Mattyblue

Football is enormous in this country, a vast profile and fan base that can survive being behind the paywall. A hell of a lot of that 13 million are there simply for football. Cricket, as it just doesn’t have that following, has gone underground in public profile this past decade. If you put a picture of Burnley’s Jimmy Anderson - one of the greatest bowlers in the history of the game in front of 100 say 11 year olds and a picture of some journeyman from Burnley FC - who do you think will be more recognised? Cricket should have adopted the rugby union model - i.e most games behind the paywall, but the biggest events - Six Nations every year and the World Cup on free to air. Rugby Union’s profile outside it’s heartlands - I.e the north has never been bigger, the opposite is true for cricket. Sky is for the ready converted, sport nuts who have the means to pay a hell of a lot of money every month, but what about the potential converts?

But when people said to you on the cricket thread that taking that sport away from free to air TV has ensured that large numbers of kids don’t watch and they’ve lost millions of viewers and therefore potential fans - you disagreed.

I’m going to go out on a limb and say that it’s the cash.

Indeed JH, great examples of that are when you see Leeds and say Sheff Wednesday fans having massive willy waving contests in those ‘Away Day’ groups on social media. ’HA! only 3,000 to Wigan? Tinpot! We took 5,000 for a 7am kick off!’

Indeed rovers99, me and my crew would have some reight boring train/coach journeys home and we would seem a very dis-passionate lot if after a defeat we just said “ah well, can’t win ‘em all!” And no critiques of the manager’s decisions were permitted.

Leeds pull in the ratings (relatively), saw a stat a few years ago that showed their games had considerably larger numbers of viewers than the rest in the Championship. No surprise when you consider how many armchair Leeds fans there are across Yorkshire.

Who on earth thinks that?

All I can think is that Mowbray sees Rovers as a long term ‘project’ and has got the buy in of the owners. A manager looking at short term solutions and £7 million to spend wouldn’t be splurging the lot on a teenager from the Championship. I imagine these owners like the model proposed - i.e the re-sale potential of young English players and wouldn’t have given the green light to £9 million in a window on older players. Seems eminently sensible in this crackers era we are operating in, but we are still at the whim of a very unpredictable family.

Seemed very odd with so few away fans. Took something away from the occasion for me.

More over the top reactions on social media!

I’m pretty sure the arrangement with the EFL is any game outside the banned 3pm on a Saturday time slot can be shown. So generally that’s night matches, but any anomalies like Bristol City moving their game to a Sunday and Sky will show that too.

Of course he can let his hair down. Mowbray will certainly notice any drop in his performance levels or weight changes etc, so I’ll leave it up to him. End of the day you have Lloris, elite level footballer getting arrested for drink driving, so obviously you can still make it whilst being fond of a night out. I would just look at Dack’s physique and hope he knows that too much partying (if it isn’t pop he’s supping) could prevent him from hitting the level he has to potential to get to.

Don’t think so, but we always seemed to play them at night in recent years. I doubt we’ll be taking it to the University of Bolton Stadium (!) either at £30 a ticket live on Sky.

May have been supping dandelion and burdock for all I know, but why do all people of that age plaster their lives on social media - especially when you have a public profile? Just draws unnecessary attention to yourself - even more so when out injured.

Big clamour for Bruce’s sacking on their forums. With new owners, possibly a new manager in time for our meeting?

Bit early for that!

Totally agree on that, we must be one of the few remaining clubs that seem to be ignoring that demographic. I’d love to see a stat on what percentage of kid season ticket holders stop going when they reach adult prices - especially as many will now be expected to buy their own. A half way house price would go a long way to stopping that drop off.

Not intentional. Even with such competitive pricing at all age brackets, we just wouldn’t jump from 9,000 to 20,000 season tickets sold as an EFL club.

In this league? No, not even close. We only just about sold that many when it was £199 in the Premier League with the ‘Taking Back Ewood’ campaign . And we’ve lost a lot of support since then.

No arguments there, but that’s the reality. The Premier League is an absolute monster, I bet we all come across people constantly that don’t have the foggiest idea about football outside the PL and don’t want to either. As an example of said people - Cardiff’s crowds have just doubled.

I’d love you to be right but I honestly can’t see us ever selling shed loads of STs in this league, even if cheap. We know the Premier League is generally a load of boring shite, I personally think the Championship is a superb competition - key being ‘competition’, however there are a hell of a lot of ‘brandwashed’ folk out there that just aren’t interested in the lower leagues.

Oxford was a one off for many reasons. In the EFL we will always have a ceiling, a lot of folk just aren’t interested on a regular basis at this level. If you made it £10 every week you would soon see numbers buying tickets dwindle as the novelty wore off, as Waggott presumably knows, plus we’ve generally not been a club that sells a lot of walk on tickets - very season ticket holder heavy attendances. Now if we ever did get to the PL, make it £200 for a season ticket - like Huddersfield and they would sell like hot cakes.

Difference is now, EVERY non 3pm game will be on TV, that’s much different than an odd game, as it will now give people a decision to make on ‘is it worth a season ticket?’ And people will just not bother travelling midweek.

Not actually the case, West Yorkshire is the Leeds equivalent to Greater Manchester. Both are metropolitan councils set up in the 70s like Tyne & Wear, South Yorkshire, West Midlands etc. The reason Manchester itself is smaller than most think is areas that people generally think are in the city like Stretford etc. are actually outside the boundaries - as Man City fans like to point out.

It is, but pretty much every town and village in Yorkshire is full of Leeds fans.