Good to read that our benefactor has had a good year with turnover up from £98 million to £188.6, and profits exceeding £10m this year.
Must be a very happy bunch of guys and well done to SJM Promotions.

Report says the Stone Roses gigs in Heaton sold out in 68 minutes !!!

Considering the recession, they seem to have done well. Perhaps he could be persuaded to fill in the other two corners ? Not that I am grumbling, its a great stadium already.

No point until we can sell out our current capacity more than once a year

According to Gatcliffe at the quiz earlier in the year, the next step is to build an extra tier of hospitality on the north stand, for which there is already demand. He went on to say that they needed to clear the costs of last year's expansion (OT and Wembley will have helped on that front) and that the fans need to put them under pressure by filling the ground every week, in which case they would look at another tier on the south stand.

Mr Moran has been very clever getting into the promotions side of the music industry, it seems to be where the money is these days what with illegal downloading etc.

Thanks for posting that info. Lets hope ST sales boom after the double final this year, and we hear something about the further expansion of the stadium then.

Hopefully that will be the case. I would like to see us really try and sell the game to new people in areas like Chapelford with a lot of yuppies from outside the town. I think to an outsider it probably appears quite cliquey, where as when you go to somewhere like Anfield it is full of tourists and supporters who go once every few years.

That reminds me of a charming gentleman who sat in front of us in the Stoop this year. We had been joined by a few friends from uni who are posh southerners, and of course had never watched RL before. The chap in front felt the need to swear at them all game for not singing. Bizarre!

You always get the one or two oddballs ! I made the mistake of sitting in the middle of the Widnes fans at the last SL game this year (don't ask), the vast majority of which were fine apart from one very strange guy whom even the Widnes fans were disowning. Anyway, I was wondering for areas such as Chapelford, whether the club ever gives out 50% off tickets as a promotional offer (or something similar). If they could be enticed into the ground for a couple of matches, who knows, they could get hooked. Presumably Mr Moran has had input into these sort of ideas though as his company is all about marketing and selling.

I see Hull have just gone past 7,000 season tickets (aiming for 10,000) and Wakefield 4,000. I wonder how we are getting on.

It's also great to see that Simon's company declares their profits, in a time when so many companies are hiding them.

The problem with promotional offers is that although you get some "new" people to the games, you also get some people going to the game and paying less, who would have gone anyway.

Lets say we get 11,000 attendance and of these 8000 are season ticket holders. For a promotion they do £5 off per ticket. 3000 x £5 = £15,000. So just to break even you have to get 1000 NEW people to that game. Would 1000 more people go "just because its a fiver cheaper".

Marketing is a nightmare BUT when you look at the financial position of us v others, the business brains are working.

Or 100 people who then attend 10 games in that season ?

But I take your point that marketing is tricky. I recall the Lord Lever quote " Half the money I spend on advertising is wasted, the problem is I don't know which half"

Although that is true, it's also true that regulars at Anfield and other grounds where the same occurs such as Old Trafford don't particularly like those people or feel any connection with them whatsoever. Newcomers/part time fans/outsiders/whatever are definitely more welcome at rugby league grounds than established football grounds.

As for Chapelford, it's probably not really relevant but my parents live there now and despite living in Warrington for 31 years neither of them have stepped foot in any rugby league ground in their lives. I doubt that's gonna change any time soon either.

If everyone took advantage of the 'friend for a fiver' offer in the season ticket book that wold go a long way. Introduce a friend, neighbour or colleague to the game and let the rugby sell itself. We have an entertaining package with RL, but not enough people are seeing it. I, and the people I go to the game with use the friend for a fiver voucher, yet I suspect a lot of them are not being used.