HALF the clubs in the NRL lose money every time they open their gates.
South Sydney chief executive Shane Richardson says a “benchmarking” exercise based on official NRL figures show eight teams would be better off financially playing behind closed doors with only television cameras present, with ground hire, wages and other expenses outstripping gate receipts.
A graph circulated recently to all club chief executives keeps the franchises anonymous however RLW understands Brisbane makes the biggest profit on gameday.
While published crowd figures, which a Rugby League Week study two years ago found to be often fudged, have not dropped off to the same extent as other codes this season, Richardson says the emphasis on attendances over profitability needed to change.
http://stevemascord.com/2011/09/28/half ... -receipts/
SOUTH Sydney have conceded they include stadium workers, media, referees - and possibly players - when counting home crowds.
The stunning admission came after a special investigation into the attendance at Monday night's game against Gold Coast Titans at ANZ Stadium.
After monitoring each turnstile, The Daily Telegraph's clickers tracked 7522 people into the ground from the time gates opened at 4.45pm until midway through the first half.
The Rabbitohs later announced an official crowd of 9827.
Rabbitohs CEO Shane Richardson then confirmed "club staff, stadium staff, media and officials" partly accounted for the discrepancy of 2305 people.
"People that come from (our) club staff, the other club and referees don't come through the check system (turnstiles)," Richardson said.
"There's a whole range of people that go in through other entrances."
The revelation provides an insight into how clubs count crowds at a time when attendances are being monitored closely as Sydney's nine teams struggle for growth in a congested market.
A Souths statement emailed on Wednesday afternoon in response to the survey added: "There were un-ticketed guests who entered via a staff gate that appear to have missed your scrutiny.
"Added to this are groups such as club staff, stadium staff, media, officials etc. who haven't been counted by The Daily Telegraph clickers."
The terms used in the statement are wide enough to include players, referees, coaches, and mascots. Staff employed by the stadium, including caterers, waiters and customer service personnel, might also be inferred.
But aside from referees, Richardson declined to elaborate exactly which "guests" were counted over and above paying customers, season ticket-holders and corporate guests.
The Rabbitohs, however, did confirm that they only counted season ticket holders who turned up on the night.
To further reconcile the discrepancy, Souths pointed to a VIP ground carpark entry used by players, match officials and selected corporates. Located on Level 0, the entry is not marked by a turnstile. It can be accessed by about 300 car spaces and guests who are specifically dropped at the door.
But neither the statement nor Richardson revealed how many people used the carpark entrance -- or the above-ground un-ticketed entrance - on Monday night.
"The observers ... made no allowance for corporate and VIP guests who arrived by car into ANZ Stadium's level 0 parking, nor guests who gained admission prior to the opening of public gates and therefore prior to their calculations," the statement read.
"Closing your count 25 minutes into the first half produced further errors. The official attendance count is concluded 10 to 15 minutes into the second half, as patrons continue to arrive until this time at every event."
The Daily Telegraph arrived at the venue an hour before gates opened and witnessed only a handful of patrons in the precinct. There was a line of just 15 people at one public entrance on the stadium's eastern side at 4.45pm.
Even fewer patrons were observed when the count ceased 15 minutes from halftime.
Richardson said he was "comfortable" with the official crowd.
"There's been no fudging of figures here," he said.
"I've got nothing more to say, no more information to give.
"We are more than comfortable that was the crowd."
ANZ Stadium declined to respond, on the basis that clubs are responsible for crowd counts
http://www.foxsports.com.au/nrl/nrl-pre ... 1116735208
hat bastion of free speech, The Daily Telegraph has accused the Canterbury Bulldogs of fudging crowds figures.
The Bulldog's media release quotes their CEO as 'resenting' the accusations.
""I thoroughly resent the implication that the Bulldogs have doctored crowd
figures as indicated by today's report on page 58 of the Daily Telegraph."
said Bob Hagan.
Surely, the Telegraph must be wrong....
http://forums.leagueunlimited.com/showt ... ?p=6033961
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.
The Storm's biggest crowd of the year has been the 22,694 that attended the Anzac Day clash against New Zealand Warriors. Gauci said he expected the average to rise on the back of upcoming games against St George Illawarra, Brisbane and the Sydney Roosters.
He said the club had reduced the number of complimentary tickets - limiting their issue to supporting good causes and targeted marketing campaigns. The club was happy with the way it was tracking because its ''revenue numbers are up significantly and our profitably is up significantly''.
Meanwhile Greg Inglis, who has been battling a hip problem, has been named in the South Sydney team that will play the Storm at ANZ Stadium on Sunday.
The Storm has kept the same team that beat Cronulla in a lacklustre 14-8 win last Sunday.
http://www.smh.com.au/rugby-league/leag ... z2vp0QXcFz
Gold Coast Titans' crowds crisis could be worse than originally feared.
Stadiums Queensland is about to launch an investigation into a ticketing error that led to almost 14,000 extra fans being added to the club's total attendance at Skilled Park during the past 12 months.
The last-placed Titans insist they have not posted any deliberately inflated attendances.
A malfunction in ticket-scanning machines is believed to be responsible for the error.
As the Titans and AFL's Suns wage a cross-code battle for fans on the Gold Coast, a probe of Stadiums Queensland's most recent annual report uncovered major irregularities in the Titans' official home crowd figures.
The 95-page government report, detailing the activities of Queensland's nine big sporting stadiums for the 2009-10 financial year, showed:
NRL Adjudicator
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R22 verdict: 'Can't understand the Souths excitement'
* None of the Titans' home crowds announced at 14 games matched the attendances printed in the annual report.
* Thirteen of Gold Coast's 14 games featured inflated attendances.
* The greatest discrepancy was an extra 2209 fans for the Titans' home clash against Newcastle Knights last year.
