Super League is in some ways struggling as future media deals to maintain the competition's financial situation are uncertain. Clubs are dependent on owners to balance the books which is not uncommon in sports generally. Hopefully, SL clubs can continue to rely on such benefactors.
Crowd support is an important part of a club's earnings so how are the numbers in 2025, comparing a complete 2024 with nine rounds so far in 2025? They are up 17% which is impressive although it does come with some provisos which will be mentioned as we go along.
Winners: Wigan is top of the list with a 24,600 average, up 64.8%. They did get a boost playing a game in Las Vegas but even without that, they have done really well. Hull FC is much improved in terms of performance and the supporters are responding with the attendance average up 29.3%.
Wakefield returned to the top flight and they also have a nicely refurbished stadium. These two factors have pushed spectator numbers up 40.1% compared to their crowd numbers in the Championship (division 2). The fact that they replaced London means the increase against that club is 147.8% which does add an unavoidable distortion in 2025.
Salford has been sailing close to the wind financially and without a well heeled backer to rely upon things came to a head in 2025. Unable to play their strongest roster due to restrictions and gradually offloading good players they should never had signed in the first place has affected performances.
Yet the fans have been remarkably loyal and so far attendance numbers are up 3.4%. Hopefully this sorry state can be sorted and the club will now spend what it can sustainably afford which I'm confident it will.
Losers: Not the same number of candidates. In terms of attendees, Castleford is the disappointment. Their on field performances are at their usual not too successful standards. Has near neighbour Wakefield's improved situation left them feeling neglected?
Ceiling dwellers: Hull KR (stadium capacity) and Leigh (population size) have plateaued. I wonder what it would do for KR's average if there was more capacity. I'm thinking the stadium is OK for most games with more popular opponents the times when more seats would be useful. Leigh has a 12,000 stadium so they are presumably at a ceiling.
6 comments:
Leigh’s gate average will increase as the attractive fixtures with greater support are yet to come. Saints Wigan Leeds Hull HullKR and Salford are yet to visit, having played Wakefield Catalans Huddersfield and Warrington at home so far
Fair enough. With only nine rounds played, it gives an indication of how things are going but early days. Leigh hopefully will lift. In 2024, they got one attendance over 10k, one about 10k and another 9.5k so the potential is there.
I’m not sure I’d call Hull KR +9% as “plateaud”? That’s a large single-year increase, the 2nd in the league (excluding Vegas), and was enabled by investing in an additional 1,000 seat stand. But yes it would be interesting to see how much higher it could have been, and whether the club do anything else for 2026.
It would be really useful to do a like for like game analysis rather than just plain averages as even without Vegas Wigan being at home to Saints already will be overstating things and will to some degree get diluted as the rest of the season rolls by.
With KR, the ceiling was based on ground capacity, not potential. I really don't know what the club is capable of regarding attendance numbers but I don't think it's being that badly affected by the present capacity.
It would be useful but a lot more time would be needed.
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