What is the Challenge Cup About?

This weekend, the Super League sides entered the Challenge Cup and that brought about a number of talking points. Castleford put in a season's best performance against Leeds (who, somehow, managed to put in a season's worst), Warrington were dumped out by Wakefield, Catalans survived a scare against Featherstone and Cumbria had its time in the spotlight.

It is a touch tiresome to talk about crowds but the sites of empty plastic seats across three of the four televised matches this weekend is not the impression that we want to give.

Format Changes...

A few years ago, the format of the Challenge Cup was changed so that the Super League clubs entered later in the competition. As a result, the number of matches between top flight and lower league sides has decreased significantly. 

I am not persuaded that this has been a change for the better. It certainly hasn't led to more interest. There were three all Super League ties, which despite a glorious weekend of weather, failed to pull in the punters. That is not a criticism of the absentee fans. Money is tight and is getting tighter. It's an avoidable expense or even a luxury for many to attend matches that do not fall within the season ticket.

Saying that, despite rising prices, Super League crowds have held up well. They are slightly up on the 2019 average attendance with promising crowds at Castleford and St Helens especially this year. Over the next few weeks, there look to be several more sell-outs coming.

Low cup crowds cannot solely be attributed to difficult financial times. Indeed, these same problems have been present for many years now.

Tapping into a latent fanbase

It wasn't all bad news for the Challenge Cup though. Lower league clubs Barrow and Whitehaven drew larger than average attendances for the visits of Super League clubs. Almost 5,000 fans packed into the Recreation Ground to watch 'Haven face St Helens. The draw of a Super League team tapped into a latent fanbase.

Did those extra 3,000 or so Whitehaven fans attend because they thought they had a chance at beating St Helens? Probably not. Simply the prospect of watching some of the best players in this country was enough of a draw. Even for Saints fans, over 1,000 travelled to Cumbria, enthused at attending a match in a town where the club has not played for 21 years.

The current Challenge Cup format discourages these types of fixtures for more of the same. Super League v Super League, where there are already grumbles about loop fixtures diminishing the importance of individual matches. Unquestionably, these types of fixtures repeated once more in the cup don't capture the imagination of the fans.

A lack of a challenge?

Eight sides remain in the Challenge Cup. They are all Super League teams and have all needed to win just one match to reach the latter stages of the competition. Some of these clubs have beaten one part-time opponent to do it. It is almost too little of a challenge now to go far in the Challenge Cup.

The reason the format change was made in the first place was due to concerns about too many blow-outs. Whilst I understand this, I'm not sure I agree. To artificially keep the better and lower sides away from each other is to be scared of competition. It is true to say that upsets will rarely happen, but that is what makes them so special when they do.

Catalans were pushed all the way by Featherstone, for example. Let's suppose for one moment that the draw saw Featherstone play an out-of-sorts Leeds at home instead. What an occasion that would have been.

The Challenge Cup loses its magic when the lower ranking teams rarely get a shot at the big teams. It's time to rethink and remember what the Challenge Cup is really about.