

Personally I can't see how this is going to happen. We are of course a town competing with the Premiership and Championship teams in the local area, Wigan as a town economically isn't very rich - we are quite poor.

Ticket prices are due to go up in the North stand and season tickets are going up by around £15 due to there being 1/ more games at home next season and 2/ our prices for travelling fans is £5 less than huddersfield/ hull kr etc... Away fans have had it relatively easily, easy to get to stadium, free parking, cheap entrance fee... I believe hull kr attendances will drop by 150-200 supporters if prices rise... this is significant...

When we play Catalans we should have 20,000 wigan fans, it is unrealistic...

20,000 IMO is an unrealistic target, maybe 17,000 then 17,500 to get us to Leeds' region... Mick Hogan has the job to see that this can be achieved whilst prices rise... so better marketing, better word etc...?

You cant fault IL's determination but 20,000 sadly wont happen.

As Pedro says, we've the same number of home games next year as this, 13.

I agree though that 20k is unrealistic as a target, it's a long time since we were anywhere near that level of support, and there's a lot more competition for "entertainment" these days than there was in the sixties.

Comparisons with Leeds are unfair, though; they have a massively bigger population than we do. The football isn't a factor, in fact our crowds have gone up consistently since Latics got promoted; when they go back down their fans will just go back to supporting ManU or whoever, they won't switch to RL.

Attractive rugby, yes, but I'm not convinced about the "success factor" either; we're getting similar or better crowds now than when we were at our peak in the early 90's (and that was at CP, with a bigger capacity; we were getting near 30k crowds for Wigan v Saints then, but people were picking and choosing their games more carefully).

I haven't looked at the figures so far, but I suspect this season will be down on last, and next season even worse.

[Wigan_forever1985]

i think geoffn that the reason the crowds stayed high despite the level of success up till now is that we had the Wigan Fan PR drive that we all waiting for Wigan RL to rise from the ashes and the adversity of being relagated nearly and the thrill of watchin the team claw back brought fans in however now we have petered out in to an average team one not looking like succeeding and also not looking in trouble of the wooden spoon so supporters have nothing to excite them hence the reason i think now without success the crowds will decline