3 wins in the last 3 games and now in the top 6 is a massive achievement of the club and praise should go to all concerned
However, the attendance figures aren't reflecting the team's success on the pitch and the entertainment that is being put on. 6-7000 average is all you will get now at Leigh no matter what you do. 5400 crowd against Cas is poor.
There are a number of factors.

1. The years out of SL has seen the younger supporters lost to Wiggin, Saints, Wire. 2. Friday night games. 3. Pricing.

Good concessions for the younger supporters is bringing the young 'uns back. However, the pricing for away supporters in the Friday night game will deter many from travelling over the M62. I doubt many would attend anyway even if they were Sat/Sun KOs. Yes, you will get good crowds for the local derbies but the Yorkshire fans will think twice. As for myself, the senior concession is way too high at £25 to stand in North Stand and after decades of supporting Leigh through thick and thin, I'm now lost to the game as, I suppose others will be in these tough financial times.

Putting entertainment on is excellent idea, but it doesn't appear to be getting a lot of new supporters in and, I imagine, the extra costs incurred may have been added onto the admission price.

The fact is you can get the kids in, some of whom will bring a parent, but it is going to be very difficult for Leigh to attract many new adult supporters who will follow them every week. We will be stuck at the 6-7000 average and I don't think this will be good enough, some years from now, when IMG will be wanting clubs in SL with 15000+ crowds. That's when IMG will be pushing for mergers and franchises.

I think the teams who IMG will be wanting are:

Wiggin, Saints, Hull, Leeds, Bradford, Catalans, Toulouse, London, Newcastle and then there will be a choice of mergers or be consigned to life outside of SL.

I can even imagine League and Union merging back as one hybrid game in the future to make it a National game. Wiggin v Saracens, Leicester v Leeds, Northampton Saints v St. Helens. It makes sense to me and it will makes sense to IMG and any TV Broadcaster, and I should imagine that will be their goal.

I also think that in the next few seasons DB may take some of Leigh's games on a road trip to an expansion area to test the water for crowd figures and build a following up for the Leopards brand. He won't be happy with 6-7000 average crowd size in Leigh and if he can get a 15000+ crowd in a big city he won't hesitate to move the Leopards.

Perhaps the crowd was low because Cas are doing so badly and their fans expected to lose so only came in very modest numbers. Trevor Hunt on the radio estimated as many as 150!
Perhaps it was also due to it being a Bank Holiday weekend with the Coronation today. Fans may have chosen to be away or chose not to go to the game because they chose instead to spend their hard earned cash on once in a lifetime festivities.
I've seen before comments about Derek taking 'the franchise' to somewhere else to chase bigger crowds. What I have not seen is evidence to back this up. The man himself is nothing but a bonkers passionate Leyther - that's why he is throwing his money at his hometown club. Unless someone has some real evidence to the contrary I just don't see this happening. The club is going nowhere.

Mergers and/or hybrid rugby will not happen. The fans won’t allow it, they will just leave the game. IMG will be trying to have sellout stadiums whatever the capacity is. Leigh’s capacity is less than fifteen thousand I think. Some NRL teams don’t get fifteen.

Leeds, who get 10K+ supporters at Headingley, brought precious few away fans to a Friday night game at LSV. For all the IMG talk of developing new areas and catchment areas, the big games are the local derbies. The North West teams are fairly tearing up the Super League and currently the poor relation is surprisingly Saints (not in fan numbers).

The problem area is now West Yorkshire, and I am crying myself to sleep worrying about their predicament. DB will be very happy with the current issues afflicting the Kingdom of Yorkshire (if you don't know what I am talking about, dig out some of DB's interviews this year).

Wire game will be interesting crowd wise - think they travel in decent numbers so be a good atmosphere

Should be looking at 8-9k easy, as an example 3 of us went Friday - probably 7 of us for the Wire game

Time will tell but DB has stated that the Leopards are a brand, which means they can play anywhere not just in their hometown. DB has eventually done wonders at Leigh but he is a businessman and if there are bigger crowd opportunities elsewhere that's where the Leopards will play some games. The city of Manchester is right on our doorstep so it wouldn't surprise me that, in the future, DB will try to expand the brand there after he has turned the Leopards into a successful brand. This was his whole point of rebranding the club. Centurions were synonymous with failure. Leopards will be synonymous with success. If Tescos can only pull 6000 customers in Leigh but can attract over 15000 customers in Manchester then it's obvious they will make more money in Manchester and Manchester will be their focus. It's the same with the Leopards as a business and DB is a very successful businessman. Sentiment doesn't come into business decisions. A successful international business is running the game now and IMG call the shots. If they advocate franchising and mergers, then that's what it will be. Whoever thought licensing would be accepted again yet the clubs voted overwhelmingly for licensing.

It isn't going to happen overnight but it will happen.

Aren’t Salford based in Manchester and they get the worst crowds in Super League. Derek has always wanted a successful Leigh team as he is a massive fan. London have had a team for decades and it still isn’t working. Like City have done to United, we can hopefully do the same to Wiggin. The noisy neighbours.

