Swans great victory in front of poor crowd.

[King-Eliagh]

Well that was a very solid performance from the swans from start to finish. Everyone played well although I thought Barry Hall was a bit soft. He tackles hard but doesnt seem to know how to use his strength to get good position for the mark inside 50. I really think this is an area he needs to work on.

I also liked what Spider Everett did in the last quarter. There was a bit of a cheap shot on one of his younger players and he was straight in there with his forearm in the other blokes face. The commentators commented that it was good to see him 'sticking up' for his younger player... my thoughts exactly....if only every team had a spider everett eh?? :D

The only sore point would have to be the crowd that turned out on a beautiful sunny day in sydney. They claim it was 27300, which is poor seeming Sydney has only one team, but it looked more like 23, 000 to me. I've heard of the AFL bumping up crowd figures but today they made it very obvious to those who know the scg as well as i do! :P

Anyway its good to see the swannies in form early and putting away the bad teams.

[crocodileman]

The only sore point would have to be the crowd that turned out on a beautiful sunny day in sydney. They claim it was 27300, which is poor seeming Sydney has only one team, but it looked more like 23, 000 to me.

From your TV in Central Australia!!!

[Beaussie]

Fantastic effort by the Swans today. Very happy indeed, especially as Choppies and Jed from LU were there in their Hawthorn colours.

The Swans tackling today was particularly impressive and how about my man Nick. 4 goals and on fire. Nicole Kidman would have been happy in the stands with her favourite player Barry Hall kicking 3 too. Big Bad Bustling Barry gave his opponent a smack in the chops too, thankfully the cameras didn't catch that one. :D

Gotta say I'm very impressed with Jolly's form today. During the pre season I was worried about the type of quality player we had got. He certainly fitted in nicely today and takes the pressure off Goodes and Ball. He even got 3 goals as well.

Poor old Hawks, they really did look lost out there many times today. Looks like a long season ahead for the Hawks and thier fans. Hahahaha Choppies and Jed.

Sydney now sits on top of the ladder. Woo hoo. :P

Oh and the crowd was what I pretty much expected for Easter Sunday as there were many other things on in town like the Easter Show and church services etc. I'm sure we'll get more for the next home game. In any case, it looked much better than the 1/4 full Telstra Stadium for Wests Tigers v Bulldogs today and certainly much better than the crowd at Parramatta Stadium last night for Cronulla v Parramatta. A mere 12,101.

[King-Eliagh]

The parra crowd could be considered poor but when you take into account their form, the 8 or so other supported nrl sydney teams, the horrible weather in sydney on saturday and the "many other things on in town" I think it was quite decent.

Yes croc i was watching the game today on tele, and I must say the crowd looked nothing over 23000. But well played swans, I too was impressed with Jolly, and also leo barry looks like he's gunna have another great season.

[Beaussie]

The parra crowd could be considered poor but when you take into account their form, the 8 or so other supported nrl sydney teams, the horrible weather in sydney on saturday and the "many other things on in town" I think it was quite decent.

So we must take into account Parramatta's form, but not Hawthorn who had not won one pre-season game coming in to today.

Hillsong Church regularly gets bigger crowds than most NRL clubs each and every week. Pretty sad state of affairs if you ask me.

[King-Eliagh]

No because Hawthorn were the away team. We're talking about home crowds right? Anyway another factor is this was sydneys first game! Why wasn't there more there. And why do u guys always go against what I say? I'm not trying to be smug or smarmy at all here, I just feel the crowd could have been better

[Beaussie]

Well as you know, the Swans pre-season form was hardly great as well leading into today's game. I've even said in the past it wouldn't do us any favours in terms of the crowd for round one.

Anyway that aside, why is it that the NRL premiers playing out at Telstra Stadium can only attract a crowd of 19,984, even when thousands and thousands of free tickets are handed out at the Easter Show next to the ground. The Swans crowd as I said was pretty much what I expected and clearly much better than the NRL crowds on the same day.

19,984 when you have thousands of Sydneysiders within the same vicinity and thousands of free tickets on offer.

