crowds rise and fall with results - no one is denying that - the point being argued is that the nix are being asked to compete on crowd numbers with clubs whose potential customers are almost double ours. Compare our crowds to Perth, almost the same population and not surprisingly similar crowd numbers - and they have had 10 years more than us to build a following.
Perth has a way bigger population than Wellington (Greater Urban Area Perth population at 1.96M in 2016). So in comparison Nix crowds are okay, popn wise.
Newcastle (434,000 in 2015) & Central Coast (325,000 in 2015) are better markers re crowd sizes and populations.