Finally an NRL CEO admits what we have always known. NRL crowds numbers are commonly fudged.
Storm CEO claims crowd figures inflated
Stathi Paxinos
June 1, 2011
MELBOURNE Storm chief executive Ron Gauci has declared reported crowd figures are commonly inflated to make clubs look better - but not by the Storm this year.
Gauci was answering questions in relation to the Storm's past three home games at AAMI Park drawing less than 10,000. The games against Newcastle (9460), Canberra (9628) and Cronulla (9733) are traditionally among the less appealing to home crowds, but the appeal of a modern, purpose-built rectangular stadium and a team embarking on a year of redemption, have seemingly not helped.
However, Gauci said he was happy with attendances this year - crowds have averaged 12,744 over eight home games - and accused the previous administration, headed by former chief executives Brian Waldron and Matt Hanson, of inflating the figures. It was a practice, Gauci said, that commonly occurred in sporting clubs.
Both Waldron and Hanson declined to comment on the claims last night.
''I believe it's not isolated to Melbourne Storm or in fact the NRL,'' Gauci said.
''It was brought to my attention that most sporting clubs do that in terms of adjusting their numbers.
''We made it very clear when I arrived that we would record numbers as they are presented to us as an accurate reflection of the barcode scanned at the turnstyles.
''We record accurate numbers based on bar scans and as reported to us by Ticketek and then we'll be able to do better year-on-year comparisons in future years.''
An NRL spokesman said he did not accept that misrepresentation of crowd figures occurred. There were no plans to oversee the auditing of the numbers.
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