The cost of Super League: Ranking how much it costs to support your club
How much does it cost to support your Super League club in 2024? Love Rugby League analyses just that - Alamy
The 2024 Super League season is upon us, and there’s renewed hope around the game. Attendances rose in Round 1, the highest combined tally on record of fans at games in the opening set of fixtures, but how long will that level of support continue? Love Rugby League analyses the true cost of Super League.
As a sport forever clamouring to attract more fans, even more so in the IMG era which has properly commenced this year, rugby league clubs are continuously challenged to make their games – and the sport itself – affordable and accessible.
Whether you want to attend games on your own, with friends, family or even complete strangers, the expectation is that fans aren’t priced out of rugby league, even more so during the UK’s ongoing cost of living crisis.
Love Rugby League has broken down here the cost of Super League, with a look at all 12 clubs, using a few very simple barometers: Tickets (both matchday & season), kit and merchandise.
We know there are many other factors involved in cost, but there are the basics – being able to watch the game live, perhaps while wearing your favourite team’s shirt and owning some merchandise.
So here goes, the cost of Super League, analysed…
The cost of Super League: Matchday Tickets
As all the way through this, we needed a fair barometer, so we took a look at the individual ticket prices for each of the 12 Super League clubs’ first domestic home game of the season.
We’ve found the cheapest advance ticket on offer to a full-paying adult for the home end, regardless of where in the respective stadium that may be.
Note that for 11 of the 12, these matchday prices relate to games in either Rounds 1 or 2, with seven having passed by already including Hull KR’s home win against Leeds last night.
The only club outside of the first two rounds are Wigan Warriors, whose home game against Leigh Leopards this weekend coming was postponed due to their involvement in the World Club Challenge.
So not to make anything uneven, we’ve simply used the price for the Warriors’ Round 3 home game against Huddersfield Giants later this month.
Ranked from cheapest to most expensive:
12. Catalans Dragons (v Warrington – R1): €15 = £12.86 – ‘General Entry’
11. London Broncos (v Catalans – R1): £20 – Seated
10. Huddersfield Giants (v St Helens – R2): £22 – Seated
= Salford Red Devils (v Castleford – R2): £22 – Seated in East ‘Printerland’ Stand or Standing in South Terrace
8. Hull FC (v Hull KR – R1): £24 – Seated in West Upper
7. Castleford Tigers (v Wigan – R1): £25 – Standing
= Hull KR (v Leeds – R2): £25 – Seated or Standing
= Leeds Rhinos (v Salford – R1): £25 – Standing in East Terrace or South Terrace
4. St Helens (v London – R1): £26 – Standing in West Terrace or Seated in SK1/SK/SA1/SA (All family areas)
= Warrington Wolves (v Hull FC – R2): £26 – Standing in West Terrace or South Terrace
= Wigan Warriors (v Huddersfield – R3): £26 – Seated in South Stand
1. Leigh Leopards (v Huddersfield – R1): £27 – Seated
With the UK currently in the aforementioned cost of living crisis, it comes as a surprise that the only non-English Super League club offered the cheapest possible ticket across Rounds 1 & 2.
Catalans fans were able snap up a ticket for their opening game against Warrington for the equivalent of just £12.86.
That price is over £7 less than the cheapest ticket offered by any of the 11 English top flight teams.
Again, perhaps surprisingly, it’s London who are the cheapest in that aspect with their cheapest adult ticket for the Round 1 clash with Catalans at Plough Lane being £20.
The cheapest ticket in the traditional ‘heartlands’ of rugby league is at Huddersfield, £22 the price for a seat at their Round 2 game against St Helens.
Salford also charge the same price for their opening home game of the season in the same round against Castleford, with both seats and a spot on the terrace available for £22.
At the other end of the scale, the most expensive Super League ticket between Rounds 1 and 2 came from Leigh at £27 – seated or standing – rising to £30 on gameday at the Leigh Sports Village.
The cost of Super League: Season tickets
These are often called ‘memberships’ or ‘season cards’ or even ‘season passes’ by clubs, but however they’re labelled, they all do the same thing – get you into a club’s home Super League fixtures.
Again, we’ve used a full-paying adult as our base for these prices, finding the cheapest possible option wherever in the respective stadium that may be.
It’s important to note that we used prices for a new member purchasing a season ticket at every club, not taking into account any renewals which are – typically – that bit cheaper as a reward for loyalty.
No one here is knocking loyalty, that’s what keeps the game going! But we want to attract new fans to the sport too, so that was the way we went.
To ensure we kept it fair, we used ‘early bird’ prices where possible. A lot of clubs offer a cheaper price if you buy your season ticket before a certain date as an incentive to buy early.
Please note that Huddersfield actually offered cut price adult season ‘cards’ for just £90 for those below the age of 30.
If you’re an adult over the age of 30, a season card at the John Smith’s Stadium will set you back £165 in 2024.
