Why we should judgement on
IT wasn’t so long ago that Welsh rugby could only look on with envy as Harlequins sold out Twickenham and Leinster packed out the Aviva Stadium for domestic games.
Attendance figures were grim, interest in the professional game in Wales was dwindling and the idea that the regions could fill the Principality Stadium appeared nothing more than a pipe dream.
Fast forward a few years and Saturday saw 62,338 – the second most behind 68,262 in 2016 – people walk through the turnstiles at our national stadium to watch the regions in action.
That figure alone appreciation.
The Cardiff Blues’ average gate for home derbies in the Guinness PRO14 this season was 9,939 and the Dragons’ was 7,121.
They are the regions that have to give up home games for Judgement Day to take place because of their proximity to the Principality Stadium.
The regions receive the lion’s share of the revenue from the occasion and it’s plain to see the benefits. Even if you combine the two average attendances, you’re still looking at well over an extra 40,000 bottoms on seats.
But this celebration of the professional game in Wales isn’t necessarily about generating revenue and certainly not for the Welsh Rugby Union.
If it was, then tickets wouldn’t be priced at an incredibly cheap £10 for two games.
The disparity in the attendance figures discussed above proves that there is a significant number of people turning up to watch Judgement Day that don’t usually attend regional matches.
It’s impossible to guarantee that some of those people will be at the Arms Park or Rodney Parade next season – though some reports on social media suggest that will be the case – but you can say with a degree of certainty that they wouldn’t be there next year had they not been drawn to Judgement Day.
Better to have them through the gate than doing something else with their Saturday.
The main aim of this day is to showcase what the regions have to offer and broaden their appeal - to reach new fans. It’s achieving that goal.
It’s not the silver bullet in terms of solving the wider issue of attendance figures in Wales, but it’s certainly a start. If the regions and the WRU were sitting on their hands, hoping for the problem to solve itself, there would be plenty of people with plenty to say.
But, instead, they’ve created an is cause for event that garners more interest than many thought possible.
Yet we still want to knock it down. I despair.
I wish we lived in a perfect world, where people could go to a sporting event and have a totally stress-free, entirely-perfect afternoon. But we don’t.
Though many of the sticks being used to beat Judgement Day with over the last 48 hours are problems with sporting events at large, not this particular one.
‘A group of boys next to me were drinking all day’, ‘the group behind me were talking nonsense all afternoon’, ‘the trains were busy’.
Go to any sporting event of a similar size in any country and you will experience this. It’s not exclusive to Judgement Day, or the Principality Stadium for that matter.
That said, there are kinks with the concept that must be ironed out and will need to be looked at this summer.
Staging it on the final weekend of the season will always run the risk of the matches being rendered meaningless, and it happened this year.
A switch to the first weekend of October should be discussed to ensure head coaches are naming full-strength sides, with crucial PRO14 points to play for.
Alcohol-free zones will be trialled at the Principality Stadium this November and the possibility of those experiments extending to Judgement Day should be explored.
And season-ticket holders of the Cardiff Blues and Dragons should be given preferential treatment when it