Super League clubs learn IMG performance score as Wigan Warriors top pile and others fall

[the pieman]

I get that, but how many casual viewers are there and what impact does this really have?

Enough of an impact to create criteria that punishes a team with the highest average attendance and rewards those with smaller grounds?

With regards to ticket prices, its not as simple as that. The risk is you reduce prices, have extra fans but then lose out on overall revenue which is obviously very important.

If there aren't any casual viewers, then we're not going to expand our TV audience much are we. If we don't do that, we don't get more TV money, and there's only so much more revenue the Wigan market can sustain, so where is the growth going to come from?

On ticket prices, yes its a risk, but IMO if you can afford a short term drop in revenue to create a market where demand is much stronger, then you can recover that in the long term. To start off with though its your money you're gambling with.

I do agree with this approach but didnt Huddersfield try this offering free tickets etc and it made little to no difference to their crowds?

Probably a bit of an exception though as they arent well supported, and the £99 season tickets did bugger all to their attendances

i've looked at something like this previously and for arguments sake we averaged 10k at £26 per ticket, we could have 15k on at £18 per ticket, make slightly more in ticket sales, but the place looks much better with an extra 5k in the stands. the bonus is that the 5k will almost likely spend at the game too, so increased in game revenue for the club

the risk with anything like the above is, you need the extra 5k to turn up, or you lose money, and can it be sustained over say just a one of match

there's no doubt at Wigan, the atmosphere is far better when there is a big crowd on, and if there is some away support. The challenge is how do we turn the average of 15k this year, into 20k, so for IMG purposes it looks like we are utilising the ground

[Mike]

Unfortunately I doubt a drop of 26 to 18 would move the needle by 50%. It would have to be something way more significant, like 10 or something like that. Its not like to be a break even process.

I'd suggest the first thing to do would be to increase the crowd sizes in the playoffs (although it was pretty good this year) by including them in the season ticket and charging a tenner for everyone else. Get it to sell out and then next year people want to go again because its a big event. Once you've sold out for a few seasons, start moving that price point back up to something more reasonable.