Anything you can do, we can do better! This is the message, loud and clear, from Lions fans to their Southern Kings rivals.
The Kings have been praised for their good crowd attendances at the Nelson Mandela Bay Stadium in Port Elizabeth, but the Lions will well and truly upstage them.
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This website can reveal that Ellis Park will – on Saturday when the Lions host the Kings in their second-leg promotion-relegation match – set a new Super Rugby attendance record.
The 60,000-seater Ellis Park will put up the ‘house full’ signs well ahead of Saturday’s 17:00 SA Time (15:00 GMT) kick-off.
All external ticket outlets were sold out by Tuesday and when the stadium offices opened Wednesday morning there were a mere 500 tickets available.
To put this into perspective, the Super Rugby Final between the Chiefs and Brumbies (also a sell-out) will be played in front of 25,000 spectators in Hamilton earlier on Saturday. The last ticket for that match was sold on Wednesday.
The current all-time record for a Super Rugby match is held, jointly, by the Bulls and Sharks – who sold out their 52,000-seater stadiums (Loftus Versfeld and Kings Park) for the 2009 and 2007 Super Rugby finals respectively.
The Bulls also sold out the Orlando Stadium (50,000) for the 2010 Final, while the Stormers can boast a few sell-out crowds at Newlands (capacity 48,000).
Obviously South Africa’s stadium capacity is far superior to those in Australasia – where only ANZ in Sydney, Suncorp in Brisbane and Eden Park in Auckland can compare.
The SANZAR purists will also claim that Ellis Park on Saturday is not a Super Rugby match in the true sense, but given that they are playing for Super Rugby status it is indeed part of the competition.
The Kings have been the ‘feel good’ story of 2013, even though their last-place finish on the standings and last week’s 19-26 loss to the Lions in the first leg of the promotion-relegation may not suggest that.
However, they have still managed to post two of the top five attendance figures of the season and an average of well over 30,000 per match for their eight home games.
The top crowd for 2013 belongs to the Bulls, who attracted 48,365 spectators to Loftus for their win over the Sharks on July 6.
The Stormers (against the Crusaders on March 30) are next best with their 47,263 (just a few hundred short of capacity), followed by the first of the Kings’ two entries – 45,649 against the Bulls on April 20 (Nelson Mandela Bay Stadium has a capacity of 46,000). The Stormers also have two places in the 2013 top five – with their 45,416 against the Bulls on July 13 coming in at No.4. The Kings complete the top five with 45,098 for their July 6 encounter with the Stormers.
Saturday’s sell-out crowd at Ellis Park will be a clear message to South African Rugby Union bosses that fans in Johannesburg want top-class rugby in their city as much as Kings fans want it in PE and they have the numbers to prove it.
The last time Ellis Park was full for a Lions game was the 2011 Currie Cup Final, when the Lions beat the Sharks 42-16.
Flip. Will have to make sure I’m there in good time.
Good very impressive, did they cut the price?
@ superBul:
Of course they did.
It’s the best marketing ploy the GLRU have come up with for over a decade.
Is it important?
What did the Kings charge for their tickets all season and are the costs comperable?
@ Scrumdown:
I have no problem, the fact is last year you could barely get 15 000 on seats there, it was hilarious when the commentators called the empty stands a crowd.
4 @ superBul:
I think that a combination of a season in the wilderness, coupled with expectation and the cheap ticket prices have definitely had an impact on the size of the crown.
I for one was expecting 45 – 50 000, and am somewhat surprised the stadium has sold out so soon.
I just hope that a) the game is a good advert for Rugby.
b) Stuart Berry doesn’t have a nightmare.
c) the LIONS don’t get stagefright.
d) Kevin de Klerk learns to keep his mouth shut.(But I doubt that’ll ever happen.)
@ Scrumdown:
Good luck like i said before the Bulls/Brumbies game hope the best team wins and may the Ref be good
Neither happened though
4 @ superBul:
One of the biggest problems with small crowds at Ellis Park, (and lets face it 30 000 is a small crown in a 65 000 seat stadium) is that the majority of the spectators aways sit in the main stand on the side where the TV cameras are situated.
I would estimate that the number of spectators in the “family stand” which you see on TV is normally ±40% of the number in the main stand, so even with 25 000 people,on tv the placve always looks empty.
I had the discussion with a Kings supporter about friday nights game, where he made the point that there were ±35000 people at the game. Now in PE that’s 76% full (if it’s a 46000 seat stadium), but if you put thast same crowd into Ellis Park, its only just over half full at 54%.
Unfortunately, perceptions count for a lot in the public eye. So if Ellis Park attracted the same crowd as say Newlands every week, it would still look less than half full.
@ Scrumdown:
OK i understand your explanation. But they announce the official number and that is no thumb sucking or is it. I really dont know the real numbers and dont know where to look for it but somehow i recall very low figures.
@ superBul:
No you’re right.
The figures were abysmal in 2012. Highest ±22000 if my memory serves me correctly, and lowest in the region of 10500.
The figures in JHB are always terrible for Friday night games, and I know that in 2012 the Lions complained about, and even got one fixture moved because of this.
Having said that, I REALLY hope that the Lions realise that it’s no use charging R100 / R 150 per ticket, and only getting 10 – 15000 at a game.
Rather sell tickets at R50 and get 30 – 40000. Even the stall holders will be happier then, and of course the perception will be that there are more people interested in the Lions as a team.
They normally announce the attendance in the media box about 10 minutes before the end of the game, so I guess most of the press will include it in their match reports.
Anyway enough. Time to send out some invoices. Got to pay the bills somehow.
Cheers.
Tickets went for R20 a shot
Well done to the GLRU – for this game they achieve what was needed – a full house
Next years first S15 game will be R150-R300 again and we are back to empty stands – hopefully not
@ Gena_ZA:
i have this aerie feeling that Kevin will eat his…. whatever.
So to get a game at Ellispark next year might be R10-00
@ superBul:
And I have an eerie feeling old Cheeky and son will hear their swan song at Ellispark this weekend
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