Rules War :: Four Years On (National)

In November 2009 I analysed the player registrations for the three main competitions in the UK; Warfare, Roll Call & Britcon.  I later added Challenge to the analysis.  I’ve had the time to repeat the exercise for 2010 and the results are interesting:



The figures cover both 15 & 25 mm singles competitions.  They don’t include 24 player registrations for the newly released FOG Renaissance rules. The figures for Roll Call are mainly based on registrations; all the others are based on actual games played.

If you read an earlier version of this post you’ll notice that the table above now has 8 DBM registrations in 2010 rather than none.  It turns out that Roll Call included a small DBM competition this year.  It was omitted because nothing was listed along with the registration information for all the other competitions. 
Once I’d been made aware I managed to find the DBM results, and therefore the number of players, via the South West DBM Doubles League pages.  It doesn’t change things much.

In 2009 I wrote that:

• Competition registrations were down 3.4% in 2009 vs. 2008.
• FOG continues to grow whilst DBMM registrations were static.
• DBM’s decline is nearly complete; the 8 players were all at Britcon.
• FOG has reached a dominant position.
• DBMM has retained its niche position.

In 2010 it seems that:

• Competition registrations were down 5.5% in 2010 vs. 2009.
• FOG Ancient & Medieval registrations fell for the first time.
• DBM’s continues its slow, lingering decline.
• FOG has improved its dominant position (up 2% to 77%).
• DBMM is both stable and static despite the absence of DBM.

Since 2008 the overall number of registrations shows a clear downward trend.  However, I don’t think it’s a simple picture because the 2010 figures are adversely affected by two unique factors:

• The absence of a viable DBM national competition scene; not all former DBM players will have switched to DBMM or FOG.
• The introduction of FOGR to the competition scene enticing some FOG players to switch periods. 

On balance if this year’s figures show a similar decline then I think the trend will have been confirmed.
Finally, it is worthwhile comparing the national picture with that for the Northern League I published last year:

• The overall pool of League players has remained steady since 2008.
• FOG had 79% of the 2010 player registrations, up from 54% in 2009.
• DBMM 2010 player numbers declined but then 2009 looks exceptional.
• There’s no longer any demand for DBM in the north of England.

Overall, this is a very similar situation to the national picture with the exception that FOGR is not tempting players in the Northern League where player numbers are more stable as a result.