Salford are no longer the least supported team. I think that accolade goes to Wakefield and Huddersfield.

WYSIWYG2, I am still to be convinced by what you say although I think I understand your argument.

Could a move happen? yes it could, you are absolutely right. Is a move likely to happen? I think this is where our views take a different path.

Yes, Derek has referred to the Leopards as a brand, but he has never said, so far as I know, that this means that the club will be relocated. If he has said this then please refer me to the interview/article because I need to read/see what is happening to our club because it affects us all.

If this link between 'brand' and 'move' is your interpretation of what he means then fine, that is your view and we are all entitled to our views but you say it as though this is what Derek has actually said, and, so far as I know he hasn't, but I stand to be corrected.

You refer to there being no sentiment in business. I beg to differ. Depends on the business person entirely.

Derek is a successful business man. The Leopards as a club are a business but the position is far more nuanced than that. Historically the club has always lost money, until our last season in SL when I think Derek announced that we had broken even. So, forgive me, what on earth is driving him to pump millions of pounds of his personal largesse into the club for, at the moment, absolutely zip return, if it is not pure and utter sentiment.

The club is his pride, its his passion. Trust me, if you watch his interview on the Saints Redvee fans podcast from a few months ago you will understand that there is a substantial yearning for revenge, yes, and I use that word very wisely, but that is what he is after, on those clubs who reneged on their word and who sold Leigh down the Swanny to relegation after proposing plans to remove relegation that year and to expand SL to 14 teams.

None of this passion, sentiment, feeling, revenge has got anything to do with rational business decision making. Its all raw emotion with him.

At the end of the day Derek is a Leigh lad, a Leigh rugby person, that is why the emotion runs through him in the way he handles the club. If someone who knows him better says that he runs his AB Sundecks business like that then I would be gobsmacked. You can see the emotional side of his character as an owner of the club when he reveals how he has tried on several occasions to sign some of the legends of the Aussie game. Some of the attempts have been utterly audacious. They may not have come off - perhaps Ferguson was an exception (there was more to his signing than just the money) - but it wasn't for want of splashing the cash.

What it does demonstrate is that Derek is just like all fans who run their own town clubs, he is, at the end of the day, just a kid in a sweetshop with a pocket full of cash and that is how he runs the club as a business. It is an utterly bonkers venture.

If Leigh was being run by an accountant then I might accept your analysis, but it isn't, it is being run by the manchild that is Derek. The club as a business yes, but its also his personal plaything. If purely business sense decisions were made he would have got out of the club years ago. It is sentiment that is keeping him in there.

I feel quite secure that whilst Derek is the owner then the club is staying put in Leigh.

As I’ve said and others have said before , with the population of Leigh itself , being around 60k 1 in 10 isn’t a bad average.
After a few years of Super League Rugby and more interest in the surrounding areas like Astley /Tyldesley/Atherton/ Westhoughton the crowds will rise .
We didn’t get a massive average in 81/82 despite what people say about HP being packed every week , it simply wasn’t.
That’s when there was little to do on a Sunday , pubs closing at 3 etc.
Regards the pricing I agree more should be done for our OAPs and not price them out of going regularly.
Friday nights will always favour some and not others , corporate wise it’s a no brainier , rest between games again makes it viable.
If the top teams , Wigan Saints Wire Leeds all play Fridays then they must of weighed up all the options.
There was outcry when we didn’t have cash turnstiles on the day and had to purchase tickets but this is now the norm , as will Friday night Matches

Jack Gaskell, you put up a very good argument and I respect your views but I have to differ. No matter what DB does he will find it difficult to get above the 6-7000 average and further down the line this won't be good enough for IMG. They will want 15000+ crowds.

I'm just being realistic. IMG will want big clubs and expansion clubs. This will be later in their 12 year tenure for re-imagining the game, and that is the word you all need to focus on - RE-IMAGINING. By the end of their 12 years Rugby will be totally different. They want a National game and that means mergers and franchises and, as I stated, a possible reunification of the 2 codes.

If IMG want big clubs, it doesn't matter how passionate DB is. What IMG want they will get because they are in it to make money and sentiment definitely doesn't play a part with IMG.

I fear for clubs like Leigh, Cas, Wakey, Huddersfield and maybe HKR and Salford, although they will want a team playing out of Manchester, and I should imagine they will want to keep the Hull derby.

For the next few years you will enjoy a lot of success watching the Leopards, so enjoy it. I've found other things to do with my weekends now so I will never be back with the inflated admission fee.

DB was reported as saying something with the initial rebrand to Leopards. That's what got my alarm bells ringing. I can't remember the exact wording but it hinted that they would be known as the Leopards and so they could be pushed as the Leopards on social media and thus increase their social media following. So, if you build a good following in other parts of the country, the next step is to take a few games on the road to build on that following. Catalans did it when they played Wiggin at the Nou Camp for the record SL attendance. I'm sure a few clubs may try it out just to try and impress IMG.

So you fear for HKR but yet imagine they will still want a Hull derby ! Talking absolute nonsense.
Codes merging? Again absolutely ridiculous statement. That will never ever happen .