Thursday 3 August 2017

Australasia Attendances : 1990-2017

This is the final in a series tracking attendances in what is now the NRL, the professional RL competition Down Under. It sums up the five blogs on the subject. You can start at the beginning (1990-94)  by clicking here. I have also added 2015-17, which covers slightly under three years, so the total figure at the bottom of that column is not a direct comparison with all the earlier periods. The average is comparable though.

The averages were in the 12,000's at the beginning and ended in the 15,000's so that is progress. There has been a tapering off but because of the lack of anything progressive for far too long, the negative effects of that are emerging. I'm surprised it isn't worse because I'm bored stiff with the NRL and now follow the Northern Hemisphere Super League pro competition with much more interest (you can read that assessment by clicking here).

The interesting part was in the 1995-99 period where teams popped up and then were closed down during the turmoil that went on. Western Suburbs and Balmain in Sydney merged and eventually became the Wests Tigers. Because both sides were similar in size, I haven't made one the ongoing team and the other the merged one. When Illawarra joined with St George, I have made St George the ongoing club. The rest were just shut down, not a decision I agreed with.

So things have gone quite well but the cracks are appearing. If you are not progressive in today's world, there are plenty of other things to arrest people's attention. Sport has to entertain more than ever, to offer a quality product and adapt to the constant changes of modern society. These attendance figures should alert the NRL to a trend that isn't as positive as it should be.

Updated to the end of the 2017 season.

Rk Club / Years 15-17 10-14 05-09 00-04 95-99 90-94
1 Brisbane 32,913 33,014 32,484 22,815 24,350 28,953
2 Nth Queensland 16,483 14,264 19,157 14,438 18,343 -
3 Canterbury 16,233 20,840 18,045 16,140 10,603 12,089
4 Newcastle 15,322 18,414 18,166 18,108 18,824 19,104
5 Melbourne 15,296 14,477 11,183 10,838 12,809 -
6 Paramatta 14,176 15,373 14,330 13,621 13,937 12,185
7 South Sydney 13,964 18,225 14,091 11,898 7,429 10,846
8 New Zealand 13,587 15,660 12,417 13,555 16,402 -
9 Wests Tigers 13,545 15,904 17,792 13,781 - -
10 St George 13,508 15,773 13,787 13,537 10,223 11,795
11 Sydney Rooster 13,425 15,595 13,840 14,741 11,792 9,642
12 Cronulla 13,039 12,332 12,757 12,959 12,264 9,666
13 Gold Coast 12,582 15,435 20,762 - 7,395 7,980
14 Penrith 12,448 11,638 12,762 15,005 8,563 10,664
15 Canberra 12,055 11,302 11,669 11,325 11,926 14,239
16 Manly 11,561 14,307 14,741 10,832 13,506 13,755
- Sth Queensland - - - - 13,683 -
- Adelaide - - - - 11,401 -
- North Sydney - - - - 10,770 7,980
- Perth - - - - 10,143 -
- Illawarra - - - - 8,593 12,039
- Balmain - - - - 8,301 8,387
- Hunter Valley - - - - 5,413 -
- Western Sub - - - - - 8,790

Total Average 15,041 16,259 15,895 13,969 12,247 12,671

Total 2882815 3503742 2974867 2525512 2680272 2230146

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