Season ticket prices compared for all 12 Super League clubs including Leeds Rhinos, Hull FC and St Helens

[EDINBURGH-WARRIOR]

I went onto the website earlier to renew our season tickets and I was told I was in a queue for the website ticket office and I was number 22,652.

I got the same message and got through 5 seconds later
Got a message while trying to renew mine and Ross's that our tickets may have been sold to another customer and I should contact the club

Will phone them when I'm back in the country

EW

[the pieman]

Think it may have to do with a large cultural population of Huddersfield

thats a massive failing on their behalf then if they have failed to engage with the local population

i could stand to be corrected here, but i think i can only recall Ikram Butt of either Indian or Pakistani origin to have played top level RL yet, and that was a good 20+ years ago, so not only Hudds but many other towns / cities where we have big ethnic communities

i've had a similar conversation with colleagues from work. Wigan is one of the least culturally diverse towns in the country, in comparison to say Bolton, Bury, Blackburn on our doorsteps. My colleague who lives in Bradford couldnt believe what i was saying that we had the stereotypical corner shop, takeaway etc around 30 year ago. I never had one child of any ethnic origin in my school year from aged 4 - 16. Every single child was ethnic group white english. Now as my daughters have been through school that has changed, but still very much white english with predominantly children from african nations who were strict catholic and the odd child from Iraq / Iran / Afghanistan

So from an ethnic minority perspective are other clubs missing a trick, especially if they arent engaging with communities where they could potentially find a star player / bring new fans to the game?

[josie andrews]

There are a lot of Caribbean people in Huddersfield who do play RL though

[morley pie eater]

It's hard to allocate blame between the locals for not turning up (what rule says they should?), and the club for not engaging. At Tottenham last year, going down on the train from Yorkshire, it seemed that Huddersfield fans were predominantly over 50, say.

My theory to add to the mix is this. You support who you were brought up to support. If a club (RL or football) drops down the leagues, fans lose the habit of going and therefore don't have the same influence on the next generation.

Fartown, as they used to be known, haven't seen much success for years. I worked with a fan in the 70s, and he was 50-odd. I don't think he could remember them winning owt! I doubt if his grandkids go. So creating interest in Huddersfield is a Herculean task.

Now take the likes of Bradford or Widnes. If somebody could revive them now, they'd be in with a chance. Anybody over 30 in Bradford will remember running with the Bulls. Bradford had good crowds, even with a dismal stadium, and a bigger ethnic minority population than Huddersfield. But if Bradford sty as they are for another 20 or 30 years it will be a much harder job to resuscitate them.

[morley pie eater]

Love the Yorkshire post headline btw:

Season ticket prices compared for all 12 Super League clubs including Leeds Rhinos, Hull FC and St Helens

Really?

[the pieman]

It's hard to allocate blame between the locals for not turning up (what rule says they should?), and the club for not engaging. At Tottenham last year, going down on the train from Yorkshire, it seemed that Huddersfield fans were predominantly over 50, say.

My theory to add to the mix is this. You support who you were brought up to support. If a club (RL or football) drops down the leagues, fans lose the habit of going and therefore don't have the same influence on the next generation.

Fartown, as they used to be known, haven't seen much success for years. I worked with a fan in the 70s, and he was 50-odd. I don't think he could remember them winning owt! I doubt if his grandkids go. So creating interest in Huddersfield is a Herculean task.

Now take the likes of Bradford or Widnes. If somebody could revive them now, they'd be in with a chance. Anybody over 30 in Bradford will remember running with the Bulls. Bradford had good crowds, even with a dismal stadium, and a bigger ethnic minority population than Huddersfield. But if Bradford sty as they are for another 20 or 30 years it will be a much harder job to resuscitate them.

i agree to an extent, and think about Man City in footballing terms, albeit they had a decent following when they were s***.

however, there is nothing stopping any club from getting into local schools, rugby clubs, promoting the game, coaching sessions etc etc. IMO some of it is just lazy on behalf of the clubs (note i dont know what Huddersfield do or dont do within their community). We've seen with some clubs, that they have become very lazy and just reliant on the SKY tv money, and happy to take it, so no investment in the ground, the academy, marketing

Huddersfield could easily give away 5k tickets every home game to local clubs / schools for free, and charge a parent £10 to bring the kid. If nothing else, they would bump up the attendance, and may even attract the next generation

[nathan_rugby]

Dropping prices and doing nothing else will have a minimal impact on crowds.

IL said the same not too long ago.

[the pieman]

Dropping prices and doing nothing else will have a minimal impact on crowds.

IL said the same not too long ago.

i get that, but Hudds need to do something to attract new fans. Wigan have an average of almost 14k, and whilst we need to build on that, we dont have the same issues that Hudds have in that they play in front of 5k each week

they have cheap season tickets (and have had them cheaper)

what is stopping them from giving away 5k tickets to the local community (clubs, schools etc) , and having an adult £10 with the child. It may have a minor knock on full paying tickets for that game, but they have to do something about the next generation of fans. the worst case it attracts no-one new to the game, best case they get 10k + attending, and some of them come back

[Dr Zaius]

Huddersfield, despite its place in the game's history, has never really been a true Rugby League heartland, at least not in terms of number of fans going to games.

It's worth remembering that they've probably grown their crowds more than any club in the pro leagues over over the past 30 years. But it does seem they've hit a brick wall and seem to consistently bump along at around 4,000 to 5,000 now with only the one or two visits a year from Leeds generating anything significantly more than that.

There seems to be a lack of vision of how to grow their club further - although that's hardly a problem unique to them. Their crowds do skew older than other clubs though and I worry what the future will bring in a decade or so if they don't start to generate more genuine local interest.