What's the bet that the official crowd that bought a ticket was only something like 9,984. Telstra Stadium looked very empty from what I saw on the news. Imagine what it would have looked like without those thousands of free ticket holders from the Easter Show. As I said, a very sad state of affairs. Hillsong, need I say anymore.

[King-Eliagh]

I just talked with a friend who was at the easter show today and he said there were no free tickets anywhere?? Beussie are you lying again, I may be wrong but this guy said he was there all day. Can you please back up these statements beaussie?

Again I will refer to the one team in AFL has whole sydney market whereas 9 teams in nrl shares whole sydney market in relation to the crowd figures being lower, its simple mathematics. :D

[Dizzys_on_fire]

Yeah, I wasn't 100% certain about the free-tickets issue when I posted about it some days back. However, I have found that the free-tickets offered through the competition or promotion that Beaussie posted in another thread are not included in official attendence results. This is because the tickets are apparently just paper print-outs and they are not scanned by gate staff and no I.D. is required.

I also have to strongly disagree with the comments about only 9,984 paying customers to yesterday's match. The tickets are not included in any official figure as previously stated and there is a cap to the amount of tickets that can be won for each game. So that line of thinking is flawed in any case.

Inflating short term attendence figures is quite obvioulsy not the aim of the NRL with this exercise. The aim is clearly to provide an incentive to people who would not normally or who don't attend matches in the hope that some percentage of them will return as paying customers on a more regular basis. Good business strategy if you ask me.

As far as I'm aware though, free tickets to other sporting events (including AFL fixtures) count towards official figures.

[crocodileman]

I would have thought that whether they were free ticket winners or not, if they go through the gate they are part of the official crowd figure - are you both stating that there were more than 19000 odd at the match? Surely several thousand "extras" wouldn't be too hard to spot in such a small crowd? And why wouldn't the NRL want to include them i official figures?

I'm not doubting your hypothesis, dizzys about opening up the game to a new market, but they wouldn't be that silly that they wouldn't use their presence at the game in the official figures? If they don't, then they are stupid?

Beaussie doesn't lie!

[Dizzys_on_fire]

To be honest crocodileman, I personally wouldn't see any massive benefits for the NRL by adding 26,000 (that is the total amount of these tickets given away for Telstra Stadium matches) to their total attendence figures to boost the competition average.

Last year 2,640,809 people attended home and away NRL fixtures, with the competition average being 14,836. For arguments sake, if I added 26,000 to that total, there would've been 2,666,809 people who attended H&A fixtures and a competition average of 14,982. As you can see it doesn't make a notable difference that would bring any benefits to the NRL.

So far this season the competition average is a tick under 20,000. Free-tickets included or not, there is a notable increase. Although the NRL is run by far-from-perfect individuals, they must be doing something right here.

[Beaussie]

Yeah, I wasn't 100% certain about the free-tickets issue when I posted about it some days back. However, I have found that the free-tickets offered through the competition or promotion that Beaussie posted in another thread are not included in official attendence results. This is because the tickets are apparently just paper print-outs and they are not scanned by gate staff and no I.D. is required.

So we have free tickets for NRL games over Easter via the Daily Telegraph competition and also free tickets direct from the NRL:

NRL SHOW DAY
Get your favourite NRL Player Autographs and play some NRL trivia in the Coca Cola Zone at:
10.30am
12.30pm
2.30pm
4.30pm
6.30pm

Learn some new Rugby League skills at the NSW Rugby League Academy clinics at:
11.30am
3.30pm
5.30pm

Meet your NRL Club mascot and see them perform in the Street Parades at 1pm and 5pm Check out the NRL Cheerleaders in the Main Arena. Performance at 7.20pm

Visit the NRL Show Day Information Booth for more details.
SYDNEY ROOSTERS
TICKET 1 – FAMILY OFFER – KIDS FREE
Buy 2 general admission adult tickets and get 2 general admission kids tickets (up to 12yo) for FREE!
ONLY $44 PER FAMILY. SAVES $16

TICKET 2 – MATES RATES – 3 FOR 2
Buy 2 adult general admission tickets to a Roosters home game and get a 3rd ticket (to the same value) FREE! SAVES $22

TICKET 3 – ROOSTERS FAN – BEST SEATS
Buy 2 adult PREMIUM RESERVED or RESERVED tickets to a Roosters home game and get a 3rd ticket (to the same value) FREE! SAVE UP TO $30
* These ticket offers can be redeemed at Ticketek. agencies.