That’s the price we’ve used, just to keep our comparisons on a more even keel, but you can’t knock that under-30’s offer as the Giants look to tap into a younger audience.
Ranked from cheapest to most expensive:
12. Hull FC – £165
= Huddersfield Giants – £165 (over 30)
10. Catalans Dragons – €235 = £201.42
9. Salford Red Devils – £220
8. London Broncos – £235
7. Leeds Rhinos – £250
6. Warrington Wolves – £260
5. Hull KR – £275
4. Wigan Warriors – £284
3. Castleford Tigers – £285
2. St Helens – £291
1. Leigh Leopards – £300
Given that a season ticket should realistically incentivise people to purchase one rather than purchasing single tickets for every game they go to, you’d expect this list to – more or less – mirror the one on those single tickets above. But it doesn’t, not entirely anyway.
Catalans have the cheapest single match tickets, but not the cheapest season tickets, for example. In fairness, the Dragons’ season tickets are still pretty low cost, minimally over the £200 mark when converted.
Hull FC claim the cheapest season ticket, joint with Huddersfield. ‘Zone 5’ was where you had to sit at the MKM Stadium as a new member to get that price, whereas with the Giants, you could sit anywhere in either of their two stands for £165.
As a reminder, these tickets are the cheapest possible option to get you entry into all 13 of each club’s regular season home league games.
Leigh keep their tag as consistently expensive given that £300 – the highest cost of a 2024 season ticket in Super League – still works out at over £23 per game, £23.08 to be exact.
By that working, there are four Super League clubs that any Leopards fan could buy 13 single match tickets from, and still be better off in terms of having money left – if you ignore any other factors i.e. the plane to Perpignan every couple of weeks!
IMG: How to grow Super League, the women’s game and metrics for success
The cost of Super League: Kit
When a club releases their new threads for the upcoming campaign, it’s a high-point of the off-season for most fans.
There’s always reaction all over social media, good or bad, and quite often people rank how nice kits look. We’re not here to do that, we’re here to rank their prices.
Consistency is key, so it won’t surprise you that for this, we’ve simply looked at the price of an adult-sized home shirt from each club’s official website.
For what it’s worth, we’re sure there wouldn’t have been much difference in price regardless of which shirt we selected from each club, but home is where the heart is, right!?
Oh, and there’s no personalisation involved either. We weren’t prepared to shell out however much clubs charge per letter now.
We’re pleased it’s not 2025 yet so no Hull KR supporter is paying to have the 16-letter surname of new recruit Jared Waerea-Hargreaves on the back of their shirt just yet. We’d start saving now Robins fans!
HULL KR: Inside the Deal – How Hull KR pulled off the signing of Jared Waerea-Hargreaves
Ranked from cheapest to most expensive:
12. London Broncos – £45
11. Leigh Leopards – £47
10. Hull KR – £49.99
9. Salford Red Devils – £50
8. Castleford Tigers – £51.99
= Huddersfield Giants – £51.99
= Leeds Rhinos – £51.99
5. Warrington Wolves – £52
= Wigan Warriors – £52
3. Hull FC – £52.99
2. St Helens – £54
1. Catalans Dragons – €85 (£72.75)
It’s a good job Catalans fans are able to get to games quite cheaply, because the money they save – compared to supporters of other clubs – must all go towards one of their shirts! Over £70, we’d want it to be made of some pretty special material!
We’re not sure why the Dragons’ threads are so expensive, they’re the only Super League club with kits made by Italian manufacturer Macron, so perhaps that has a role to play in it.
Even still, they’re more than a third more expensive than any of the other 11 English clubs involved in the top flight, and around 61.5% dearer than the cheapest shirt on offer in the division – London’s £45 jersey produced by Errea.
Contrastingly, Leigh – who have been up there as the most expensive ticket-wise, actually have the second-cheapest shirt. A red jersey with that Leopard print we’ve all come to recognise instantly over the last 18 months on it will set you back £47, designed by Belgian company Patrick.
Notably, eight Super League clubs have their shirts priced between £50 and £54, a highly competitive market, but we guess whichever team it is you support, you’ll buy.
READ NEXT: 2024 rugby league kits, including every Super League club’s home & away threads
The cost of Super League: Merchandise
There are plenty of utterly bonkers things people will spend their hard-earned cash on just because it has their favourite teams’ badge on it.
Dog bed, chocolate bar, toilet brush, disco ball, candle, hairband – you name it, a club somewhere in the world will have it. If you don’t believe us, Google it!
As already mentioned, we’ll stick to the basic barometer of a bobble hat for the purposes of this breakdown. At least that’s practical, even Catalans have them on offer in the south of France!
We’ve chosen the cheapest bobble hat on offer from each club currently, including the lowest price if they are included in a sale at the moment.
Only two clubs didn’t have a bobble hat available on their club website – newly-promoted London, whose online club shop currently solely consists of kits, and Hull FC, who did have a bucket hat on there which didn’t fit the parameters for this analysis when we did a video ref review.
