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Raiders crowds match up with team performance

Crowd numbers at Canberra Raiders home games have continued to fall below average, continuing the trend since the 2012 season.

Table 1
Table 1: 2005-2014

In the seasons since then Raiders home crowds have averaged at a lowly 10,008 attendees, below the all-time 11,253 mark. The three games at Canberra’s GIO Stadium so far this season have seen a slight increase on this number, currently averaging at 10,184 people per game.

Interestingly, the Raiders’ performance during the season seems to have had a lesser effect than one might expect in recent seasons. Table 1, which was created using data obtained from the Rugby League Project website, compares home crowd averages with the number of wins achieved by the team during the season.

The data shows that in some cases, particular from the years 2007 to 2010, increases and decreases in crowd averages matched up with higher and lower levels of team success respectively. This sort of trend is consistent with what was seen from 1989 to 1998 – a period of time in which the Raiders won three premierships and enjoyed their largest home crowd averages in their history. This data is shown in Table 2.

Table 2
Table 2: 1989-1998

This figure represented the lowest home crowd average of all teams competing in the NRL in the 2014 season. It was also only slightly higher than their crowd average when they played out of Seiffert Oval in Queanbeyan from 1982 to 1989 before moving to the larger capacity GIO Stadium in 1990.

In addition, it was the lowest home crowd season average for the Raiders since the 2001 season when they averaged 9,575 people at their games. The 2014 and 2001 seasons are the only two years in which the Raiders recorded lower than 10,000 people at their home games since moving to GIO Stadium.

A point to consider, however, is that the sharp decline in crowd average in 2012 (despite much greater team success compared to the year before) occurred in the same year that the Greater Western Sydney Giants began playing games at Canberra’s Manuka Oval. These games have averaged in excess of 8,000 people in attendance each year.

What can be taken from the data shown in the graphs, aside from the fact crowd numbers are getting lower, is that during periods of time where greater success has been enjoyed by the team there tends to be a greater number of people at Raiders home games. The increases and decreases do not necessarily completely match up year by year, however in a general sense it appears that this rule can be applied.

 

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