AdrianZaslona.com

I just read this article on the LeagueHQ website talking about NSW perhaps losing the right to host a second State of Origin match every two years because it can’t fill the stadium.

This has been around for a while and i agree that it is disappointing that we don’t get a full house to every origin match like they do in Queensland but some of the sums that these guys are doing just aren’t adding up in my mind.

“Sydney has hosted one Origin a year over the past three seasons and has sold out just one event at the 85,000-seater stadium - the second game of 2005. But in the past two years, the crowds of 72,773 and 76,924 have been relatively disappointing.

“In Brisbane, the 52,000-capacity Suncorp Stadium is invariably bursting at the seams, and this year tickets for game two sold out in 90 minutes. In Sydney, the predicted crowd for tomorrow night’s match is between 60,000 and 70,000, with Carr admitting “we’d need a significant spike [in sales] to sell it out”.”

So Sydney can get, on average, about 74,000 people at a game. Not a full 85,000 but still more than the capacity crowd of 52,000 you can get at Suncorp. Monetarily this doesn’t seem like a problem. Sydney is still pulling in more money unless they’re using cheaper ticket prices to get more people. Even if they are though you’re still getting 20,000 more people to a game. Surely money isn’t the problem.

So maybe we’re looking at an atmosphere thing. I will readily admit that having a full crowd at a game is better than having empty seats. Suncorp can and has delivered this consistently. ANZ on the other hand always has those unfortunate blank spots that will always show up during coverage and make the game look poorly attended.

This is just an image problem though. If the NRL is peeved that empty seats are showing up on TV then move Origin to a smaller venue. Take it to a ground where the capacity is around the 60,000 mark. I don’t know if such a stadium exists in Sydney at the moment but surely it can’t be too hard to find.

Using this idea, you could have, on average, 10,000 fewer people buy tickets and still have to turn people away.

So what’s the problem?

Perhaps this is just a NSW ploy to get people to come to the game instead of watching it on TV. If so then i hope it works otherwise QLD is going to call our bluff and we might actually lose the right to host two games every second year.

Go The Blues!