Fortunately, in the last year or so, both clubs had bobble hats produced in conjunction with the company ‘Oddballs’, and we were able to find the prices of those online – London’s £16 and Hull’s £20. Those are the prices we used.
Ranked from cheapest to most expensive:
12. Huddersfield Giants – £8
11. Castleford Tigers – £10
= St Helens – £10
9. Wigan Warriors – £15
= Salford Red Devils – £15
7. Leeds Rhinos – £15.99
6. London Broncos – £16
5. Warrington Wolves – £18
4. Leigh Leopards – £18.99
3. Hull FC – £20
2. Catalans Dragons – €25 (£21.40)
1. Hull KR – £24.99
In fairness, there were clubs on this list who could have been cheaper had we allowed for a basic beanie, but the bobble was what we were looking for and that’s what we got.
Tremendous value available from Huddersfield, Castleford and Saints for a bobble hat – or ‘pom pom hat’ as Catalans called it -, albeit that trio’s offerings for their respective prices were all pretty bland.
On a technicality, we could have disqualified Leigh here as their bobble hats were all out of stock, but we let them off on the grounds of still having the price and product available to view.
Neither side of Hull come out shining here, with FC’s bobble hat no longer available and KR’s £24.99 a Super League-high. The Robins surely must hang their (cold) heads in shame, because who is paying that much for a bobble hat?
For what it’s worth KR, we did – at least – think the two you had on offer at that price were nice designs. What we won’t accept is the ‘Christmas’ one on your club shop. That is not a suitable bobble hat for this comparison.
READ NEXT: Super League 2024 – Steve Prescott Man of Steel rankings and points
Ranked: The total cost of supporting your Super League club in 2024
Getting back to the serious stuff for just a minute, we thought it would be worth getting our calculator out and totting up all of the above numbers as we rank how much it costs to support each Super League club in 2024.
The simple way would be to just rank them based on the sum total, but we think there’s a better way.
A season ticket is the cheapest way for a fan to watch all of their team’s 13 regular season home games, and given how important the number 13 is to our great game, why not use it?!
What we’ve done below is worked out the cost per (home) game of supporting your team – combining the cost of your season ticket, shirt, and bobble hat then dividing it all up by 13.
We know fans probably wear the shirt and hat more often than just at every home game, but this way, we see a cost per game outcome.
So: (Season Ticket Price + Shirt price + Merchandise price) / 13 = The cost of supporting a Super League club per home game
Please note, the below figures have all been rounded off to the closest two-decimal place figure.
Ranked from cheapest to most expensive:
12. Huddersfield Giants – (£165 + £51.99 + £8) / 13 = £17.31
11. Hull FC – (£165 + £52.99 + £20) / 13 = £18.31
10. Salford Red Devils – (£220 + £50 + £15) / 13 = £21.92
9. Catalans Dragons – (£201.42 + £72.75 + £21.40) / 13 = £22.74
8. London Broncos – (£235 + £45 + £16) / 13 = £22.77
7. Leeds Rhinos – (£250 + £51.99 + £15.99) / 13 = £24.46
6. Warrington Wolves – (£260 + £52 + £18) / 13 = £25.38
5. Castleford Tigers – (£285 + £51.99 + £10) / 13 = £26.69
4. Hull KR – (£275 + £49.99 + £24.99) / 13 = £26.92
3. Wigan Warriors – (£284 + £52 + £15) / 13 = £27
2. St Helens – (£291 + £54 + £10) / 13 = £27.31
1. Leigh Leopards – (£300 + £47 + £18.99) / 13 = £28.15
Because of the way we’ve worked this out, the cost of season tickets was always going to be a big swaying factor in who finished where, and so it’s proven.
Nonetheless, you’ve got to tip your (bobble) hat to both Huddersfield and Hull for making rugby league so affordable – that’s exactly what’s needed if we’re to get more eyes on this great game.
When you consider that Leigh’s season tickets are almost double the price of those two clubs, it puts it into perspective.
No one’s denying how well the Leopards did off the field last season, and the promise of what they could achieve this term managed to attract over 8,500 in the opening round against Huddersfield, only 300 or so of them travelling Giants fans.
But imagine how many additional fans that Adrian Lam‘s side could have backing them if tickets to watch them weren’t as expensive as they are. ’20’s plenty’ is a term banded about very often in football, and we couldn’t agree more.
Fair play to London too following their promotion up from the Championship. Things cost more in the capital, that’s a fact, but not rugby league! Let’s hope we see them rewarded with an increase in fanbase during their year back in Super League.
Ultimately, we guess you pay a premium for success, with all five of the English-based clubs involved in last year’s Super League play-offs in the top six on this list. If Castleford and Catalans swapped places, it would be six from six.
There you have it anyway: The cost of Super League in 2024.
READ NEXT: IMG boss discusses Super League gradings, London controversy and potential competition rebrand