After missing out on the last Thursday night game of the NRC at AAMI Park due to some pretty annoying prior engagements, I thought to my self, “What could the Rising do to get me down to the game over studying for my upcoming history test?
And the answer is, well, not a lot. The week before for the Thursday night game I attended and only had to cough up five dollars for entry thanks to the 2-for-1 offer that the team put up and a group of three buying their tickets next to me, leaving one spare.
The NRC Attendance Conundrum
The same offer was there for this game against the Canberra Vikings and it still wasn’t enough for me to get there. Maybe it was the fact that it is just some third tier rugby and a smashing was on offer again, as Melbourne went 5 wins out of 5 with 5 bonus points. Or maybe it was just that the espionage during the Battle of the Atlantic was too damn interesting.
It is very obvious that the club is learning too, at the first game of the competition there was no offer and it was just buy the ticket and get into the ground. With an attendance in the low 2,000s rocking up I felt a change was needed. This was sufficed with the ticket offer but I think everyone at the ground was under the impression that it was a one-week thing. There was nothing about it for the next week, when the ads went up on the big screen and it was only mentioned a day before on Twitter.
As for other teams there are a few two for on offers, some kids get in free and some discounts for people who actually play rugby (what a great idea that is) but I think this is really the extent of the deals.
The teams can’t really afford to just give away the free tickets as no one shows up anyway, or maybe they can.
Perhaps to get more people down to the games and have it like a club rugby feel, even though it is about the next step up, they could put the games on at local club rugby grounds. With small stands and give people entry for food, which would bypass everything about the food and hiring stadiums as I am sure clubs would love it, and with 4 games there could be 4 different venues too. Maybe this idea would have been good just to trial with for one game to start with and save having to rent out the big stadiums like AAMI Park, Lang Park and the like. I’m sure the organisers thought of this though, even if the competition feels a little rushed.
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