* Brisbane Broncos' crowd figures at 11 games were identical to those in the annual report.
* Nine of North Queensland Cowboys' 12 games matched crowd figures in the report. Surprisingly, the club twice underquoted crowds.
In the 12-month period, the Titans' total crowds for their 14 home games, according to the annual report, was 237,527.
Yet the club's total attendances based on game-day announcements was 251,324.
The extra 13,979 spectators equates to a beefed-up attendance of nearly 1000 fans, on average, per home game.
On five occasions, the Titans' game-day crowd announcement exceeded the relevant annual report figure by more than 1500 fans.
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A Stadiums Queensland spokesman said the organisation would look into the reasons for wildly fluctuating crowd figures at Titans home games.
"The figures are provided by the venue management (Skilled Park) and we've been alerted to the discrepancies in these figures," the spokesman said.
A Titans spokesman attributed the crowd irregularities to faulty scanners at the state-of-the-art, $152 million Skilled Park complex.
"The discrepancies of between as little as 27 at one game and as high as 2209 at another have come about because there are issues with the equipment that scans the number of people in the venue," the club spokesman said.
"There was even one instance where the Skilled Park figure was actually higher than the Titans figure. We believe that Skilled Park and its contractor are working to rectify the discrepancies."
The Broncos, who hire Suncorp Stadium, another SQ-controlled venue, were found to have no discrepancies.
NRL Premiership
Holden Cup
W L D B PD Pts
1 Roosters 16 8 0 2 230 36
2 Sea Eagles 16 8 0 2 103 36
3 Rabbitohs 15 9 0 2 224 34
4 Panthers 15 9 0 2 80 34
5 Cowboys 14 10 0 2 190 32
6 Storm 14 10 0 2 76 32
7 Bulldogs 13 11 0 2 7 30
8 Broncos 12 12 0 2 93 28
9 Warriors 12 12 0 2 80 28
10 Eels 12 12 0 2 -103 28
11 Dragons 11 13 0 2 -59 26
12 Knights 10 14 0 2 -108 24
13 Tigers 10 14 0 2 -211 24
14 Titans 9 15 0 2 -166 22
15 Raiders 8 16 0 2 -157 20
16 Sharks 5 19 0 2 -279 14
Round 26 - as at 00:00 AM, 07/09/14
Broncos commercial operations manager Terry Reader said the Broncos paid fees on the crowd they announced - "so you can bet your bottom dollar it is pretty close to the mark".
"We pay a transport levy on the crowd that is announced. The stadium gives us a crowd figure for every game and then we make the announcement," he said.
"We're a publicly listed company, we have an annual report that outlines everything in detail about what we get through the gate, so we're a very transparent club."
Of the Cowboys' 12 home games in the 2009-10 financial year, one featured an inflated crowd of 180, against Canberra in June last year.
"I don't know why a few games didn't match up. We had a problem at the start of the year with Ticketek that we resolved. Four of their scanners weren't working properly, but we adjusted those," Cowboys chief executive Peter Jourdain said.
http://www.foxsports.com.au/nrl/nrl-pre ... 6100661894
ACT Sports Minister Andrew Barr claims crowd figures to Canberra's professional football codes have been inflated in previous years, leading to lower recorded numbers this year.
Officials from the Raiders and Brumbies are in agreement about the need for the proposed indoor stadium in Civic to go ahead to boost crowd numbers.
Attendances at the Brumbies and the Raiders at Canberra Stadium have come under the spotlight after the early part of the NRL and Super Rugby seasons.
Just 7129 fans watched the Brumbies beat the Auckland Blues 26-9 last Friday night in driving rain, the lowest crowd to a Canberra Stadium Super Rugby game since a tiny 4000 in 1999.
The Raiders attracted just 9636 fans against the Gold Coast Titans last month, however that was an increase of more than 1000 people on the corresponding fixture two years ago.
The Raiders are back at home this Saturday at 3pm against the Newcastle Knights, with the GWS Giants hosting the Western Bulldogs an hour and a half later at 4.40pm at Manuka Oval.
"I think they're actually more honest figures, I think the crowd figures have been inflated in previous years, often by 2000,'' Barr said.
"If you were to go back and look at what the actual numbers were before the inflation of numbers, it wouldn't reflect as much of a downward trend that people might think.
"Undoubtedly weather has been a major factor, as is who the local teams are playing against."
Raiders chief executive Don Furner said the discrepancy was more likely to be in the hundreds because of changes to how members and NRL junior pass holders were accounted for stemming from upgrades to the ticketing system at Canberra Stadium.
"In years gone by, the scanners didn't pick up the junior passes and the members are a sold seat, so there used to be a factor but no way [was it 2000],'' Furner said.
"The scanners now pick up everything, so we're more confident everything gets picked up.
"There's a lot less they allow us to put on top."
Barr admitted it wasn't ideal that the Raiders and Giants were playing on the same day, but said the government was using initiatives such as free public transport with a pre-purchased game ticket to entice patrons along.
The ACT government has raised the prospect of building an indoor stadium in Civic within the next decade, something Furner said was essential.
"We need a newer stadium undercover and with Wi-Fi capabilities so that the experience at the ground is better than the experience at home,'' Furner said.
"All sport faces a challenge for the entertainment dollar, that's why we would, along with the ACT government, push for an enclosed stadium.
''Out of all the cities in Australia, we have the toughest weather conditions to sell sport in.''
Interim Brumbies chief executive Doug Edwards hoped that still remained on the cards.
"It would have fixed everything,'' Edwards said.
"We would have had 12,000 or 15,000 if we had an indoor stadium.
"I know the minister's working on that, it's something he's quite passionate about and he's pushing forward with it."
http://www.smh.com.au/sport/act-sport/c ... zqrsh.html