These offers are NOT available at the gate. Offers are available for Roosters v Broncos Round 3 and Roosters v Tigers Round 4. (Extra charges may apply for these services).

PARRAMATTA EELS
1. FAMILY OFFER
Buy two adult GA tickets in the North and South Terraces and receive two children’s tickets (Under 15) for FREE!
ONLY $30 PER FAMILY. SAVES $16

2. MATES RATES
Buy two adult East or West Terrace tickets and receive a 3rd ticket to the same value, FREE! SAVES $22.

* This offer is only valid for the Eels v Sharks match on Saturday 26 March, 2005. NRL kick-off is 7.30pm. The offer can be redeemed at all Ticketek agencies, and at the gate.


Brought to you by NRL

http://www.nrl.com/news.cfm?ID=10580

As for free tickets at the Easter Show, I was speaking from past experience where when I've been at the show I was offered free tickets to the NRL that was on at Telstra Stadium. Of course the NRL would have been handing out free tickets again this year at the show and I'm still unable to find anything that says the NRL does not include free tickets in the official crowd figure. All we have, from memory is the words of a friend of yours Dizzy.

I also have to strongly disagree with the comments about only 9,984 paying customers to yesterday's match. The tickets are not included in any official figure as previously stated and there is a cap to the amount of tickets that can be won for each game. So that line of thinking is flawed in any case.

I assume you're talking about the Daily Telegraph's free ticket competition here and not the free tickets that would've no doubt been handed out at the Easter Show. Based on the above from the NRL website, one has to also wonder what the actual crowd of paying ticket holders was for the Parramatta v Cronulla game.

Inflating short term attendence figures is quite obvioulsy not the aim of the NRL with this exercise. The aim is clearly to provide an incentive to people who would not normally or who don't attend matches in the hope that some percentage of them will return as paying customers on a more regular basis. Good business strategy if you ask me.

I agree with the strategy you've posted, however I still think inflating short term attendance figures is part of the plan. Early in the season sporting codes like to boast about how attendance figures are up. With that in mind, surely it is possible that inflating the attendance figures is indeed happening here with the NRL.

[Beaussie]

To be honest crocodileman, I personally wouldn't see any massive benefits for the NRL by adding 26,000 (that is the total amount of these tickets given away for Telstra Stadium matches) to their total attendence figures to boost the competition average.

Last year 2,640,809 people attended home and away NRL fixtures, with the competition average being 14,836. For arguments sake, if I added 26,000 to that total, there would've been 2,666,809 people who attended H&A fixtures and a competition average of 14,982. As you can see it doesn't make a notable difference that would bring any benefits to the NRL.

The NRL H&A average last season increased by what, a few hundred from season 2003? The NRL boasted about this minor increase with claims left, right and centre that this was a record breaking season for rugby league with the NRL attracting the highest H&A crowds on record for rugby league. Don't kid yourself Dizzy that sports administrators don't use increases of any sort (ie: tv ratings, crowds, sponsorship etc) to seek benefits or to simply boast about the popularity of their sport. This is particularly relevant now with the TV rights for the AFL and NRL now being discussed.

[crocodileman]

To be honest crocodileman, I personally wouldn't see any massive benefits for the NRL by adding 26,000 (that is the total amount of these tickets given away for Telstra Stadium matches) to their total attendence figures to boost the competition average.

I dispute that only 26 000 tickets are freebies for Telstra Staduim matches! I think many more are given away!

[King-Eliagh]

Beaussie I dont know about 14000 being an all time record? Are you including ARL crowds in this? Anyway this thread has reminded me of an article I read in the telegraph last year about how AFL had been boosting crowd attendances. So it goes both ways. In any circumstance I believe dizzy is right with the free tickets not going towards official attendance. So yesterdays match was prob more like 24000 which i'd say was moast likely more than the swans got at the scg yesterday. Well done league!