If you’ve read my musings about rugby league crowds or listened to the Tension’s Running High podcast, you would know last week’s disappointing NRL Finals attendances came as no surprise to me.
We can only hope that the NRL learns lessons from last weekend and completely reviews the way it promotes and prices the Finals next year.
Everything from the Finals launch to the media build-up, venue allocations to ticket prices and the ultimate match day experience must be looked at, reviewed and refreshed.
Just 28,152 turned up at Allianz Stadium on Friday night to watch the Rabbitohs play the Knights.
It was South Sydney’s first Finals appearance since 2022, at a venue they plan to play more games at in coming years.
For there to be 14,000-odd empty seats is a major concern for the NRL.
Just 17,429 turned up at the same venue to watch the Sharks play the Cowboys on Saturday.
This game should have been played at Shark Park.
The NRL reverted to home grounds about a decade ago after a brief stint at bigger stadiums for week one Finals matches because of crowds like the one experienced on Saturday.
There has been an obsession about Shark Park not being up to standard to host Finals matches given its 15,000 capacity and poor facilities.
But something got lost in that debate.
Sharks fans want to go to that dilapidated, broken down stadium more than they do the flashy one half an hour away.
Dysfunctional as it may be, it is home.
Do you lock people out of attending? Possibly, though I dare say that 17,429 number from Saturday may be a little inflated.
It’s not dissimilar to the argument about Leichhardt Oval. A venue Tigers fans want to cram into, as uncomfortable as it may be, yet pundits keep telling them they should want to sit in a cookie cutter “world class” stadium with no soul instead.
And then we get to Sunday, where CommBank Stadium was far from a sellout for Penrith’s clash with the Sydney Roosters on a beautiful spring day.
Sunday’s crowd was disappointing. Photo: NRL Photos.
22,148 was not a good crowd, though I do think there’s a couple of factors that need to be considered as far as Penrith fans go beyond the actual circumstances of this particular match.
Panthers fans are at the end of what has been a two-year pilgrimage to Parramatta while Penrith Stadium has been unavailable.
They’ve done it through rail trackwork and delays, crawling traffic and often poor match scheduling.
For some, the extra effort and cost of doing it again in a week one Finals match was likely too much of a stretch.
And while this may be a bit of a flex, being a Penrith fan has been pretty bloody expensive over the past seven years or so.
You could not blame someone for holding their money for Grand Final tickets, especially given family budgets are tight.
There is no question that ticket prices were a significant factor in the disappointing crowds over the weekend.
I paid $124 for a seat in my usual CommBank Stadium bay on Sunday afternoon.
Throughout the Finals and hopefully ultimately the Grand Final, I will pay more to see three games than the cost of my season ticket for the entire year.
A few days earlier I paid $199 for a top tier ticket to see an international country music artist from the United States. I won’t even have the sun in my eyes!
The NRL advertises cheaper tickets, of course. But most of the tickets you see heavily promoted as affordable are behind the posts or in other words, the worst seats in the house.
It makes people second guess their purchase and ponder if staying at home and enjoying the first class television coverage rugby league enjoys is a better option.
It doesn’t help the NRL totally controls ticketing during this period.
The corporate areas appeared half empty on Sunday at CommBank Stadium.
Empty corporate seats at CommBank Stadium on Sunday.
Premium bays in the eastern side were held back from sale for “operational reasons”, only released later in the week.
It may be the NRL’s job to handle ticketing for the Finals but I dare say they may not be doing a very good job of it.
Once you’re inside the ground, you’re paying $9 for an ice cream or $15 for a beer. Another $1 for a try to carry your beers. It is nothing short of a turn-off.
Meantime the match day experience is essentially the same as a club game. None of it screams “I want to go back next week!”
The build-up to the first week of the Finals also needs some work.
It’s almost like the NRL just thinks it can go through the motions and people will turn up.
A city-based media launch, some of the best players unavailable to the media, nothing that screams “this is unmissable”.
None of this should be a surprise.
We have been here before and we will be here again.
For me the big, broad issue is that members or season ticket holders, call them what you will, are essentially left out in the cold when it comes to the year’s biggest matches.
They are your most loyal fans, yet you actually give them very few advantages or incentives come Finals time except for a pre-sale which is often flawed anyway.
While perhaps not financially viable for the NRL, perhaps it is best to give control of home Finals matches back to the clubs who know their fans and sponsors best.
Perhaps the NRL should actually control week two and three Finals, while the clubs retain week one.
Whatever happens, the NRL must learn some lessons from the weekend. The swarms of empty seats were embarrassing.
They must start by working out why there is such a massive disconnect between the week-to-week loyalty of fans and the different mentality when it comes to the Finals.
Troy Dodds is the Weekender’s Managing Editor and Breaking News Reporter. He has more than 20 years experience as a journalist, working with some of Australia’s leading media organisations. In 2023, he was named Editor of the Year at the Mumbrella Publish Awards.