Pinched this off SoB post.
Without knowing category being referred to it is a bit ambiguous to compare to SR, but found interesting the range.
Attachment 6262
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Pinched this off SoB post.
Without knowing category being referred to it is a bit ambiguous to compare to SR, but found interesting the range.
Attachment 6262
I presume that the price includes all 10 home games in the Premiership, plus the domestic cup (2-4 homes games) and the European Cup (2-6 home games). So double the number of homes games we get.
How on earth could they ever play that many matches... (sarcasm...)
Yep, get the extra, more a commentary on Newcastle £590 to Saracens £1,300 range.
Would be interesting £/match, but would need to know seat category to compare for SR first.
Also be interesting how much variation year on year.
The "Platinum Plus" Sarries ticket includes padded seats right on the halfway line, and is aimed at a niche audience.
Their "Gold" ST was GBP815 this year, for "Premium" seats in prime locations. In total, they have 7 different ticket categories, from GBP358 fir unreserved seating or standing behind the goals, up to the Platinum Plus padded halfway line seats.
By comparison, Newcastle only have 5 different price categories of ST (2x standing & 3x seated), without the premium padded options!
Newcastle's cheapest adult ST is GBP185 to stand or GBP309 to sit. Saracens is GBP358.
ST numbers in England appear to be declining from what I am hearing anecdotally, partially through cost of living pressures & a lack of confidence over clubs' financial stability & ability to remain solvent.
Bath have a waitlist for a Season ticket and that's as far as my Google exercise went last night.
I may be wrong, but I think the wait list is so that renewals get a priority window over their seats (or the opportunity to move seats) when they go on sale, and then remaining seats are allocated in wait list order.
I don't think their ST numbers are so great that they have reached a genuine cap on numbers in the way that some English soccer teams do.
Essentially, the Bath "wait list" is measured in days, rather than years.
Keep in mind stadiums are smaller. I remember going to Franklin Gardens back in 08 to watch the Force and Northampton. Pretty sure capacity was ~12,500- which surprised me quite a bit as we were at Subi at the time.
Slight tangent here, but It would be great to see the Champs Cup final in May at Spurs Stadium. Tix range from 40 quid behind goals up to 599q on half way. I watched a packed out match between Harlequins & Sarries (IIRC) there a while back. Stunning stadium and atmosphere.
My only English experience was at Sixways in 2008, Worcester Warriors v Bath.
Pretty sure that is ("was" :( ) a local Derby and while I don't recall now if mine was a walk up or my host scoring a season pass off someone, the 12,067 head stadium wasn't full.
That said, the +10,000 made about as much noise as the Force first win at Subiaco all match!
I used to have phone footage of around 5 minutes unbroken phases I happened to start recording at the right time of the Warriors defending their try line, didn't get outside of 15m the whole time and the crowd was immense! I was in the SE corner of the South Stand looking right down on top of it all, was awesome Forward trench warfare but for the purists that's for sure!
Yes, in my experience, UK & European rugby fans are far more passionate and vocal than Australian fans.
Before moving to Perth, I was a season ticket holder at Leicester Tigers, and they were one of the few clubs to regularly sell out their home games.
Of the 123 Premiership games I watched in Leicester, the average crowd was around 16,800, which is impressive when you realise that for 2/3rds of those games, the stadium capacity was only 16,815 before they renovated and expanded the stadium.
The 41 Premiership matches (excluding Finals) I watched at other English venues had average crowds of 11,000 (ranging from a low of only 3,000 to a high of 50,000 for a Christmas fixture at Twickenham)
...and yes, I do have a spreadsheet!
Probably partially because they got a better deal on the venue hire.
I know that Tottenham is being used a lot to host large one-off events such as the NFL, so maybe they are charging a more competitive price than other large London stadia.
Also, the RFU is actually capped at a certain number of large attendance events they can host at Twickenham by the local council, due in part to the influence of NIMBY residents. If they have already used up their allocation on other pre-booked events (including any concerts, Barbarians v Fiji, SA vs Wales etc) they would probably have to pay a penalty to the council for the right to host another game, which would be passed on to the event organiser, making the hire more expensive still.
For comparison, had a quick dig on three Shute Shield Clubs sites.
Was $21 for a GA single match ticket and average $200 for similar Memberships, though some more expensive options with "all the fruit" and a taxable donation component.
Random question, Why are English Rugby grounds so small?
Do you mean small in terms of footprint, or small capacity?
The simple answer to both though is that it depends on the club!
The older, rugby-only venues are generally owned by the clubs and have been so for many years. ie since that was the standard size for club grounds. A lot of them also used to have large standing terraces and/or cinder banks (so the capacity was larger than they are now that some of that area has been converted to seating). Those grounds are also usually also in built-up/established areas, and expansion is therefore restricted by surrounding buildings or streets. Redevelopment on a grand scale would not be financially viable so they just update what is already there in most cases.
Clubs that have moved out-of-town will generally have grounds with larger footprints and may share with other sports such as mid-tier soccer clubs or rugby league sides, but again the grounds are usually built to cater for the expected crowd, rather that over-sized to allow for big events.
There is usually more than one stadium in the same town or city, with each sport or soccer team having their own home ground, and bigger stadiums not too far away to cater for larger events, so not the same demand for out-sized capacities.
Venue, Location / Capacity / Rugby Club
Ashton Gate, Bristol / 27,000 / Bristol Rugby (also used by Bristol City FC)
Welford Road, Leicester / 25,849 / Leicester Tigers
Kingsholm, Gloucester / 16,115 /Gloucester
Sandy Park, Exeter / 15,600 / Exeter Chiefs
Franklin's Gardens, Northampton / 15,249 / Northampton Saints
Twickenham Stoop / 14,816 / Harlequins
Recreation Ground, Bath / 14,500 / Bath
AJ Bell Stadium, Salford / 12,000 / Sale Sharks (also used by Salford Red Devils RL)
StoneX Stadium, Barnet / 10,500 / Saracens
Kingston Park, Newcastle / 10,200 / Newcastle Falcons (also used by Newcastle Thunder RL)
Yeah, I was question the capacity of some of the grounds given that 10k-ish isn't exactly huge. I had the thought that some of the sides would have outgrown their small grounds.
I was surprised how Sixways was right out virtually in farmland.
Looking on Google Earth now, 16 years later, and there is starting to be developments around it.
Sale & Newcastle aren't rugby heartlands (Sale is in the middle of soccer/league territory. Newcastle is soccer) so their capacities are more than sufficient. Plus, as both are the most northerly Prem clubs, the number of away fans making the trip up is lower than for other clubs.
Sarries do generally fill out (or close to fill) their current ground, but they struggled to draw a crowd when they were ground-sharing the 22,500 capacity Vicarage Road with Watford FC.
Most of the rest just live within their means.
To be honest, I enjoyed the atmosphere of being shoulder-to-shoulder with the rest of the crowd on matchdays back in the UK. It always seems so empty at HBF in comparison!
Last night found on Stan a "Throwbacks" for the Force.
Apart from being great to watch some memorable wins, it did have me wondering where all those fans are now.
Do they still watch from home/pubs?
Have they left and not been replaced by new people coming into WA?
Or just no longer engaged and lost to Rugby, or just Rugby at SR level?
Even half of the Subi crowds would make for a good turn out at HBF.
Apart from many other aspects, I reckon direct proximity to rail in locating a stadium has a major baring on attendance.